All it takes is a swing of a sword made of metal and forged by the hands of goblins for fear and hope to rise in her tightly coiled body.

All it takes is the sharp blade slicing through her sleeks scales, tearing through flesh, breaking bone and spilling blood, and Nagini is a snake no more.

Her first breath as a human in centuries is less an inhale and more a rasping gasp catching in her throat, hitching and absent of the vibrations of a hiss against her tongue, and it’s like being born anew.