"What do you mean about the fertility thing?" I asked, mentally kicking myself even as I did so, "I mean I know I don't go on a lot of dates and I haven't got any kids but it's totally in my life plan, I think. And the dates thing is looking up, I'm actually meant to be seeing someone tonight which reall-"
She cut me off.
"Not your fertility. Hers."
The woman pointed outside my kitchen window and I gazed out to see what random woman I'd apparently managed to block the fertility of. To my surprise and slight amusement there were no women out there at all but there was one very loved but rather dimwitted cat.
"I'm not allowed salt... because I got my cat fixed?" I asked, desparately trying not to laugh.
"Fixed??" the goddess bellowed, "She was perfect and you-"
I cut her off without thinking.
"Yeah, sorry. I mispoke. It's just we don't have room or money for any kittens. And I wouldn't want pets I can't look after. I didn't mean to upset you, I didn't even know you existed. It's just that I really love Tosspot and so I took her to the vet to check she was healthy and I got her... spayed so that there wouldn't be anymore strays. She was sad
when I met her. I don't want there to be other sad cats."
Outside, Tosspot raced along the fence and leapt down out of sight.
"It was a gift." the salt/fetility goddess said quietly.
"I understand. It just wasn't a gift that was useful to us. I'm sorry."
My eyes darted to the clock without thinking. My date would be coming in half an hour. It was ridiculous in some ways that in the midst of all of this craziness I was calculating if I was still going to have time to prepare the food before she arrived but I guess I really liked her. Either that or human brains really, really don't know how to cope with events that are this surreal.
"So." I said after a while, "What happens now? I didn't mean to reject your gift. I'm a huge fan of kittens when there's space for them and fertility in general, I guess. Not that I've thought about it... but I wouldn't be here if you weren't out there giving gifts to people. Salt's great too so good job on that. Is there some way this can turn out that actually everything's good between us?"
"You didn't know who I was."
"No." I admitted. "But I appreciated you without knowing you were there.A lot of people probably do. And I am sorry. I meant no offense and if I'd had a chance to talk to you then I'd have been able to explain things before I offended you."
"You wish more opportunity to talk with me?"
Oh. Not really.
"Sure. If that'll make things clearer between us."
"Then we shall speak again." The woman said and just like that the whole process reversed itself.
The goddess turned back into a tall stack of salt and then that salt leapt from whereshe'd stood back onto the counter, diminishing itself as it did so. The container was broken by the explosion but a small pile of saltformed where it had stood. I stepped closer and examined it warily.
It seemed to be normal salt though. It didn't move and there was nothing to it butshiny white granules. Even so, I watched it out of the corner of my eye as I cooked. I could have thrown it away but somehow I knew that my new friend would know if I did so. So I cooked the recipe as intended and when the time came, I added salt to a dish for the first time in years.
Just a pinch.

I don't buy salt. I don't have some sort of strange aversion to it - I've eaten salty food when I've been out with friends and whilst I think it's a stronger taste than they seem to I certainly don't hate it. It isn't even as though I've never bought salt but it seemed to be the one spice (herb? condiment? flavour?) that I would always lose or run out of. It's fine, I know I misplace things more than the average person and honestly a life without salt wasn't all that bad. My blood pressure is pretty awesome despite not having the healthiest diet known to man and it encouraged me to use other herbs and spices to ensure my cooking had some sort of flavour (mostly just garlic, lots of garlic).
But tonight was different. I'm okay with my cooking being saltless when it's just me in the house but tonight was the first time Marie was coming over and I wanted to be sure things were perfect. I put the brand new container of salt on the counter, mildly paranoid that storing it in a cupboard for even a second would cause it to spontaneously disappear. It sounds silly but on the other hand I can lose a set of house keys in three seconds flat so maybe it's just a sensible precaution at this point.
The salt didn't disappear though. It stayed right where it was but it almost looked like it was bulging. Can salt go off? I mean, it's just rocks isn't it?
I was wondering if I'd have to head back to the store when the salt container exploded. More salt than you'd think could fit inside cascaded across the counter and onto the floor whilst a few tiny grains shot up to the ceiling. The salt kept coming. There was supposed to be 500g of salt there, I think. Even if I'd misremembered there can't have been meant to be more than a kilogram. But salt kept flowing until there was a human-sized pile collecting on the floor. I had to shuffle backwards to get away from it and it just wouldn't stop.
Until finally it did. The salt stopped appearing from wherever it'd been coming from and instead started stacking. I didn't really have time to decide whether salt managing to stack itself was worse than irt multiplying and fllaing to the floor before it sculpted itself into a humanoid shape and changed form entirely.
The woman who was now standing in my kitchen towered over me in a water-patterned dress
and yellow face paint. She wore a tall paper crown that brushed the ceiling with its tips and had beautiful feathers hanging down from it. Her legs had small bells tied to them and her feet were wearing sandals that looked out of place in the chilly kitchen.
I didn't take this in all at once, of course. THe only things I noticed when this woman first appeared was that she was in between me and the only way out and she did not look happy.
"Hello?" I asked, even though 'hello' isn't really a question.
She glared at me.
"Can I offer you some tea?" I asked her after a moment's thought and regretted it instantly.
I don't know what you're supposed to do when mysterious beings arrive in your kitchen
without warning but I felt as soon as I'd spoken that 'offer them tea' was not it.
"You attempt to reject your punishment." the woman said.
"Right. Sorry about that." I said with a nod and then added, "Quick question though - what is my punishment, who are you and why am I being punished anyway?"
"You don't know my name?" the woman said with an alarming increase in volume.
"No, of course I do. Yup. Um, just the other two questions."
"You have been punished for rejecting my gift of fertility and your punishment has been set as a life devoid of salt. Yet you attempt to cheat this judgement and bring ever more salt into your domicile."
There was frankly no part of this that made sense to me. I didn't even know what to address first.
"You've been stealing my salt?" I asked without thinking.
"Salt is my gift and you are no longer permitted to enjoy it! How dare you think that you have the right to my generousity after offending me so!"
"Right, of course. Sorry."
Which only left the fertility thing. I didn't understand it but only a complete idiot would ask a strange god who apparently rules all salt to clarify something like that. You'd have to be mind numbingly dumb to ask a creature like that to go into the ins and outs of exactly how
you'd offended her.

[Continued below...]

"I want to be conscious just long enough for revenge." Alice said.

The thing considered the girl's request and then asked a question with no breath nor sound.

WHAT FOR?

Alice looked down at herself, stick-thin arms wrapped around an impossibly frail ribcage. It was hurting her just to have this conversation, the entity realised.

"Someone did... this to me." She said.

The entity had possessed enough humans over the centuries to know that whilst the ones it possessed were immune to illness due to their transformations, more mundane humans often get sick and die. However, usually the sickness came from an unknown source. That someone would inflict it on someone else was new and therefore interesting.

WE HAVE AN UNDERSTANDING. the entity said.

Gideon was at home alone the following night. His door was locked but Alice knew where the key was kept and so just walked right in.

"Hello." Alice said to the man who had tried to destroy her.

In her new, stronger form Alice was beautiful. When she'd been sick she'd looked barely twelve but the vigour that the pendant around her neck had provided had allowed her to grow into a body more fitting to a young woman than a child. Her hair was thick and lustrous and her build finally had muscle and fat to coat her bones.

As soon as Gideon recognised her, he was afraid.

"You did this to me." Alice said as she approached.

"I... didn't mean to..." Gideon stuttered as he tried to back away.

Alice moved up close with alarming speed and held his wrist fast.

"Even if I believe that you hadn't known that you would do this to me with any certainty, I know that you were aware that you could do this to me. For that you deserve no mercy."

Gideon tried to struggle out of her grip but this new version of Alice was too strong for his and only getting stronger. He struck her and felt bone in plates where the human skeleton should have no such thing. He saw her nails change not back into the papery things he used to know but into claws, strong and sharp. Gideon saw Alice transform before his eyes and knew that any chance to escape or fight back was futile.

Alice killed Gideon quickly and bloodily and then sat on the floor next to his remains and waited to relinquish control to the entity. Yet instead of fading away entirely in favour of the entity she realised that she was being allowed to share this body. So far the entity has only been given host bodies by the trickery or foolishness of humans and once the pendant had made them transform the humans had fought back with fury and resentment. They'd had to go.

Yet Alice had entered into this bargain willingly. She had seen the new form she'd been provided with as a gift rather than a curse. She knew she wasn't human now but she'd stopped thinking of herself as human a long time ago.

This was a soul worth sharing a body with. So the entity and the ex-human combined into one monster and with no reason to fight each other, stepped out into the night.

It would be a new life for both of them.

The god of the forest had no pity for the weak. His realm was never meant to be without pain and when his prey creatures were hunted down or his trees were felled by storms he would mourn those who were lost instead of saving them. There was a violent balance contained within the forest borders and it had never been his way to try to overcome it.

The arrival of the child was the first thing that could be seen as a change in that.

The forest lord never learned why the child was abandoned. Humans would sometimes walk in the land which was rightfully his and he either regarded them with contempt or did not regard them at all. The child had been lost for some time when he finally noticed her and she was cold, thirsty and afraid. All of these things can kill and if the child was to be left to her own devices then she would be dead before tomorrow's dawn.

He could have left her alone and he considered doing so but something gave him pause. This child would be going to die only because she wasn't in her own realm. The god of the forest knew of the kingdom of the humans and despised its greyness and smoothed edges but he hated it at least in part because of how unthinkingly it would destroy his own subjects who strayed too far. Wild plants seen as weeds and killed, wild animals quite unprepared for the mechanical dangers humans had created.

The god could choose to be different to the humans. And so, he did.

The first night was easy. Before darkness the forest god moved brambles aside so the child could more easily find a stream of safe water. He allowed tempting berries to coax her towards an old den that the child was smart enough to climb inside to face the chilled air of night. He did all these things to care for her and waited for the humans that the child had arrived with to come and collect her.

He didn't expect that they simply wouldn't come back.

Days turned to weeks and the god decided to lead her outside of the forest with the same gentle suggestion as before. She followed his subtle prompting and reached the edge of the trees without issue. She realised where she was and looked at the field ahead of her, even able to see the town in the distance.

And then she turned around.

It was only at this point, the point at which the small and determined child walked back into the cold forest where she had been abandoned, that the god began to love her. He would stop leaving hints occasionally, just to see which lessons she'd truly learned. He accepted her as one of his own and even though part of him expected her to change her mind and leave one day, he was still pleased that he had chosen to stay for now.

As months turned to years though, he realised that the child had no intention on leaving. At first he wasn't sure what this meant - she was not a native animal but he didn't see her as an intruder anymore either. She was the only one of her kind and it took him awhile to decide exactly what that meant.

Eventually, he decided that the creature in the forest that she was most like was himself. Instead of a subject, he began to see her as a daughter, a potential successor. She wasn't a god yet, but these things can change.

Even though she was almost an adult now, the god have her suggestions in much the same way he had when she'd first been lost. He moved brambles and left tempting berries and coaxed her into performing a ritual that humans had forgotten long ago and had never realised the full potential of anyway.

Carrying out ritual steps that had been enough to make witches out of her ancestors, the girl heard the forest god's voice for the first time. Fulfilling further steps that no human had learned, the girl developed powers that the forest god had kept for centuries.

She sat, she listened and she learned.

She would be a worthy successor.

Sorry it wasn't clear. The blood test before the superpower selection shows which powers they can potentially have and once a superpower has been picked then they are injected with a catalyst in order to develop that power in a stable way. The first time around the main character chose mental manipulation as her superpower which meant when she was tested again a year later there were no other possible powers as she had already received one catalyst and so her latent powers were unable to develop in any other way.

It was a fun prompt to respond to.

This wasn't fair. I looked at the screen in front of me, a screen which should have shown a list of ten to twenty possible powers derived from the genetic test I had to submit last month, but there was only one option. It wasn't even a power I wanted. I briefly wondered what would happen if I refused and told the overseer that I didn't want any power but instead I tapped the only power shown and placed my right wrist into the large machine.

There was a gentle hiss as padded straps tightened to hold my wrist in place and then a sharp stab as I was injected with the accelerant. At school our teacher had warned us that there might be a mild burning sensation, some feverish symptoms or a sense of weakness and that all of those things were perfectly normal but aside from the pain of the needle itself I felt nothing at all. There were a stack of plasters next to the machine and when I was released from the machine's grip I stuck one over my tiny wound glumly before walking away.

Back in the classroom, the air was buzzing with excited conversations. There would have been no point even trying to run a lesson with something this big of a deal happening and so our school hadn't bothered. Nobody tried to ask me which powers I'd been offered or which one I'd chosen. Nobody even noticed that I didn't seem happy with whatever I'd been allowed to pick. Maybe if I'd known the other students better then I would've told someone but I move around a lot. I'd once only been in a school for a single month and at two and a half months, this one wasn't much better. I kept quiet and thought about my next move until it was time to go home.

"What happened at the selection?" my mother asked.

She sounded nervous and just like that any doubts I'd had that she would be as clueless as me were gone.

"You tell me." I replied coldly.

"I don't know wh-"

"My power selection was not normal and you know why. So tell the truth now. I'll know if you don't."

It was a bluff, but telepathy was one of the options for some people. She couldn't have known for a fact that it hadn't been for me.

"What happened?" she asked again and this time I decided to tell her.

"There was only one power on my list. Do you want to tell me why that is?"

She thought about her options. Maybe she was considering whether or not I was bluffing, maybe she was only trying to figure out the best way to tell me - since my power wasn't really telepathy I had no way to know. But in the end, she spoke up.

"Because you've been to your selection before." my mother said.

I tried not to let my face show any emotion but I couldn't fully surpress the feelings of alarm.

"You can't take part in a selection before you're eighteen though." I said.

My voice was level, as if I already knew the things my mother wasn't saying, but in truth I hadn't figured anything out at all.

"You are nineteen." she admitted, "I... changed your age so it would be easier to hide you. But the reason everyone is given a catalyst at the age of eighteen is because if their powers are allowed to develop without prompting then the results are less easy to predict. It can be violent and painful and I didn't know if leaving you to wait until you were a year older would be too late. So at this time last year I enrolled you in a school with the correct age, just that once. Only for long enough for you to be given a catalyst."

My head was swimming.

"Tell me why you had to hide me." I said.

"What power did y-"

"Now!" I yelled.

At this point I think she knew that telepathy was a bluff. But there are other powers out there that could allow me to get what I wanted out of her. Mind reading is one option but for everyone else there is always violence.

"Because you aren't- because some people think you aren't mine." the woman I used to think of as a mother said, "Because I took you away from people who didn't deserve you so I could love you more. Please, tell me what happened."

I felt sick and I couldn't catch my breath.

"One more question," I said shakily, "why don't I remember my first selection?"

I had a suspicion that I already knew the answer but I didn't want to believe it.

"My power is mental manipulation. I removed those memories from you and any others which could have upset or confused you. It was for your own good."

I walked towards the room's closed door.

"It wasn't your choice." I told the woman.

She didn't even apologise, she just looked at me. When she finally spoke it wasn't to say sorry or to try to explain.

"What power did you get?" she asked for the final time.

I opened the door and there was nothing beyond it. Not an empty corridor but literally just endless nothingness and darkness.

"The same as yours. I wonder why I picked it. Maybe I figured out what you'd done to me and thought this was my best option to get some answers but you wiped my memory before I had a chance. But this time I got to you first. None of this conversation has been in the real world. I needed to be sure that I could get some honesty out of you so I put you in a little room inside your head whilst we figured things out."

The woman panicked and I could tell that she was trying to control me right back but it didn't work with her locked away like this.

"I don't think you understand that what you did was wrong, that my memories were not things you had any right to play with. But I think that before I hand you over to the authorities that I can make you understand that.

Now where should I start?"