Placeholder Changing faces

Snaeha dabbles with Morphing

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A surreal cavern city inhabited by Symenestra where stones glow and streets are reams of silk. Cocoon like structures hang between stalactites and cascade over limestone flows in organic and eerie arabesques. Without a Symenestra willing to escort you, entrance is impossible.

Changing faces

Postby Snaeha Datura on August 26th, 2014, 6:05 pm

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Changing Faces
64th Summer, 514AV, The Datura Web, fourteenth bell.


Snaeha was unhappy.

"Empty your mind, he said." She grumbled.

"Separate your mind from your physical body, he said." Her eyes closed, for the thousandth time that day.

Then -- silence.

The young Symenestra woman remained in her position for a good five ticks; sitting on her bed, legs crossed and eyes closed, breathing peacefully. On the sixth teeth, her eyes opened and her throat released a beastlike growl.

"How the shyke am I meant to separate my body from my mind?!" She asked herself, outraged at her own lack of progress.

Snaeha was trying to Morph. She had not done so successfully yet, despite all her practise. All... one bell of it.

She was not a patient woman. Snaeha liked doing things - and doing them perfectly - on her first attempt. She was far from a pro at magic, with only a very basic skill in Hypnotism. But she had stumbled upon that form of magic without even meaning to, just by one day staring at her reflection...

So surely, if she could learn how to Hypnotise without really trying, learning to Morph her own appearance should be just as easy.

Apparently not.

Rutreg, the visiting Alvadian Wizard, had given Snaeha a demonstration of Morphing by changing his fifty-something arm into that of a tanned, muscular younger man. Even now, as she recalled how his skin had twisted and changed, Snaeha felt a little sick. It had been an unnerving thing to witness, but her desire to learn how to Morph her own appearance had simply flourished. What an ability to have!

Snaeha was all about her looks, and took great pride in her appearance. It was actually quite the surprise to those who knew her that Snaeha was interested in the type of magic that would alter how she looked. But from her own vain viewpoint, being able to change her appearance, even slightly, would reinforce Snaeha's strongest belief: looks are everything.

She closed her eyes again, full of determination to get this whole meditation thing down. Her mother meditated every so often, though Snaeha was always unsure why Narissa Datura felt her life was so hassled that meditation was needed.

Focus on your breathing That inner voice was most certainly her mother's, and Snaeha sighed heavily at the gentle reminder. She had spent her entire life breathing successful without needing to focus on it, so how was Snaeha meant to suddenly start paying attention to such instinctual actions?

"In.... Out...." She inhaled and exhaled on cue, making sure her breaths were long and deep. For five chimes in fact, Snaeha sat there, controlling her breathing and trying to concentrate on very little else.

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Changing faces

Postby Snaeha Datura on August 28th, 2014, 1:44 pm

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But breathing was boring! Soon enough, Snaeha found her mind was wandering, and images of dresses, make up, jewels and other pretty things flashed in her memory.

"Now I want to shop." She whined pathetically.

Giving up on that meditation malarkey, Snaeha grabbed the silver hand-held mirror that was never too far from her bed. The mirror was intricately designed, with flowers and swirls curving up the handle and around the frame of the glass. She held the mirror at arms length, admiring her reflection and inspecting her skin.

When she had learnt the basics of Hypnosis, Snaeha had been doing no more than that she was doing now: looking at her reflection and appreciating the pretty woman staring back at her. It seemed terribly vain, but perhaps the only time Snaeha was at her most peaceful, most focused, was when she was looking at herself.

"Well, at least I'm nice to look at," she mumbled grumpily. She set the mirror down, resting it against her pillow and angling it so she could still see her reflection hands-free.

Then she began to do her makeup, starting with a light powder foundation. Snaeha dabbed a wide brush into the powder, tapping any excess off the bristles before sweeping the brush across her forehead. The process was repeated four times for her nose, cheeks and chin. By the time she had blended the powder smoothly into her face with quick little circles of the brush, Snaeha's face had a rose-pink tint to it. She positively glowed!

Her next task was the mascara, and this was Snaeha's favourite piece of make-up because it made her eyes look all the more gorgeous. She pushed her top eyelashes upwards with the coiled bristles, making them seem darker, fuller and longer. After two applications of both eyes, even Snaeha herself could not stop staring at her bright amethyst eyes.

In fact, Snaeha laid down her make-up tools and shifted her position to look directly at her reflection. For several chimes, she sat there, gazing down at herself longingly.

Separate your mind from your physical body.

The strange task seemed even more impossible, now Snaeha that was looking at her own reflection. Her physical body - what she could see of it - was too solid, too close for her to ever consider parting it from her mind. She was one being, a body and mind combined together to create her experience as an individual. To separate those two factions would be divide her individuality up, to make her two halves of something as opposed to a whole being.

And yet...
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Changing faces

Postby Snaeha Datura on August 28th, 2014, 2:49 pm

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Chimes passed, and still Snaeha remained in her frozen position, amethyst eyes meeting those of her own reflection. Her breathing had changed, becoming deep and slow. She mulled over the idea: Separate your mind from your physical body.

The individual words began to lose all meaning as she mentally repeated them, but the phrase itself - the idea of separating her mind from her body - began to make sense.

The woman beyond the mirror, with her red hair and purple eyes was not Snaeha Datura. She was a representation, a body for Snaeha to use for her lifetime. Yes, the face was a pretty one, but Snaeha Datura existed beyond prettiness. She - the person, the individual, the being - existed beyond her physical limitations. Her mind, filled with the mentalities and memories that made her the unique persona she had become, was encased in the physical form her mother the Inarta had birthed. Over the course of her lifetime, as everyone else did, Snaeha came to accept the body she lived within as a representation of herself, of her mind.

In reality, though, her body and appearance was nothing more than a basket, like the one her mother used to keep fruit in. Remove the fruit, and you have nothing more than an empty shell. Move the fruit into another basket, and they remain the peach and plum they were initially.

The contents do not change, but the outer layer can.

She would remain Snaeha Datura, the sarcastic, vain, witty individual regardless of whether she was encased in the redheaded Symenestra she had embodied for the entirety she lifetime, or took the appearance of someone else.

The contents do not change, but the outer layer can.

Some strange, abstract instinct told Snaeha that this turn of thinking was what the Alvadian Wizard had meant. Ultimately - and as much as it pained Snaeha to admit it - appearances were not everything. They formed the basis on which individuals were judged by other mortal beings, so they were hugely important in most societies. But on a personal level, the physique that an individual embodied was nothing more than a basket in which to store metaphorical fruit.

It was quite the breakthrough.
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Changing faces

Postby Snaeha Datura on September 9th, 2014, 10:30 am

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Her breathing had quickened now, aroused by the excitement of her own realisation. Snaeha refocused her attention to the mirror, feeling strangely detached from the reflection that stared back at her. She had always delighted in her appearance, how pretty she was and how her red hair made her stand out in Kalinor.

It all seemed a little futile now.

"I am not that face." Her words were barely a murmur, but Snaeha repeated them until they lost all meaning, "I am not that face, I am not that face, I am not that face..." She stared down at the amethyst-eyed beauty looking at her from beyond the mirror, and Snahea began to visualise another face. It was an amalgamation of all Symenestra faces she had seen in her lifetime, with fine black hair and a sharp chin, gold eyes.

Slowly - remarkably so - she began to change.

It started with her hair, right at the roots at the crown of her head. The red darkened, becoming deep and lovely before all colour was drained. The blackness grew over the length of her hair, eating away at that lovely red that Snaeha had always been so fond of. At the same time, the length of her hair shortened, becoming unevenly cropped at her ears.

It was her eyes next, and though this disturbed Snaeha even more than watching her own hair change colour and style, she could not look away from her altering reflection. Purple and gold battled in her irises, one engulfing the other and mixing together. Soon enough the amethyst was conquered, and Snaeha found herself looking into the eyes of a complete stranger.

A hand reached up to her jawline, feeling the new sharpness of it. She gasped.

It was no longer her face, and Snaeha was not sure how to react or feel in response. Part of her wanted to celebrate, but at the same time she was all too aware that it was not her face that she now wore. How would her family react? What if she couldn't return to her original appearance?

Panic gripped the Symenestra, and all at once her mind became filled with horror and her hands touched her face and hair, trying to claw back the red and purple. When she looked back at her mirror, with great relief Snaeha recognised herself once more. She lent forward, inspecting her face as if she was scared it would suddenly change again. After a chime or so, she lent back, happy that she was once again her old self.

She would need to learn to control her thoughts and not to panic. When Rutreg had morphed in front of her, the old wizard had been at ease, with no sign of distress ever crossing his face. If Snaeha were ever to become proficient, she would need to keep herself calm throughout her Morphing. It was rare for her to doubt her own ability, but then again Snaeha rarely did something that could risk her own beauty. Some things were just too important to play around with!

She picked up a hairbrush and began to groom her hair, touching it affectionately like one would an old friend. "I missed you." She whispered to it, smiling faintly with relief all over again, "whoever said black was the new red was seriously disturbed."
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Changing faces

Postby Brandon Blackwing on September 10th, 2014, 3:50 pm

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Snaeha Datura

XP Award

  • mediatation +2
  • Cosmetology +1
  • Morphing +1
  • Observation +2


Lore Award

  • Morphing: not as easy to learn as Hypnotism
  • Meditation: Focus on your breathing
  • Mascara: makes eyes even more gorgeous
  • Body: shell to store the mind in
  • Morphing: Using comparisons with mirror-reflections and fruitbaskets to realize the meaning of morphing
  • Face Morphing model: Amalgam of Symenestra faces
  • Morphing is creepy!


Notes
I liked this, I found it a joy to read, fluent and nice. Entirely different than what I usually grade, but certainly as fun! I really enjoyed Snaeha's personality seeping though, and the way you went about making her understand what morphing actually is. Good job!

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