But now? Now I was still a trickster, but a shape-shifter no more. I was a thirty-one-year-old human-I was actually all human races on Earth. I had done that always. Genes speak to genes on a level people can't begin to detect, and if I were all people, then I went into every situation with the tiniest of edges, my foot in the door. It had been more helpful back in the day… when family, clan, tribe, had mattered to a constantly warring people. They were still constantly warring, but the genes mattered a lot less now. And that was a good development for humanity in general, but I still tried to keep that edge.

While I was all races, two did rise to the top. That's what people saw. Eyes I'd admired the last time I'd been on the Japanese Islands, the mouth that was a fond memory of the years I'd spent in Africa, and wildly cork-screwed black curls and skin that were a mixture of both places. I'd spent a lot of time rethinking that hair every morning when I fought the good fight with it and usually had my ass kicked and my brush broken. Ah, well, who the hell was I to say what it should do anyway?

Did all of that make me a romance heroine who had men flinging themselves at my feet to protect my dainty foot from a puddle? Carrying all my groceries like I was a fairy princess with a wet manicure? Hell, no. It had them tilting their heads trying to figure me out. People liked to label things. I puzzled them, which was good. People needed to be puzzled, curious, unsure. That's what kept you alive in this world. It was what made life interesting.

No, I wasn't beautiful. I chose this body.