[SO-Sahova] The Shape Of Things

[Razkar]

1st Day of Spring, 514AV
Near the coast of Sahova
7th Bell

The calendars said that Winter was over and Spring had just arrived, but the weather gods seemed unwilling to hurry the transition. Take a man who had no idea what season it was and plant him on that deck, that morning, and he would tell you it was Winter.

The air was chilled, salty tang sharp with frost as it blew from the far east. Rising Syna did so at a leisurely pace, far from the early starter she was in Summer or, well, Spring.

Winter still clung to he; the season of death and darkness, or so many believed. Razkar had little experience of "Winter", other than a means for measuring time. The jungle was either hot and humid or less hot and humid, but those two characteristics were functionally eternal. Only when he'd crossed the ocean did he discover these strange things called "ice" and "snow" and, apparently, they had their own season.

All these thoughts hovered at the edge of Razkar's mind, the mild musings of the morning, when the brain was waking and yet most active. But he didn't want to waste that fresh energy. He had plans for the first dawn of the year.

With practiced, careful ease he slid his form from under his sleeping lover, resting it on the warm space he left in their cramped bunk. He knew he should make haste but he paused, a still and shallow-breathing statue gazing down at her.

Red hair flaming even in the low light. Beautiful, delicate face hardened in places but never more peaceful than when sleeping. He reached out to stroke it, but... no. She deserved her rest.

The Myrian tiptoed around and over the crew of the Svefra vessel, taking nothing but his cloak up to the top deck. He hissed as the bracing wind greeted him, slapped him, roughed him up and blasted away the last vestiges of sleep.

Early Spring, late Winter... what's the difference?

He'd sat at the prow, cross-legged, feeling the familiar pitch and roll of the vessel under him. That was nearly a bell ago. His eyes hadn't opened and, of course, his hearing and touch had heightened to make up for that. The creaking of the wood... the swaying of ropes, their gentle slap on the sails... but eventually...

Remember what the Elder said in Sunberth. Focus on nothing but the idea; the objective. Empty your mind of all other things. Only then can you change your form, shape it... morph it.

Breathing. That was all he focused on. Not his hopes or fears for the year or even that morning. His charges were forgotten, slumbering deep and tranquil like the young across the world. Even his love faded from his mind and finally he felt a strange emptiness.

He drifted in it. The force keeping him on the deck seemed to lessen and it was almost like he was floating. He knew it was just a side-effect and didn't focus on it; didn't focus on anything. Like the Flux, like Shielding, the key was a paradox of thought: to empty your mind and focus it at once.

It took time. It took effort. But eventually, the Myrian felt himself... ready. Felt djed pulse and course through him as he had a dozen times when he practiced the other wyrd skills he had learned the last year.

But this was far more radical. The Flux and Shielding harnessed the astral body and expelled it outward. Morphing, however... it turned that same djed on the body it inhabited, crafting it into a new shape.

Razkar had thought of the risks... and judged them worth it. This wyrd was a strange and exotic to him now, but the applications if he could master it...

No form would be beyond you. You can literally be more than a mortal man, more than-

His lips tensed, just a little, and he chased the thought away. Emptiness. Separation. That was all... and in that void, he saw his body. Felt it numbly as if he was remembering it. Thought of his first step, his first shape...

Edreina flashed into his mind. The ghost of a smile pulled at his lips.

Razkar held up his left hand, unseen by his closed eyes, and felt it warmed by the brightening ball rising like a fiery Kraken from the horizon. He knew it was there in the mundane world; opening his eyes would confirm it. But now... now...

Now he saw five tendrils of djed, pulsing, flowing, spread like the roots of a tree on its end. He saw these tendrils flex as his hands flexed.

Syna warmed him, but it was not the heat that made his hands flex and tingle. The Myrian smiled again, and felt a single digit shrink and contort, thin and prick all over like it was the center of a tiny rainstorm.

He focused on what he wanted to see. The unbidden image he had chosen for his first attempt.

Slowly, and with his heart paused in his chest... Razkar opened his eyes-

Wider. Wider. Wider.

-and saw Edreina's pale, freckled finger where his own forefinger should be. It was far from perfect, though. The skin undulated as if there were bugs under it, and recurring blotches of darkness - his true tone - pulsed erratically across its surface. A failure, many wuld say.

No. A first attempt. None are perfect. But the foundation is there, the truth.

You can do this. You can improve it. From acorns do trees mighty as towers go. Such as it is with this...

"Myri's Blood..."

Razkar could have stared for bells at his tiny milestone, but knew better. He was hardly new to djed, though he was far from a mage. Overgiving existed in every facet of the wyrd, and his soul shuddered at what horror could be wrought if a Morphing mage lost control in form (or between form).

He breathed in and flexed his hand, willing the djed to withdraw, to drain from his finger, back to his-

It was like watching his finger under water. Like a sheen of deep, flowing tide was between him and his limb. The skin crawled and flowed like wet clay, like it was set to explode. Fear gripped him again and he focused, he willed-

This is your body. Your djed. Your mind. You control it. Respect it, and you shall not be harmed.

The waters receded. He flexed the hand that was his own, thicker and harder. Flexed it, clenched it a few times until he was convinced - and he almost laughed at the notion - he'd forgotten anything.

"Apparently not..."

And then, of course, the pain. Whatever wyrd whirled endlessly within him, Razkar had learned by now that manipulating it did not come with a cost. Now he winced and screwed his eyes shut as spasms of aching, numbing fatigue zipped up and down his arm like he'd grasped a lightning bolt.

Perhaps this is a sign, he idly wondered, massaging the pain from it over several chimes, that the gods do not want us yoking such power. Yet if that were s, why give it to us?

Syna climbed. The wind blew. Razkar clasped his knees and leaned back, sparkling eyes and proud smile facing up at She who watched through the ink on his brow and the gnosis purring at his neck.

"A new year, and a new advantage for your son, Blessed Myri. Watch and be proud, I beseech thee. Your Son shall master this wyrd, and the victory shall be yours..."

[Razkar]

He wondered if skipping breakfast counted as fasting. Nah, probably not. Fasting you measured in days, not hours, and already-

His stomach growled like something caged under his ribs, and Razkar decided to forgo the fasting. Today, at any rate. He smiled softly, cross-legged on the prow again, feeling his face grow warmer and warmer, barring the expected freezing gusts.

Soon even they became... not indistinct, because they were too cold for that. But just handled. Easy to block out. His senses seemed to recede from his skin, leaving behind ear, nose, touch, all the pleasure of the body.

But you will not need those, where you are going...

Which was, he realized, yet another contradiction. Manipulating your physical form by forgetting about it, then returning with your astral body at your beck and call? How did mages not go mad from all the mixed signals?

Heh. You're assuming they don-

A frown bit down on his eyes as he bit down on his thoughts. He had only one that he needed in that moment; all others were just distractions. With the voices quieted, he found the peace he wanted... felt the rippling djed under his muscles-

-no, not under them-

-apart from them. A separate entity of star shine and flowing darkness, intangible and yet indefatigable. The meditating Myrian held up his right hand and saw the shimmering outline of his djed. His mind's eyes or a sixth sense, he did not know, but he could see it, and in his seeing... could change it.

He breathed in and willed the djed to his hand, planting the model he wished into his skin. Again Razkar's lips rippled as he felt his skin tick and undulate, more amused than repulsed by the sensation. He fixed the model firm in his mind, willed his djed into his skin, to change it and morph it and-

-he opened his eyes... and saw freckles.

He wished Edreina could see this. The hands that he'd woken to for seasons now, usually draped over his stomach with her snuggled deep into his chest. She claimed it was because he was protective; he guessed she was a heat thief, like his aunt's ocelot. Many a morning he'd studied her pale, speckled hand; marveled at the odd feel of the little orange bumps.

It was an easy thing to take as a model. So familiar, after all.

And now he was seeing those freckles on the back of his own hand, the skin around them pale as her own, but once again, far from consistent. The freckles vanished and reappeared like they were bobbing in milk, and the edges of the pale skin flickered and oozed like it, too. Razkar held it for ticks... until the itching became stinging... then with a heavy exhale he let the djed drain from his-

"Shyke!"

-too late. His skin burned like someone had shoved it into a lantern, scorching, stretching, until it was numb and the muscle under pulsed angrily. Razkar gripped his arm with his teeth grinding hard enough to pop his polars as the feeling spread to his wrist, his forearm... and then halted.

For many chimes he knelt there, breathing hard, willing and waiting the pain away. Pins and needles dipped in dog shit and acid pricked every patch of skin that recovered, including his bones, his muscles, his marrow.

Overgive, and the consequences are dire. Probably moreso for a skill so radical and all-encompassing. Prudence, boy. Patience, prudence and caution.

Learn then, or don't bother trying to learn anything else.

He nodded at his own internal tutor - which sounded like an odd mix of his parents, Huskabar and Edreina - and rolled backward once his arm was his own again, landing on his feet in an easy roll and turning on one heel with the same deft smoothness.

Well, one thing that's not so painful to master.

Razkar took one last look at rising Syna, now well on her way to her rightful place, and gave a quick bow of respect before heading back down to his cabin, and the freckled hands still waiting for him.