The Dark Covenant (Wrenmae)

[Ana Sol Starris]

Spring 42nd, 512AV Crimson Edge Camp Hunched over, Ana sat inside the tent contemplating thoughts of perhaps suicide. What had happened last night was unspeakable, she couldn't believe she had went that far just to learn.. Gripping her head in her hands, shoulders trembling and feeling her body flood with heat. The small woman had liked it though, deep down, loved it even- but it hadn't been her... Not really, it was the alter ego she had conjured up on a whim, it had grown immensly from stressful situations, and was now becoming a force Ana was scared of. To be reckoned with, her body had moved on its own, her thoughts had not been her own and her actions were not her own and yet everything she had done was exactly Ana. Sniffing, she had been sitting in the tent for awhile.. Before Wren even returned to the tent, she was waiting for him... But she had wanted to think her thoughts before he did so. Inhaling she straightened up, shutting her eyes as images flooded her mind.. Placing a palm on her face, she grimaced then began to grind her teeth to push the thoughts out. Exhaling, she let the stress fade.. In hopes of bringing Motif up once more, but she couldn't.. This situation just.. She couldn't make herself stressed when she didn't know what the trigger was exactly. Motif just seemed to pop up when Ana was in danger, and becoming stressed by her agressor. Other times the string puller seemed to brush under Anas subconscience when there was trouble nearby, she was only beginning to realize that the bells and whistles, the alarms, warnings were Motifs doing. To protect her? Ana wasn't quite so sure.. The persona seemed to be more reckless than herself, she thought darkly at the moments where Motif had exhibited such moments with her patient and calculative thoughts. Shuddering at the prospect of those possible deaths, would things have gone different if she was in control and not Motif? The thought was unnerving.. Hanging her head she rubbed her temples, only to straighten back up to lay on the ground boredly. Looking at the tents flap, she could be making herself useful right now.. But she didn't want to hang around outside with the others at the campfire to be teased, blushing and glaring at the thoughts, she was certain Motif wasn't as quiet as she should have been "AGHH!" Ana let out in exhasperation, choking the small scream off as quick as she could, writhing at the images, gripping her face then her hair and pulling. Rolling onto her front and trying to push her head into the ground, the images kept teasing her, subconsciencly Motif was just being a bitch and causing more problems for Ana by playing with her. Taking deep breaths, she had to calm, had to. Blushing she focused her thoughts elsewhere as she stayed in the strange, knelt over, bent position with her head pressed to the ground and her hands gripping chunks of her hair. Shaking from the intense moment of trying to forget something, it took a bit but she calmed down and focused her thoughts on the promised lesson.... The lesson she had better petching well earned after that incident. Grumbling to herself as she layed on her front somewhat exhaustively, wondering what exactly Wren or Shroud would teach her.. The 43rd was fast aproaching, the day the group of mercs left Sunberth for the Spires. The day was falling quickly and the night was taking over the orange glowing sky, from the flap, Ana could tell from where she lay that Wren would probably be arriving soon.. Hopefully.. Instead of Shroud.. But she highly doubted that.

[Wrenmae]

His mind bubbled, steamed, and boiled over. Shroud was not himself. He felt his mind slipping, could feel Wrenmae's psyche worsening, splintering again. There was no new voice, not this time, but he could hear the echoes of purpose as they set up their houses of cards, could see the rising despots and the spiraling madness. Protector. His role was to protect. Wrenmae was naive, a foolish storyteller with dreams beyond logic. Sunberth could consume him, break him, leave his corpse for the crows. Shroud could not, would not allow that. Wrenmae was too weak to continue on his own, he could not defend himself, would not raise his hand against another...not without dire reasons. So it was that the murderer, worshipper of Vayt, and ranked member of the Crimson Edge took his place as the primary voice behind the muscles of his body, the Djed within his soul. He pulled the tent flap open, left eye twitching uncontrollably, and settled in next to Ana, breathing a slow breath out and rolling her unnerved face. Last night was... Well, it didn't bare thinking about. Which was an odd thought. Was this...guilt? Had he grown a conscience since the last evening? The thought disturbed him, gave the mage pause to put a hand against his forehead, centralizing his thoughts, gathering himself. "I made you a promise," he said, gritting his teeth and pulling off his shirt, another headache threatening to unsettle his speech. "I'm a bit under the weather, so I'll ask you to be patient and don't give me cause to anger." The hand on his scalp began rubbing, massaging the stress lines out of his conscious. For some reason, the images wouldn't fade, the dreams, the memories, the guilt...something was terribly wrong with him, with all of them. Their tenuous stability had unraveled. "Morphing is about using the energy inside you, energy all living beings have." He held out his arm, scales racing up along the forearm, folding over like stenciled designs, perfect and glossy white. "You use the Djed to mold your skin, and at higher levels, your entire body." Reaching behind him, he pulled ink and a quill from his pack, dipping it vigorously, messily. "I'll show you again what it feels like, slow transformation, give your body a longer taste of what it should be doing." Another blast of pain nearly lay him low, he was shaking, weaker. He hoped she didn't notice. "Unless you want to change your mind."

[Ana Sol Starris]

The small thief had just returned to a sitting posture as Shroud opened the flap, looking up at him, she stared and then blushed deeply. Suddenly there was an absence of panick in her mind, looking down as he sat next to her, she didn't dare look at him now. Listening to him, she preferred as of right now just to use her ears but there was only an awkward silence at the moment. Twiddling with her fingers, her shoulders hunched drastically at his voice before lowering in understanding.. Glancing at him from the corner of her eyes, nodding to his words after each pause, she did not speak. As there was silence, Ana contemplated what Shroud had just said.. He was under the weather? This was very much a first, she had never once seen the man become sick since she had met him. Grimacing, worry began to fill her eyes as she looked at him more directly.. Wait.. She was worried about him? The very man who made her life a seeming nightmare when he was in a bad mood, which was most of the time!? It just did not make sense, one night, just one night and her feelings towards him had completely changed! How in the name of Dira was that even possible?! Ana screamed at herself in her mind, feeling as if her breath was caught in her throat she tried to clear it with as little distraction as she could as he spoke again. Turmoil, inner chaos, she hated him, she liked him, she wanted to strangle him... Yet she wanted to hug him.. Have that feel of arms around her, that comfort, even though he was a big arrogant meanie, then-....Complexion paling at the thoughts, as she watched his arm turn into intricate scales, again, what the heck was she thinking? She wasn't suppose to be thinking like that.. Was she? Widening her eyes as he took the quill and ink out, she shook her head fervently, voice cracking as she tried to come up with something to say to justify what she meant "if.. if.. it.." she took a slow breath, she had to be in control, control, "well, I-I'd prefer if.. I wasn't transformed into some bimbo you see Cade with.." With voice quiet, she looked at his eyes as best she could.. There was a sort of hurt within her voice, it seemed to ring in the tent but her demeanor had turned relaxed. Ana was going to treat this situation seriously, if he wasn't feeling well then he would want to get it done and over with, with little trouble. Bringing forth a palm of her hand for him to inscribe onto her skin, a fire rose under her skin and filled her with a sort of determination, one that demanded the individual to become stronger "I want to learn Shroud," Ana was confident, but not like Motif "I'll listen to what you have to say, to teach, I won't be troublesome like I usually am.." biting her lip as she thought again, eyes straying to the tent flap and then back towards him, his eyes "you said something about Djed.. What is that? I don't think I've ever heard of it before.." There was reason in her words, proof that she had been actually listening to him, how could you call someone troublesome if they didn't know what a term was.. Ana took note of his posture, ever observant, the shaking, the tremor in his mannerisms. Turning her body so she was facing him, Ana kept her palm extended- a part of her wanted to call the lesson off, for his sake... But she couldn't be petched to do so. Not right now, not when she was so close to attaining a forbidden art that had taken her two trys to finally achieve, the first resulting in a massive beating. No, she wasn't going to give him a break simply because he had never given her a break since she had begun staying with him, Wrenmae may have, but not Shroud, oh no.. Not mister high and mighty, perfect and arrogant. Though.. What she would give to see him smile at her again.. If anything, getting a positive reaction out of Shroud was so much harder than Wrenmae and thus made the reward so much sweeter.. Anas demeanor seemed to waver under the thoughts, softening towards him, she found it harder to conjure angry thoughts at him now.. Actually, when Ana thought about it.. She was quite sad to be leaving him for the Spires, would she ever see him again..? Inwardly, promising herself that she would see him again and hoped he would remain in Sunberth for as long as he would do so. oocIf this seems a bit iffy, its because I'm writing whilst on a low fuel tank. Also, marked this as a high priority thread.

[Wrenmae]

Shroud was quiet while Ana spoke, dipping the quill into the black ink and catching her arm, drawing an ellipses along her unmarked flesh. He only traced along the pale skin of her left limb, taking care to draw the details as well as he could, the slow swirls, the inner corners, the rivers by which the Djed would flow. He ignored her requests, her fears, her trepedation. He shook, his mind on the verge of explosion. The unsettling information from the woman had opened his minds eye in ways too abrupt to properly rectify. Instead he simply worked, tirelessly, mindlessly, only moving by the word he had given, an exchange of services for another in kind. Drifting circles, long lines, the thick black permeating her ivory veneer. He worked without blinking, dark eyes only focused on the lines and shapes they drew. He finished and laid the quill aside. Hand against his temple, he held a throbbing headache from splitting, waiting for the ink to dry before instilling his Djed through the shapes. Slow release, slow change. "This is my Djed, my magic," He hissed, "Feel it and mimic it, or try until you do." Her skin shifted, warped and broke as spines lanced from her flesh like the prows of narrow ships. They layered like fur, briefly twisting in the ambient air before settling in arched black solitude. The marks burned, flaked, dissolved, and the skin twisted back, the process taking a little less than five minutes. She had changed with strange stillness, an eerie crawl even, all the transformation moving like spiders beneath her skin. And now it was over. Shroud laid back, sighing, pressing his head together. "Mimic. Draw it from inside and shape it with your fingers. Your skin doesn't know how to change yet, show it."

[Ana Sol Starris]

Wandering, Anas thoughts of the Spires and then to Shroud, only to be jerked out of them as her companion gripped her arm and began to draw up and along it, arm tensing under his hand and then the scritch of the quill. Etching delicately, carefully, black veins onto her skin as if he were automated. Inhaling through her nose, then exhaling, the few moments it took to relax under his touch had brought her attention back to him. To the present, to the lesson she was suppose to be paying attention to. Ana gulped back her insecurities, eyes narrowing at the designs growing on her skin, the whispers in her mind grew to a dull roar within her eardrums. Shutting her eyes slowly, she resisted the urge to end the lesson, to run, she could feel Motifs distaste at the idea.. When Ana seemed to have control over herself once more, over the urge to run from him, only then did Motif and her maddening whispers slink back to the dark corners of Anas mind. Aproval, feeling it course through her thoughts, nodding to Shrouds voice dazedly. Shroud did not answer her question, and this left her with a sense of depravity as she watched him lean back, still holding onto her as if he were waiting for the ink to dry. Looking between him and then the swirling patterns, the feeling was so light that it took Ana a few seconds to recognize the feeling. Goosebumps travelled up her arm as it began to mold, shift, tingle and whine under such an unnatural transformation. Ana had no clue what he had meant by djed, by magic, magic to her was a tool to be used... One that had to be learned, had to be used carefully.. Tensing under the morphing, getting as much of a feel as she could from it, her mind, it wanted to scream away from this- it wasn't right. This was not right, but it felt.. Well, it took her a few moments to discern fear from awe and curiosity, a need to know more, a want to learn, just a few chimes.. and her arm was different. Much different, Ana stared at it, inhaling, she took a big breath of air inwards, held, then exhaled slowly. Fear wasn't what she should be feeling right now.. Her features hardened as she forced herself to remain there, in Shrouds grasp. Within another few chimes, her arm was back to normal.. Bugs slithered, crawled and danced across her skin at the memory. Releasing her, Ana stared hard at her arm, feeling it shiver, tremble, a corner of her mouth twitched into a frown. Alien, the feeling was alien, and yet, there was another presence under that of Shrouds, what was it.. Striving to figure out what she had felt beforehand, she looked at her companion, nodding slowly as if to show she understood.. Actually, she didn't, what was she suppose to be doing? What was she suppose to be understanding? What had just happened? Back to her arm, she set about trying to replicate what Shroud had done. His djed, blinking, a connection being made between demonstration and words. His Djed, his magic, she had just been feeling his djed.. Whatever it was, and whatever was behind that of his.. Was hers.. Maybe.. Maybe.. Oh just maybe.. Ana had no real idea, she was always making guesses.. Did she also have Djed? Shyly, Ana glanced at him for answers but found it hard to speak.. It had.. Felt like a power to the small woman, an energy that her own mind could scarcely comprehend at such a level right now. Zandelia had been so much easier to question as a teacher, Ana thought to herself as she brought her palm up, flat and towards herself, staring into it.. Harder, harder, she stared harder, trying to dredge up the same feeling as Shroud had put into her arm. Nothing happened, only a light bubbling feeling seemed to writh to and fro under her skin where she was gazing at so intently, as if someone were disturbing calm water with a gentle hand. Resting the apendage on one of her crossed legs knee, she tried to replicate, to mimic, still she was having trouble. Ana knew what the feeling was, but how ever did you pull it up.. Biting her lip lightly, she glanced nervously at him before looking back at her hand, "draw..?" Ana questioned lightly, quietly, cringing at her incompetence to understand. She didn't want to give him trouble.. and here she was giving him trouble! Drawing her lips tight, her eyes furrowed in concentration once more at her hand, confusion in her eyes and irritation forming in some of the subtle forms her demeanor could offer. Tracing onto her palm, an 8 on her skin in her mind, but nothing came up, she felt twitches, small ones, just barely noticable by normal standards. What was she doing wrong? He had given her a puzzle that she had little hope at solving, what did he think she was, a scholar? Ana wanted to laugh at that, the humor in the situation was non existant.. But she wanted to laugh. Though her fear of him kept her from doing so, remaining as serious as she could.

[Wrenmae]

The hammering in his head had begun to subside, the room had stopped spinning, and while Ana struggled with his mediocre lessons, Shroud was slowly feeling out his way back to reality. Honestly, his head burned...his body felt weak. He needed to leave at some point to walk around the town, get a feel for things. Most of the Crimson Edge were leaving, some convoluted scheme to help some monkeys win back their tree homes or something. The Spires...had he told Ana about it before? The memory was so foggy now, almost like something he'd imagined. Irrelevant. Ana was tracing the lines the glyphs had once traversed and trying in vain to motivate change. For a moment, all he did was watch her, take in the nature of her inquiry. Something motivated her, desperately pushed her towards this goal. She had sold a lot for it, and perhaps, in the end, that price would be worth it. Perhaps it would destroy her. But that was the nature of magic. "Don't bother," Shroud said at last, knocking her fingers away from the tracing pattern. The patterns I drew on you were glyphs, a type of magic you're not learning today. I recorded a transformation in them and let it transform on your skin. It's the easiest way I know to teach a clumsy girl like you." Scowling he grabbed her arm and ran calloused fingers over the underside of her arm. "You're changing the skin, this, with your inner power. Djed is old tongue for backbone, it's like your will. Concentrate on changing the color of your skin first, then work with other transformations. You have a bell to do that...afterwards you need to remove your clothes so I can acquire your shape." He watched her eyes widen and grinned, "Don't worry, I'm not interested in laying with you...just expanding my disguises." Chuckling, he removed his hand and then his shirt, laying back on the floor of his tent. "Haven't you ever wanted to see yourself outside a mirror?"

[Ana Sol Starris]

Tracing, tracing, staring, harder, focusing, what was she doing wrong still.. Ana thought desperately now, not sure anymore what to do besides to keep trying. Learning quickly was a trait she prided herself on, and here she was having trouble, could anyone blame her though? It was magic after all. Not a physical skill that involved running, turning, fighting, stepping lightly nor nimbly picking pockets.. This was a whole other league Ana had gotten herself into and it wasn't prooving to be easy. Why? Why? Why? She bombarded herself at her stupidity, why had she been the more lightly skilled one of the family.. Sin had been the mage, her.. Stopping.. Ana blinked.. Her.. What? Sisters? One a bread baker, like their mother.. and the other.. Flashes of their faces passed her eyes before dissapearing, only to be lost in the depths of her mind as Shroud scoffingly spoke and knocked her fingers away from her hand. Snapping her eyes up at him, the past no longer in her mind as she listened to him. Stopping, watching his hand as a thin line crossed her lips. Touch. Hands.. Djed, he explained it in more depth now, backbone.. an old tounge? Her will.. Ana appeared to be confused at him, she had a lot of will power to spare as well as a stubborn determination to learn. Was that what he meant.. Or.. The energy that seemed to lay beneath their skin? So she had to start with something simple.. Color? What could she change her skin to then.. Tilting her head in thought, colors flashing in her mind, there were so many out in the world it was hard to choose from. So why not something neutral? Black. Shadows, darkness, it was neutral.. Wasn't it? Nodding her head at the set idea now with a little more understanding, it took her a few moments to understand his next request.. Widening her eyes as he grinned. Blushing darkly at him, and then jerking her gaze away embarresedly.. Images flooded her once more and she felt like running away from him. Inhaling, exhaling, she had to remain calm.. Or those petching whispers would return, Ana didn't like those little alarm bells in her head growing louder to thunderous roars some times "okay.....To be honest I haven't looked at myself in the mirror for years.. so I guess it would be.. interesting.. to see what I look like now.. Compared to.. Well.... Back then..." There was a hint of reluctance to her voice. There had been mirrors within her dreams, some that revealed memory and others horror of a creature that lusted for revenge. What was Motifs goal.. Revenge? Something so silly. Ana couldn't honestly be petched to deal with her father, only the fact that he had been the main cause of her misery, the start of it, and for others was what drove her to follow the insane wishes of an image of herself. Not for herself.. But for others. Family had been hurt, and her time in the Crimson had amplifyed her conclusion to further Motifs own goals.. Whatever they were. Did she really want to see a mirror image of herself though? Something that showed up in her dreams.. What if she looked exactly like what she did in the mirror of her night terrors? The thought wasn't comforting and only made he shudder as she focused once more on the task at hand. Morphing. Color change, change, transformations of the like.. And she had a bell to complete this task. What then? No, no, Ana shook her head, she was getting off topic once more.. Too much thinking, not enough morphing and learning from her companion. Emotion, one that could call it obsessed or simply stubborn, spread across her demeanor. This time she would figure out what was to happen. She had to will it, want it, once again she began to focus, this time on the tips of her fingers. Blackness. Envisioning her fingertips in her mind, stirring up what she had felt before in terms of energy, power, she imagined that into her mind as well and focused harder and harder on the image. Black fingertips. Still it didn't work.. Trying to figure out once more, how to do the morphing buisness.. Maybe if she just eased the picture in? Instead of just putting it in her head right away.. Like a.. Yes, like a transformation, the milky white of her skin fading to black, she could see it in her minds eye clearer than before, still physically nothing happened.. No, something was missing, Djed, she needed Djed to be brought forth from the sounds of it.. Willpower, she began to will the color black into her fingers, coaxing them to the darkness of the night. Not necessacirily sure if night could be a color.. But it was an idea. An idea inside her head. Blackness, darkness. Stealth, willpower.. Sneakiness.. She saw the terms broughtforth.. Blinking, her eyes had gotten so dry due to staring so hard.. But.. A grin crossed her face as her fingertips appeared to be black now. Pride, confidence welled up in her. She had done it! Did it! Snapping out of her stupor of awe, the black receded as quickly as she had stopped thinking about it.. "nooo!" She whispered hoarsely, conjuring the image back up.. But it was too late. In just a bell, she had managed to blacken her fingertips but now.. Now they had faded back to the milky whitened skin that was so familliar on her body.. Focusing again, her skin played tugged of war between white and black till finally they were completely back once more.

[Wrenmae]

Her efforts went rewarded only toward the end of the bell, the desperate girl choking out a small transformation of her fingers, coloring the skin the hue of frostbite, death, the shadows around them. Shroud caught the hand, clenched it, examined the difference between his and hers and let the hand fall. "Fair enough," he grunted, stripping off his pants and the remainder of his clothes, "Now a lesson in potential." Shadows played about his body, casting dark fingers of obscurity around his naked form. His eyes were dark, equally as dark as the world around them. Only brief shards of moonlight glistened from above and speckled along their two forms. "You're taking womanizing too far, mate," Zan murmured from inside him, its usual bubbly self, "Maybe take a moment to rethink?" Shroud didn't answer, let his mind become concentrated, let Zan fade away. He knelt, taking her face in his hands and running calloused fingers across her skin. He memorized, with the pads, her every scar and contour, his own face rippling as he moved his fingers. His features softened, losing their haggard, rugged look and plumping a little, following her alabaster cheeks. His nose softened, shrunk, and his brow was a mess of twisting bones and skin. Hair, dark, blazed bright for a moment and lengthened, falling down across his features and brightening to gold strands. The change was slow, but moved in dramatic sweeps. His cheekbones rose, his ears shrank, his eyebrows thinned and lips pouted out just a little more. In under three chimes, he pulled away, studying Ana with her own face. He/She grinned, speaking with Ana's voice in an eerily giggling whisper. "So? How do I look?" He coaxed her to remove her own clothes to speed of the process, his heart thumping excitedly in his chest. He'd grown familiar with her before, the long seasons spent with her and he'd had time to see her shape with and without clothes. The different, or the trick, was in acquiring the transformation...at least the basic form. He had her face now. That face was smiling with Shroud's cruel and twisted darkness. It was only a matter of time till he had more.

[Ana Sol Starris]

Clenching her teeth, she resisted struggling against him.. well.. It wasn't like she could anyways. The black departed once more after he let go, she stared at him, eyes seeming to glimmer with even more pride. She had been complimented by Shroud! In.. a round about way, but still! a compliment! Her grin remained until he began to strip himself, furthering the blush on her face as she looked away shyly. Twiddling with her fingers, playing about with the djed under them, seeing the blackness creep up.. recede.. then back up again. The feeling was wonderful, too bad she was taken out of the awesomeness of the morphing by Shrouds hands, forcing her to look at him in the eyes. Blinking, her face burned under his touch, he was naked, she was still clothed.. But.. well.. and, he had given her his word.. But that still didn't mean.. No, no, she inhaled, pushing the thoughts away as she exhaled through her nose. Stillness between them, as she watched his face mimic her own.. Her face, the unrealness of ones identity being stolen crept through her body. This was her face.. and here he was stealing it.. ..No, it was a price, another one, from what he did not take in the streets that day.. Well, this was interest for him. Pay, for having to put up with her so long.. He wouldn't have to bother with her any longer after the 43rd.. No. No, she gasped as the transformation was done. The whisper, the giggle, it was unreal, but the reality set in at so many different possibilities.. No, if she had to give up her identity, he could have her petching body! But he'd never take her name.. She still had never given him her real name, though she suspected he knew that 'Ana Sol Starris' was a fake name for some time now.. Just had never mentioned it. Affirming to herself, she would not give way her real name.. Not right now.. Well, maybe if he asked.. She didn't like her real name anyways. It was why she had come up with such an extravagant psuedo name in the first place. Sol Starris. Ana. Ana Sol Starris the troublesome thief of Sunberth, the little sister of the Crimson. If Shroud were to use her psuedo name then she would morph a new name, but what? Smiling at him, outwardly she had been staring at him, her face contorting into that of anger and fear and then relaxing so morbidly close as the way how Motif had eased in. Grinning at him, insanity "like me, I think.. Though.. I think you missed a feature crucial to my face.." Ana pointed to her eyes, tapping just under the lid "from what I had been told by my mother, they're like my fathers, my brothers, and apparhently my grandfathers on my fathers side before me.." The strangeness of letting this piece of information cross over felt weird on her tounge, oddly she didn't feel so bad about doing so.. She knew him long enough. It felt okay to do so. To any one else, it was such a pridefully safe gaurded secret she kept from the world.. From everyone who knew her, and didn't know her. Ana remembered her mothers eyes had been some of the most sparkling color of blue, her sisters the same, but had their fathers black hair whilst Sinvelt had brown. Ana had blonde, like her mother. It was quite strange really, they were all related by blood and yet how some could look so different at times. How random the human could be when producing new heirs, such different and very possible combinations. Many combinations that could be used for.. Ana smiled inwardly at the thought, for morphing, disguises, just as Shroud was doing right now with her own. The tug of her clothes gave her a jolt though, she swatted his hand away and inched away to dress at the otherside of the tent "don't.." Ana asked him firmly. Not looking at him as she did so, she was soon naked as well, rapidly, and on her own accord without his touchy, grabby, feelyness. Still rather self conscience of her body she wrapped her arms around her chest in a crossed motion and bundled up her gangly legs and turned to face him. Blushing, glaring, she didn't like this.. All this.. Touch.. The whispers started up again as he would come towards her, cringing, hunching her shoulders.. She felt so bare.. So exposed to him, though in the back of her mind.. Behind the whispers, behind ever insecurity. It didn't matter, none of it did, her feelings did not matter. She just hoped he would at least be.. Complacent to be gentle. Instead she focused herself on his body.. It still was his body but he had her head, shuddering, the half transformation was awkward.. Strange, it made her want to run even further away.. But the whispers kept her locked there in an ever present reminder of what could happen at any moment. So she let him aquire her body.

[Wrenmae]

He let her shrink away, hold her insecurities like fleeting firefly flashes to her tightening skin. His eyes, Shroud's eyes, ever dark and searching, held her in his gaze as the Djed from within him fed the transformation in his vocal chords, in his face. Strangely enough, there was no sense of the carnal here, no spark of excitement to fan the lethargic flames of lust, no. There was a morbid curiosity in her fear, even a desire, like supping on flavored ice...erratic energy that danced from her downcast eyes, her inability to fully pull away. She was fascinated, perhaps too fascinated. And in that blind interest, she was pulled to him, drawn ever closer like a moth to dancing flames. Ones doom was never so enrapturing as when it was presented so freely. When she stood before him, slight figure and narrow shoulders, Shroud pulled the Djed from within himself to begin at the neck, shaping it curving it, the pale leeching of his tanned skin to her whiter hue, the narrowing of his bones, the litheness of arms, these changes took time, working their way across his body like a paintbrush, his skin twisting and warping. Long fingers, thinner fingers, her nimble thief hands splayed out in front of Shroud's eyes with cruel glee. He stepped forward, still very much a he by the movement beyond shadows, taking her hands and gently pulling them away from their crossed forbidden shape. Her breasts, small, like new apples, rose with the curve of her skin, the flush of her shame reddening her collarbone and cheeks. Shroud's own chest warped and shuddered, skin bunching and pulling shifting and reshaping, pushing up through wiry muscles and setting it aside for more delicate curves. No changes, not yet, and he turned her around sharply, his own back shifting as his hand danced down the curve, pausing just above her tailbone and withdrawing. His body was shifting, warping, and he felt his bones and organs shifting slightly at his provocation. All that made him male, a man, it lay between his legs, obscured by darkness. As far as changes went, he was the most nervous about this one. So many thoughts, so many things, he ignored it for a moment, focused on her longer legs, her hips, the small nicked scars that crept along her skin like tags or claimed marks. He was not intimately familiar with the female oneness, the chief difference between the sexes. He had known it, yes, but in different times, places. He shrank from touching her, had promised he would do no such thing...and something about the promise coaxed his obedience. He concentrated on the memories, what it felt like, looked like, seemed like. Withdrawing and changing, the softness of a woman traded for the wiry angles of a man. Chimes...bells? It was irrelevant, but finally Ana looked back at Ana with Shroud's eyes...if only for a moment before they, too, shifted. And then Ana was watching Ana, both naked. One was brazen and shameless, hands at her side and an arrogant smile on her face and the other clasped her arms across her body again, shied away fearfully even...amazed and compelled to watch the entire eerie change. Reaching down, not-Ana took Ana's clothes and fit them on herself, giggling and winking coquettishly at her double. "Not so different," Not-Ana murmured, playing with her longer hair, "But then, you are a rather boyish girl." Shaking her head, Not-Ana took a seat, crossed her legs, and invited Ana to do the same. "Anything I could improve on?" She asked, almost blushing.