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Day 30, Season of Fall, 513 AV
No matter what she did, Kit could not quite get the hang of properly camouflaging objects.
The evening had dragged on long, and to light her room Kit had brought out a small candle, ignited from the fireplace in the main boarding house and let it sit over the floor, casting its small light over her and her work. She lay out her shirt and set to work making it blend in. But it didn't feel right . . . And after her little encounter with the Ebonstryfe with Vanari, Kit felt the need to practice.
She could change the colors of them both with a thought, Ionu's blessing had given her that right, but disguising it as nothing? That was beyond her limited power. She could trace its colors, make it blend more thoroughly into the wood that she laid it on, but it looked wrong under the flickering of the candlelight.
Kit leaned over the shirt, let her hand trace its edges . . . the appearance of depth was the first to go, and she made it seem flat. But when she looked at the edges, the textures of the wood simply ended. It was as though someone had simply laid a blanket over it. She bit her lip, imagined the imperfections continuing onward, and it was so, her shirt blending perfectly with the wood.
Except that it was too perfect! Like age had simply overlooked that little speck of wood. Kit closed her eyes, conjured some flaws that seemed likely and when she opened them again the shirt's presence was all but seemless against the ground. Illusion was not a gift; it was an art, whose brushes and palettes Ionu had offered to their chosen. Kit was not a good illusionist yet. Perhaps one day she would be.
When she tried to move the shift, however, the delusion was broken. She had built around it a seeming of the wood that she had first placed the shirt on, and the moment she shifted it poof! Gone. There was a shirt-shaped aberration, like a piece of a puzzle left over a piece of the scenery that it did not belong.
Mobile illusions were beyond her, then. "Trickster give me the cunning to keep moving," she breathed, picked up the shirt and cut the illusion away from it. "Keep me sure, keep me clever, cause clearly, I can't do it on my own." Kit sighed, tossed the shirt aside and turned away.
She rummaged through her chest, seized a mirror and climbed atop her bed and arranged herself cross-legged on the mattress. She stared at her reflection . . . Shy's reflection, actually. Kit had kept maintaining it, out of habit. She pulled the glamour away and saw Kit's face; red hair, blue eyes . . . "I'm the only person who's seen this face all season," Kit said to herself.
