tushanshu | 019 ✤ video

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019 ✤ video

Um...

[ there's a familiar voice to go with a... vaguely familiar face. the features are shaped the same, but gold eyes are now a light, silver blue with hair a silvery white to match. it falls over thin shoulders in wispy waves, cowlicks more apparent now than when his hair was short. ]

This is Akito!

I learned how to shape shift a while ago... I don't do it all of the time like the kedan, but I like to sometimes for fun. I felt like trying something new, and I ended up liking this face enough to use more than once!

[ it's easier to hold a shift if he has a good mental picture of what it looks like, though he never bothered coming up with new faces to keep before. ]

So, ah... If you see a person looking like this, it's me.

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Fascinating.

[That sounds like Science might be in the offing.]

But you can change the structure of your face, correct? What other limitations have you discovered?

If I don't understand how something would work, or it's too biologically impossible, I can't do it. And a majority of my body has to be unaltered - so I can change things, but not enough that I couldn't be recognized by someone who knows me?

I can't give myself any more appendages except a tail, since I just extend my tailbone for that... I use it to help carry deliveries. It's the shift I do the most.

A tail?

[She heard him, all right. She's just somewhere between startled and thrilled.]

The implications of that, though-- you can't add appendages, but extending what's already there-- have you tried lengthening your fingernails, or shifting something like claws? Evidently you can shift dead tissue as well as living, if you can alter your hair...

[She's nearly tripping over too many thoughts at once, sheerly enthusiastic about the possibilities.]

[ claws are something he does pretty regularly when he's traveling at night, so it's easiest for him to just shift one hand to have claws a few inches long and hold it up for her to see. ]

I do this one a lot too. It's really useful.

[Oh good, he's ahead of her.]

For utility as well as combat, I'd assume?

Hm. Have you ever tried, intentionally, to make yourself completely unrecognizable?

For utility I usually just shift one finger into a claw, since clawed fingers are hard to hold things with! [ a small laugh. ]

I have before, but when I try it won't change everything fully. I look different, but people who know me would still be able to recognize me.

Fascinating.

The magic-- it is magic? -- sounds context-sensitive, to an extent. I wonder if it depends on the perceptions of others... Hm. How did you come by it? You said you learned, so I assume you haven't simply been able to do this all along...

Ah... It was a gift, of sorts. [ he knows the circumstances are suspicious, but he's not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. he'll do good with his ability while he can, and discard it as soon as it seems to be doing more harm than good.

that doesn't mean he wants to have to explain that yet again though. ]

Sometimes I get payment for my services in items if my clients don't have the juulan to spare, and sometimes what I receive are strange things that only work their magic with me.

[ not necessarily a lie, since it's entirely possible that it's the truth. ]

[Yeah, that does sound kind of suspicious. But if Akito's had it this long with no ill side-effects...]

Hm. That's happened more than once? That's... oddly specific.

It's happened twice.

[...Still odd.]

I presume you would have said something if there was anything negative accompanying these gifts.

[A moment, then a little shrug, letting it go.]

If you discover anything else you can do with your shapeshifting, I'm curious.

When it's warmer out I'm going to try shifting gills for swimming. I can tell you how it goes.

Please do. I'd appreciate it.

[A little smile, and that's all she's got. Science will wait for warmer weather, apparently.]

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019 ✤ video

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