Faces Change, People Don't (Closed)

[Chamaeleon]

Spring 39th 512 AV


Chamaeleon strode through the camp of the Crimson Edge like she belonged, much more confident in her bearing than she had been when she first arrived in Sunberth, and even in the ranks of the Crimson Edge itself. She still smiled at those she passed, perhaps a little shocking considering that Sunberth was a cut throat city and the only people who smiled seemed to be those on the verge of killing someone after a long hunt.

Chamaeleon even very nearly danced her way through the camp, her form the picture of light heartedness in Sunberth. She didn't belong perhaps, at least not in this city, but she did love to try and make her difference something important to others.

So, she skipped, and hopped, and twirled, and smiled, and laughed as she moved from one end of the camp to the other, looking for something she could do. She had friends here, or at least people she considered friends, and all were somehow bonded to her, whether by affiliation of friendship itself.

She came to pass by the tents of some of the more important figures of the Crimson Edge and was able to tell who lived in them by the appearance. Cade, the leader, dangled bones from the door of his and the place reeked of scents too foul, or perhaps too powerful, to name. The other that sat here, easy to identify, was that of Wrenmae.

Chamaeleon grinned at the thought of Wrenmae. The man had a knack for never, ever smiling and he seemed to enjoy being grumpy. The Ethaefal stood before his tent, smiling secretly to herself, before she looked around quickly and bolted inside, hoping that no one was inside and that, if they were, they were dressed. Humans tended to turn unsightly colours when they were naked.

[Wrenmae]

He was not completely...dressed, strained moonlight illuminating along his sweating flesh as he sat, cross-legged, bare-backed, quiet, holding his hands out in front of him. Along his arms were swirling designs, glyphs he had applied a few hours before. The ink cracked on his arms, dried in those twisting shapes of no real origin or meaning. Instead they served as conduits of his Djed, rivers carved into his flesh to channel the magic out and in, focus it, expand it. His right arm channeled the Djed faster, bunched it, allowed more to circulate up his arm. His left refined the Djed, forced it together in a long winding string of condensed energy. Altogether it increased his effective power by leaps and bounds, especially for the purposes he was currently concentrating on. His hands, slightly apart, held a ball of nothingness before him. It had taken several moments of concentration, purging his mind of the ambient distractions, moonlight, crickets, the dull murmur of conversation. He was closest to himself now, especially in this moment. Shroud, Wrenmae, Weaver, they were all striving as one in order to create this small ball of nothing, this void that sat so perfectly in his palms, hovering and sustained on the supply of Djed that flowed strong and thick through his arms. There was only the Void, only this nothingness. THrough it, all things would go, and from it, nothing could return. It was a harmony of peace, a deceitful replacement for sincere thought. This thing, this tiny predator, it wanted him bad...it wanted to swallow him, swallow this world. Such an unending hunger, such a ravenous- But a Symenestra woman had burst into his tent and, startled, Wrenmae dropped his concentration and the blackness was replaced by somethingness again, the glyphs on his arm cracking and dissipating in a flash of used energy. Only moonlight now. He turned to her, expecting Ana, with a snarl on his lips. But it was Chameleon, grinning in her own impishly seductive way. He reserved his feelings on her, compartmentalized them, sighed and closed his eyes. "Has the custom for knocking been forgotten where you come from?" He asked dryly, frowning, "You choose strange times to drop in moon-born, what do you want?"

[Lusa]

It had become a habit for Lusa to follow Chamaeleon around as she made her way about town, both day and night. Lusa was fascinated by Chamaeleon's transformations at dawn and dusk, feeling a strange kinship to her, as a being with two forms. Lusa often wondered which form Chamaeleon considered her true self; Lusa considered her deer form her true form, never feeling quite as comfortable with only two legs. Lusa found both of Chamaeleon's forms pretty; in the daytime, she shined and glittered, so radiant and happy, and Lusa loved looking upon her, like a sunflower in bloom. However, Lusa preferred the nighttime form; that form had a quieter scent, one that was soothing to Lusa. Chamaeleon was in this form now, so frail and thin and pale. And so she was following Chamaeleon through the moonlit camp, making a game of retracing her footprints in the dirt and grass. She reached Chamaeleon's apparent destination, Wrenmae's tent, and stopped outside as the Sym woman entered, wondering if she would be welcomed in as well. When no sounds of distress came from within, she assumed visitors were welcome, and opened the flap to enter.

[Chamaeleon]

Chamaeleon blinked, startled in her place by the abrupt, unexpected sight of Wrenmae, cross-legged and bare-backed, sitting in a thin sliver of moonlight that presented all the illumination she needed to see the inside of the tent clearly. Whatever he was doing, it died. Silver designs faded on his bare arms and a little circle of... of empty space, disappeared. Chamaeleon didn't know what to make of it, nor of the anger that had flashed in his eyes before being quelled and tucked away elsewhere.

She moved in when he didn't outright order her to leave, almost wary as she sidled closer and leaned over to see where the weird absence of anything had gone. Eventually, after being unable to find it with sight alone, she looked at him and smiled slightly.

"We had no need for doors and knocking where I am from, but if it makes you feel better..." She dropped a hand to the ground, pushing past blankets to the tough earth below, an rapped her thin knuckles on the solid ground. Afterwards, she.reached up and wrapped her fingers around his nearest forearm, gently but insistently pulling it closer so she could look at it. "Where did they go? The little silver swirls and the black ball?"

She lifted her violet eyes, with their wide pupils, and looked him in the face as she spoke. Her fangs were not yet responding to her desire to understand what she had inturrupted. "What did they mean?"

Suddenly, someone else pushed into the tent, and Chamaeleon laughed, a bright and piercing note that she quickly muted before someone else came to investigate. Seemed like Wrenmae was the only person concerned with knocking before entering in this place. It amused her even more when it was Lusa who entered, and she offered the girl a smile in greeting while moving back slightly from Wrenmae. She had dropped his arm and his eyes when Lusa had entered and focused her attention on her surroundings in general, showing an almost sheepish side of her that was completely artificial. She just wanted to allow the colour that had suddenly risen to her face to disappear.

[Wrenmae]

The new guest received the same pointed glare Cham had, melting immediately when the short black bangs shifted to reveal her brown doe eyes. Once more, another unexpected interruption. Shroud rocked back on his tailbone, hand on his chin as he looked between the two. Ever since the incident with the Crimson Edge, with Cade, Mok, and Eyrss, Shroud had been practicing his magic. From what he'd been told of the uncanny mage, creating defenses and elemental control were his forte...and one he was painfully adept at utilizing. Shroud hadn't the ability to fight on that kind of level, especially with so complete a defense. So he had turned to the Void and glyphing, mixing them with Hypnotism to try and create a different sort of power. The ability to erase, to send that pale creature screeching into the nothingness beyond the realm. So far progress was slow, the portal opened in increments of near unidentifiable size. He felt like a stranger in the camp, asleep among enemies, each pointed glare or silent stare was a separate accusation. Cham and Mok were some of the few he shared his tenuous trust with now. They and they alone understood him, supported him, at least grasped for a similar power as he did. Her fingers brushed his skin, splaying across his arm and grasping it. He almost pulled away, jerking from the touch of spindly fingers and black claws, but he held himself still instead. Cham was not someone he wanted to anger, not when his enemies grew thicker and his friends scarcer...it would not do for survival. Breathing from his nose, closing his eyes for a moment and then reopening them, Shroud motioned Lusa to enter the tent and close the flap, sitting back on his hands. "Glyphs and Voiding," he said simply, "Both arts I'm not willing to teach." He was quiet after, thinking back to Seidaku, the man who had taught him both. Magic was a weapon, like any other. It could be used to punish or to help, to inflict or heal, to build or destroy, and often people forgot that. He remembered but pushed it from his mind, uninterested in nostalgia. Everything felt dulled, the bile in his heart grew blacker the longer he stayed. He just needed a way to hurt them, ruin Cade and Eyrss for his humiliation...Mok's humiliation...hell, all of their humiliation. "What brings you both here so late?" He asked, raising an eyebrow, "A curious mage and her curious deer companion," He grinned, "What can I do for you?"

[Chamaeleon]

Chamaeleon wasn't one to be hurt by slights. She was beyond the people here, as pompous as that sounded, and their petty annoyances with her barely penetrated the shield of her own self worth. She didn't allow the tensing of the human under her fingers to bother her, simply because she knew her soul was much more worthy than his for the approval of a deity as radiant as the sun, or the moon for that matter. She was petulant though, an Ethaefal that believed she had made a friend or two on Mizahar after her birth, and her violet eyes glittered, pupils wide and accusingly dark. She smiled, revealing sharp edged canines that elongated only when aroused by hunger, in its many faces here.

"I was hoping I could startle you into showing some form of smile, you old grouch," she said, mockingly haughty. She laughed and relaxed, making her self at home on what she hoped was his bed. "What is this glyph and void stuff? I've not heard of it before." She was one who knew so little in a world so old and large. Magic was morphing, to her.

Lusa seemed to want to remain silent, perhaps fearing some belated tongue lashing that Wrenmae seemed so fond of delivering to innocent females who met his frustration. She felt sorry for the doe, and reached over to give her a gentle pat on the hand.

"I didn't expect you to be here, actually, Wrenmae," the Symenestran Ethaefal turned her violet eyes to the man again. She smiled, in her usual impish way. "Since your here, perhaps we can finish where we left off before?" Her eyebrows rose meaningfully, black lines that arched over the gemstones of her eyes. Wrenmae wasn't a stupid man, maybe he would remember the last time she had been in his tent, the night some spy had come barging in on them and caused enough problems to make her actually consider hurting him severely for answers as to why he was there. That night, Wrenmae had copied her body, made it into some feminine male version of her, and she hadn't gotten to acquire her own face. This was unfinished business. "Or were you hoping I'd forgotten that night?"

[Wrenmae]

"One of your kind forgetting? Unlikely." He sat back against the curve of the tent and grinned, eyes dangerous in the settled gloom. Lusa seemed to note the tension, backing out of the tent and leaving the two to sort out their differences in privacy. Ana was nowhere to be seen, out practicing with Zandelia or getting herself into trouble in the market. The hypnotist's eyes lingered on her shoulders, the delicate curve of her body swaddled in cloth that only enhanced the imagination. "Voiding and glyphing are magics," he answered her simply, "But I am your morphing instructor, not a teacher of my other secrets. You choose one discipline to learn from me and learn it well. Breathe a word about my powers and I'll make it your last." He glanced furtively at the tent walls, as if seeing out into the night, "I am not so confident my comrades will have favorable opinions to my powers...and I do not relish the feeling of rope on my neck by some Sunberthian rabble." Standing, he stepped behind Cham and made sure the tent was closed tight, leaving them in darkness. The moment he sat, his body was already shifting. His arms grew longer, his hair frayed and spilled across his back, leeching the color from his skin and hair and leaving pure alabaster instead. The morph was a model and took seconds, his arms lengthening, claws popping off his fingers, chest narrowing, bones lighter, and fangs poking at the inside of his mouth. There was darkness, and suddenly light...he could see her in the dim gloom as the Symenestra transformation was complete. "What do you want from me, Chamaeleon?"

[Chamaeleon]

"So quick to show off, are you?" Chamaeleon murmured as Wrenmae's form slid into that of his Symenestra countenance. Violet eyes glittered with veiled menace into the garnet eyes he made for himself. She didn't like that the shift was so easy for him, but that was nothing. She could make it easy for herself as well, if she only tried. She was sure of that. "Maybe I'd like more of it," she suggested with a wry smile. "Maybe I want an actual human model for my collection, in exchange for giving you a Symenestra one. Or are you going to deny me that?" By the tone of her voice, she would threaten him as well, maybe in the way he threatened her already. "That would be so very unfair." She tutted at him playfully and lounged in the tent in what she assumed was Ana's bed as though she belonged. "So, you going to show me more?" OOCShort, I know. Sorry for late reply, Wren!

[Wrenmae]

In the absence of the kelvic, Shroud languished beside Cham. There was a sort of lazy tension between them, the ordinary rush of hormones associated with such a sensuous and ambitious woman. Shroud shuffled around the feelings uneasily. Sunberth was awash with talented whores and songstresses of moans and passions. He was human, painfully so, and his heart could no more deny the hot blood pulsing through his veins than he could the way his eyes crept along the curve of her body. She lay in Ana’s bedding as though it was hers, and certainly Shroud could not argue the appeal in that.

“A human shape?” He asked her, smiling, “I can offer you both male and female variants if that is your wish.” He stretched, djed racing down his skin and across his muscles. He didn’t activate any, not yet. Instead he simply drank her in with his eyes. She was beautiful, even as a Widow. Her eyes were luminescent in the gloom of the tent and her entire body quivered with unused energy, untapped potential.

Another one of the fallen, eh? What’s your fixation with them?

Their kind are a rather interesting species, Shroud thought back, Abandoned by their goddess, they transform depending on the position of the sun. Do you not find such involuntary morphing fascinating?

What? A solid, stable, non metamorphic being like me could never HOPE to comprehend such versatility.

Shroud almost scowled, Watch your tongue.

I would if I had one.

“Of course, my dear,” He whispered, reaching over to run a finger up her milky elbow to her shoulder, “I’m interested in a more ambitious transformation tonight…when we’ve finished with yours.”

[Chamaeleon]

She idled as addressed her worries, taking the moment to appraise his living space. Ana had a comfortable pile of furs for a bed. Chamaeleon liked that. Wrenmae seemed to have the same fashion and she found her mind trundling down to questions about why these two lived together. When he touched her, she looked at him again. Something like a shiver raced up her spine and she wondered at what he meant for but a tick. She was more easily snagged by possibilities of learning new faces and skins and bodies. She was fascinated by power and wanted it greatly but was unwilling to take it by force. That was for stronger people. Her way was to smile and laugh and convince. Words were her actions when she was overly cautious about the thin build of her small body at night and concerned with maintaining the form her goddess gave her during the day. "What if I was to say I want both male and female forms," she said, tilting her head down and looking at him through the long eyelashes that framed her amethyst gaze. Suddenly, it bothered her that she lay so easily before him, as though offering herself to him. It had never bothered her before whether men or women wanted her, but alone now with a man she admittedly found attractive, her skin crawled at the thought of the things he might ask for as payment, but not unpleasantly. It was a mix of emotions that had her looking away again in a moment, relieving herself of seeing him in the gloom with her. Even as a widow he still had that Wrenmae handsomness she associated with his normal body. His expressions were human, through and through even if the face they crossed was a Symenestra one. She didn't sit up though and face him again as an equal. The bed was much too comfortable to abandon simply for nerves. Her lips twitched in a smirk as she steeped herself and faced him again. "What transformation would you be suggesting, dear?" Tacking on the endearment, as he had for her, her smile broadened and revealed a hint of fang.