Closed crows and flies

[Chiaja]

fall 10 512av, sunset The hot, sandy desert was starting to make her daily temperature drop. The air was dry and cool breezes flooded in, a reprieve from the day time heat. It was also the time that Chiaja would shift into her Ethaefal form. Flies buzzed around and people swatted at them, swatted them away from the goats and the horses and the dogs and the people. It was the seasonal tribe get-together, and it wasn't crowded - there was plenty of space in the desert. Family saw family and friends saw friends, and occasionally she recognized a few faces, faces of people she didn't know but must have known in the past. She remembered years before when someone she didn't know but vaguely recognized ran up and hugged her, tears streaming down their face. Chiaja was her sister, her sister who was supposed to be dead or with Leth, but she had fallen, and now this woman got to see her sister again. She had dragged her to her family, little children and an old lady and a man who was her brother-in-law. In just a day she received a mother, two nieces, a brother and a sister. But she would watch them grow old and die, and she wouldn't age herself. And for years she'd watch her newly found family grow old. Would she really want that? She had thought it was worth it, even if she didn't want a new family. And now, 11 years later, she watched as her 'mother' was dead and gone and her nieces were growing up. And every year, she found a secluded place at Sunset to shift into her divine, her Ethaefal, form, and every Sunrise she shifted back. Almost no one ever got the chance to watch her shift. It was a beautiful sight to behold, Ethaefal changing, but it was rare for her to allow someone the chance. You would have to be lucky enough to stumble upon her or sly and quiet enough to follow her from a distance (of more than thirty feet at night,) to find her and watch. It wasn't uncommon for people to see her Ethaefal form. And now, as Syna fell, Chiaja stole away from the camp.

[Kijanu]

The sun danced at the edge of the horizon, the bright star of sight and hope, she touched the edge of the world and waited. Under her watchful, unwavering gaze, Kijanu had worked restlessly and toiled to bring her small, ragtag herd to pasture with the goats of her fellows. Their bleating cries were familiar, as much a comfort as any warm embrace or kind word. Aunts and uncles, a precariously rowdy bunch of cousins, and her siblings, they all made life a comfort, and seeing them again after what felt like forever, it pleased her deep inside. One of the Tatsuwaat women left the idle group. The gentle murmur of conversation did not cease at her departure, nor did the grazing of the goats upon the sparse blades of grass that grew from between the cracks in the hard earth. A passing scorpion did not waver in its gait, and Kijanu would have done the same had the woman's painted face not stirred some trace of familiarity. Sara yipped for attention even as Kijanu, startled, turned to watch the woman's back. Tajipash approached her as her back was turned, towering over her slight frame, and staring at the dwindling sight of the woman before them. "That's Chiaja," he said. He offered no other explanation, turned his back on her, and reached down to pat her dog. Kijanu shot him a look, to which he responded with a smile, before she went off in pursuit of the woman. Her curiousity was piqued with her brother's answer, as though he expected her to already know who the woman was. Perhaps she did, perhaps she merely forgot. That didn't stop her from running after her, out of sight of the grouped people and into the Burning Lands. She reached forward to grab the woman's arm and hold her still, so she might get a better look at her.

[Chiaja]

She hadn't been paying attention. She thought she was far enough, secluded enough to shift and then hurry back before a jackal or wolf or another hungry animal could find her. Something found her, but it wasn't vicious or hungry. It was a girl. Another face she recognized, buried underneath her grown-up features was the little girl she once met. She looked like her brother, whom she had spoken to more recently, but still not often. The most important part of this was that the sun was almost set. Syna was falling from the sky and this girl was here and she didn't want to be considered more odd than she already was. It was enough she came to the Chaktawe fully grown, and people were confused when she didn't age. She stood there, staring at the girl while Syna disappeared behind the horizon. She ignored whatever she was saying and didn't answer any questions, she just stared. And as the last rays of sunlight disappeared and the sky began to grow dim, she knew it was all too late to run from this girl. She appeared athletic and clever like her Kalanue people, and she smelled of goat, sweat and the desert. Like a Chaktawe. "Day and night cannot dwell together." Chiaja looked at the sky, twilight reaching her fingers across the sky and bringing the land into night. She reached out to touch the girl's forehead, and as she did, she started to change into her Ethaefal form, shedding her Chaktawe skin. It started in her fingertips, like it always did. Inky black dotted with many-coloured stars spread across her skin, eyes, hair. Slowly, like molasses. She appeared to be covered with the night sky itself, with Leth on her forehead. It was surreal, and all too soon the stars flickered out of existence as the night sky skin faded away, leaving her standing in her nearly-divine form. Yellow jade horns grew from her temples, while hair the colour of pale sand and golden wheat fell around her shoulders, unnaturally taking the place of raven black. Her skin was milky white, more silver than any other flesh tone, and shimmered the colour of silver. She looked at Kijanu with her out of place cobalt eyes, surrounded by whites and dotted with pupil. "Day and night cannot dwell together."

[Kijanu]

With the transformation Kijanu backpedaled, shocked and mortified by the change that inched over the skin of the older Chaktawe. To say she swatted away the hand that touched her forehead would have been an understatement for in her surprise she had all but smacked the hand aside before whatever was happening affected her as well. Wide eyes flashed in the change, the beautiful transformation, as it ended and left something so wonderful and perfect and incredibly different that Kijanu really only had the instinct to run away, get back to safely, or beat it down, crush it into the sand before it brought the strange disease back to her people and infected them too. Seeing the horns and the gentle glimmer of starlight on her skin, Kijanu halted her blows and her feet from running. Perhaps Chiaja was a spirit of the night sky come to bring words to her people under the guise of one of their own. She stepped back, guarded and hostile and grasping her staff tightly. She straightened her back and squared her wits before facing the now alien woman. "Who, or what, are you?" She spoke in a whisper despite the hardness of her ink eyes. She knew the name that the woman went by, but she felt that surely the name was one assumed while she dealt with the Chaktawe.

[Chiaja]

A Cheshire-cat smile revealed a row of too-white teeth, whiter than any normal for the Chaktawe. They glittered like pearls. She closed her mouth and pulled her gold-spun hair from its braid, the ends barely tipped in black from the clove of the seasons. She let her hair fall down her back and looked at the Chaktawe girl with feigned curiosity. She was threatened. This was the whole reason she never changed around other people. They felt she was either a monster or a goddess come to them in their mortal form. Ridiculous! But she was divine, in a way, for Leth's half of the day. She glanced up at the stars. Would this girl want an odd name, pretty as the stars themselves? A constellation, glittering from above? The first constellation that she noticed was Pyxis. Mariner's Compass. She doubted the girl knew her constellations or her stars. She'd probably think it was an otherworldy and surreal name, perfect for her now-form. "I am Pyxis." She spoke normally despite the girl's frightened whisper. Chiaja was around this girl's family every season, and the girl still didn't know who she was. Her mortal form was that of her long-lost aunt, the one who died 30, 40 years ago and fell, unaged and unaging, back to them.

[Kijanu]

If the others had seen Kijanu's reaction to Chiaja, they would have teased her mercilessly about her expression and tone for years, but without their loving methods she was free to be as shocked as she now was. She had tended goats for her family since she was a young child old enough to wield a sling and spent so much time with those animals and arguing with the tenacious Benshira that she hardly recognised Chiaja in her Chaktawe form. She paid more attention to the family she knew and the lifestyle she led that even during these gatherings among the people she was often in her own world. It was for this reason that the name Pyxis, given as Chiaja's name, stirred reverence in her. She believed that truly it was the name Chiaja kept secret from the others and she felt honoured to have received it. Her people had many names for the stars themselves and of the few notable ones Kijanu actually remembered, Pyxis had no place. "It is an honour to meet you, Pyxis," Kijanu's tone changed from fright to a slow rise of awe. For sure her brother would be taking the mickey out of her if he had known she was making such a twit out of herself before a friend of the family. Without him there to correct her and laugh at her she still didn't fully know who she was speaking to. "What are you?" She repeated to Chiaja.

[Chiaja]

This girl, this girl thought she was something to be revered, awed! She was, but not like this. Kijanu acted as if she were a deity to be worshiped. Chiaja wasn't quite sure whether or not she liked it. Everyone else seemed to know that she wasn't anything very special. Or at least, they thought. She was divine. She had been divine. She was certainly more graceful than these half-wit Chaktawe. Except Kalesse. Kalesse wasn't much of a half-wit, she was smart and knew how to get what she needed. Leth was on the horizon, blowing kisses in the form of moonlight over the sand. "I'm a fallen star, a child of Leth, a piece of Zintila." She was going to milk this for all it was worth. It wasn't her fault Kijanu didn't recognize her, nor was it her fault that she thought Chiaja was more mystical than she really was. The way this girl moved, even stood, was brutish and awful compared to Chiaja's grace. She wondered if Kijanu ever felt envy before. She must have before, even if most of the Chaktawe weren't much to be envied of. She knew her own Chaktawe form was a beauty, but nothing compared to this.

[Colombina]

The XP Wand Is Waved! Your Eth is the snootiest Eth I have ever seen, haha! I'm sorry there's not much here, but I couldn't find too many things that warranted xp/etc. Lovely description of how your Eth looks and her metamorphosis. Probably my favorite shift to date. PC's Loot 1 XP Subterfuge Lore of constellation Pyxis