Little Blue Men

by **Marion Kay** on May 12th, 2015, 1:18 am

18 Spring 515
Kulkukan Tavern and Inn
Marion's room

The building was silent, night having finally settled over the city like a muffling blanket. It was almost suffocating in its stillness, but the dark was a comfort, and one in which Marion found she rarely had the opportunity to indulge. So she reveled in it now and let the bell wash over her. It had to be morning by now, but even the songbirds didn't dare stir until light kissed the horizon, and that was still some time away.

The world felt somehow smaller here, calmer, less complicated. She didn't have to lie. She was not the actress. She was not the bouncing blonde that smiled to strangers. She was not the law-abiding citizen, nor was she the harbinger of destruction she often fancied herself. She wasn't the foreigner from across the sea, and she wasn't the Sunberthian immigrant. She wasn't even Marion Kay -- that name meant nothing here.

Nothingness. It was something she had striven for so long, to be nothing and everything simultaneously. It was the great push and pull, a balance every morpher hoped to achieve no matter what their individual motivations for doing so were.

Marion laid on the floor, the hardwood's chill bleeding across her back and through her pants, refreshing against her skin. Her midriff was left bare, the cotton shirt she so commonly wore laying discarded on the floor, and her hair spilled loosely about her head, a halo of gold in the darkness. Her hands splayed on either side of her body, the pads of her fingers pressed into the wood like tiny anchors holding her to this world. Her eyes were open, tracing the moonlight shapes on the ceiling, looking without seeing. Instead, her focus was turned inward, thoughts turning slowly through her mind as if rotating on the surface of a pool. They floated, and she was a feather on the breeze, dancing across the top of them. Too much pressure and the glass surface would ripple and shatter, leaving her mind scattered.

Emptiness, balance, focus. The cornerstones of her art. But it also required a fearlessness, and a confidence -- not that she would be free from mistakes, but that those mistakes would not hinder her forward momentum. That was the gift Ssena had given her, the fearlessness to embrace mistakes as part of the struggle towards perfection. After all, perfection was hardly worth chasing if it wasn't going to be a challenge.

She felt her chest rise and fall, the expansion and retraction of her lungs. It was a cleansing motion, expelling the old and bringing in the new. There was something purifying in each breath. Marion traced the flow of it with her mind, into her body, swirling in her chest. The cleanest air was closest to her throat, but it was taken in with shallow breaths that reflected a shallow nature. She wished to dig deeper, to refresh the darkest recesses of her body, to sift through those places that had grown stale and make them new once more. She shifted her breath to her gut, filling the bottom of her lungs first in one extended breath and expelling it, over the course of many ticks, in one long exhale.

And once her world was still and fresh, she reached inside herself. Drawing her djed forward was easy enough in this state of mind. There were no barriers, no surprises, just her and the vast, cool emptiness of the dark, reflected on the surface of her soul. She reached out to it, the cold stillness within, imagining her fingers dipping into that glassy pool of thought. She penetrated that surface, feeling it along the fringes of her mind, but her touch bloomed no ripples. The feather that was her being still float delicately along that surface, undisturbed. But her probing fingers felt the waters churning just below. It betrayed the presence of a beast, lonely, hungry, and angry, lurking in the depths. A beast within her that was begging to be released, the intensity of it fueling the power she contained within her body.

More than that though, Marion felt a consciousness there, the quiet pulsation of thoughts that were somehow both not her own yet undeniably tied to her being. It was darker even than the black air that filled her vacant vision; angrier than any rage she had ever felt; and infinitely more dangerous, for there was something intoxicating about the way it crooned for her when as she became aware of it. It called her not by her given name, but by her essence. It spoke not in words, but in vague sensations. It appealed to her now with the taste of fear, bittersweet on her tongue, along with the silvery chiming of bells in the distance, otherworldly in their tinkling, and the promise of power, limitless power if only she would allow herself to surrender control.

It drew her close, eerily merry in its enticing, and Marion could sense how easy it would be to release herself to that darkness, to let it carry her burdens. All she had to do was relax, submerge herself in that pool of consciousness, give herself to it in whole. She could imagine herself floating down, down, down into that black water...

And perhaps she might have, if some grating noise didn't wrench her mind back towards reality.

A wet ripping noise burgeoned across the room, and Marion found herself staring at the moon-streaked planks of the ceiling. She wasn't alone. Of course she wasn't alone. There was an akalak in her bed, passed out drunk from only a short time earlier. The smell of ale and body odor hit Marion like a brick wall, and a name wobbled across her mind as if it were some kind of explanation. Velatos.

by **Marion Kay** on May 27th, 2015, 8:05 pm

With a calmness and a patience that was wholly unlike her, Marion pushed herself into a sitting position. She could feel her muscles coiling expectantly, on edge, and humming in anticipatory sensitivity. Her deepest concentration may have been broken, but her djed still waited, seeping through every fiber of her being in preparation of what was to come. It was a heady feeling, knowing that such power was hers to command, that with a single stroke of her will she could become anything other than what she was. But it wasn't as heady as the stench in this room.

Velatos snored, that was the noise she had heard. He'd rolled on to his back at some point in he night, mouth dangling open and constricting the connection between his nose and his throat. For a few moments she watched him, the faint outline of his hulking figure shuddering in the darkness. She'd thought him to be an easy target, and for the most part she hadn't been wrong. He was desperate for a woman's touch, or perhaps it was only the alcohol that made him such. Either way, at her beckoning he'd followed from the tavern easily enough, sloppy kissing propelling them to her room. She didn't want to think about the circumstances that had impeded her plan (more specifically, she did not want to think about Hirem), but she was distantly grateful for the circumstances that allowed her to avoid going to the lengths she was otherwise prepared to in order to find the information she sought.

And the information she sought was nothing profound. She simply wanted to observe, to see how the akalak body operated, to take note of all the details that set the race apart from all others. Perhaps it was something she could have gathered through day to day interaction -- Marion hardly expected these men to hold some kind of secret beyond what she could see when walking through the street, unless there was something unexpected about their anatomy hidden beneath their trousers. There were aspects of their culture that she was unaware of, of course, she wouldn't fool herself about that. But all she wanted was a model, something to base a transformation off of so as to blend more seamlessly with their society. To become one of them, as far as her talents would allow, would be a significant advantage as far as she was concerned. Women garnered too much attention here, and any men who were neither big nor colorful were all but shunned. Both were too conspicuous and ill-suited for whatever plan she was devising in the back of her mind. She didn't yet know what horrors she was going to unleash on this city, but she knew that, until she had the power to hold her own against a city that so feared the truths she was bound to spread, subtlety would be her ally.

Marion stood, her breath still falling deep and even, and made her way to the door with careful steps. The knob there was unexpectedly cold in her fingers, and her hold on her djed faltered for a moment at the contact. It was too real, too grounding, reminding her too much that this was her body and her natural state, her, her, her, self. She waited there a long moment, face a neutral mask while her djed threatened to withdraw back through her hand and to her core. But her will was strong, and she refused its passage. Her mind settled. Her djed settled. She opened the door.

An oil lamp hung on the wall nearby, nearly empty put still projecting enough light to illuminate the hallway, especially after Marion's eyes had gotten adjusted to the darkness. It was there to help the tenants find their way in an out at night, but the city was asleep and she had more use of it than the empty hall did. She snagged it and retreated back into her room.

Brushing aside her toiletries, she set the lamp next to her mirror, atop the dresser where it could throw its waning light across the room. With that, she moved towards the bed once more, back to Velatos's heavy body and his deep, nearly rhythmic sounds of slumber. His skin, previously such a rich and vibrant indigo, was now tinged with ruddy hues of purple. Perspiration clung to his brow and neck. Marion shuffled closer, casting long shadows along the wall, and touched her index finger to his face. Probing. He didn't stir, heavily asleep and too enraptured in whatever dream-visions had his eyes sliding back and forth behind their lids. That would make this easier.

The corners of Marion's mouth curled upward slightly, the ghost of a rueful little smile as she gently lowered a finger to the buttons of his shirt, almost sorry for her trickery but knowing it had to be done. No harm would come to the fellow beyond what had already been done, and as she undid the buttons of the shirt, it became clear how much harm had already been done. There was a ring of dark flesh around his neck, already bruised from the stranglehold Hirem the Benshira had put him in, and for a moment Marion wondered if perhaps the snoring was a side effect of a collapsed wind pipe. Beyond that, past the akalak's muscled chest, another hefty bruise was beginning to form on his side, just below the rib cage. She gave it a quick look before moving on. If the injuries he'd sustained were serious, she'd have to answer for something. But that would wait until the morning, and there was no use concerning herself about it now.

When she'd finished with the shirt, she pulled it from his body one arm at a time, slowly at first, but gaining momentum once she realized just how out of it Velatos was and that he would not be waking up any time soon. Next were the boots, which slid off easily enough, and the pants, which she unlaced and tugged from his legs, leaving him laying in his skivvies. Marion pursed her lips in distaste, not exactly enjoying the thought that his body was now free to sweat all over her sheets. But at least, if he woke up like this, it would make it more believable when she tried to convince him that they had, after all, "petched all night."

All articles of clothing were folded neatly and placed on the floor.

by **Marion Kay** on May 28th, 2015, 12:23 am

Marion let her eyes wander over the man's form. She neither approved nor disapproved of the body, neither liked nor disliked. She only looked, and apprasied it for what it was. The akalak valued fitness, and that virtue shone through in this instance. Velatos was built strong, tall and broad. She would have thought him proud, if not for the sense of self-deprecation he seemed to carry in his shoulders. Either way, he was too large for Marion to imitate without significant risk, and though she did enjoy her games, her overall well-being was not something she particularly cared to gamble with on a whim.

So start small. A little one. You can do that.

She moved back to the mirror, sliding the lantern out of the way to gauge her body. Her djed still hummed beneath her skin, having waned somewhat after it'd been so long since she'd drawn it into her grasp, but it flared to life once again at her will's beckoning. The fibers of her being, the cords that held her physical form together, bent and swayed at her contact. Under her steady command they shifted with her search, urging the streams she sought to the forefront. There she latched on to them, molding them in her mind's palm, and as she did so the shell that was her body followed suit.

With a brush of thought, her skin took on a blue hue, similar to Velatos's own, but more vibrant, like the sky on a clear twilight -- smooth and impossibly deep. The hair was next. Marion ran her mind's fingers through that stream of djed until she found the details she wanted to manipulate, and caught it in her hand, twisting, pulling. Hair shortened, retracting in on itself in one fluid motion that left her scalp itching. Another surge of will and it went from blonde to a shock of silky black, longer in front than in back, and shifting until there was only a faint tendency to divide where its part had previously been.

Syna's light had begun to peek over the easterly horizon, and Marion felt as if she were fading into the blue dawn light. She paused in the transformation, squinting at the reflection. It was her, and yet it wasn't. She was in the process of becoming another person, and this wasn't yet the person it was meant to be. This face was still hers, this body still hers, these breasts and curves and slender little muscles still hers. It took more than a change of color to become an akalak.

She turned her gaze once more to her model and his prone body, studying the subtle differences between his male form and her distinctly female one. The shoulders were wider than the waist. The legs were shorter. The chest was more defined, more pronounced despite a distinct lack of certain qualities. The torso was a rectangle, solid and firm, with straight sides. And the thighs thinner, more of a uniform shape with the calves. Besides that, the akalak's ears swept back and tapered to a point, and their physique seemed generally more compact despite their height, with little body fat to be seen.

by **Marion Kay** on May 28th, 2015, 2:41 am

Armed with these observations, Marion turned her focus inward once more, dipping and splashing about in the pool of her djed with a careful determination. It flowed as water, seeping into the very foundations of who she was. And then deeper than that, until it had saturated the very marrow of her bones. The frame of her body shifted, shrinking and pulling, and as one hand of her focus commanded her body to do that, the other turned its attention to broadening it. The mass of her breasts melted across her torso, and fat was turned to muscle, her now-blue skin pulling and tightening around it like some grotesque suit. Emphasis was given to the shoulders, while every bone in her body continued to simultaneously shrink and harden.

The movements were slow and tedious, and the dawn of morning challenged her concentration not only by the drowsiness that wormed its way through Marion's mind, but also through the chirping birdsong that started up softly as the streets began to wake for another day. The noises -- Velatos snoring, nature singing -- were distracting, and Marion found a frown stretching itself across her lips as she fought for concentration, and then fought to stave off the expression from her face. She was not yet finished. She needed to remain blank.

She refused to break her connection to her djed. This needed to happen now. It was going to happen now. She refused to fail.

In her mind's eye, she could see the pool at her core once again. The feather that was her was left skittering across the surface, no longer spinning with the pull of the water, but bobbing. A steady rippling had begun to emanate from the center of the pool, and where the downy hairs of the feather brushed the surface, new ripples sprouted and crested ever outward. Once more, she plunged her hands into it, and this time, without hesitation, the rest of her body followed, spurred on by a vague anger that chilled the djed in her veins. The black presence she'd felt before was nowhere to be found, the only traces it had ever existed being the oily tendrils of a smug and menacing kind of power left in its wake. Don't worry, it seemed to say, I'll be back soon.

Marion let the water envelop her body and pushed through, ever forward, ever downward, into the depths. Deeper, deeper, djed consumed her, until she felt herself rising once again, on the other side of that dark spring. The surface hovered before her, and she could see herself -- or what she was becoming. She looked through her own eyes as if peering through the bottom of a glass. That was her dresser, her bed, her wall, her mirror, and her shape, shifting and changing. The torso was being bowed out at the sides to lend a more masculine curve. Blue ears were elongated. Fingers were shortening, their mass shifting into the wrist and palm. Marion watch all of this, and felt her djed twisting and turning with every new development, but felt, inexplicably, that she was not the one leading it.

She had crossed the threshold, the divide between the morpher and the morphed.

And, in that revelation, she sensed the consciousness of another -- the the power from before, but something (or someone) new, something calmer and less malevolent. It was small, childlike in its pulsating presence.

"Who are you?" Marion whispered, and despite her seeming lack of control, she saw her new body's lips move in the mirror.

The same face contorted, brow furrowing, searching for words. "I am..." Lips moved softly, wobbling in uncertainty. "You, I think. But not."

Her mind was not equipped to understand that abstract concept. She could only feel the truth of the words resonate in her core, where she waited.

"I don't think I have a name. What is my name?"

Marion had no answer, and this lack of control, sharing her headspace, spawned a hollow pit of repulsion in her stomach. "I don't know," she bit through gritted teeth and snagged her djed in a vice grip, retaking it for herself. The child-presence put up no resistance, echoing with confused sorrow as it retreated. The transformation paused as she snapped back into her body, all too suddenly and violently compared to the descent that had brought her away.

It was... odd, to say the least, feeling out of place in her own body. It wasn't the tightness of the flesh or the fact that she was inches shorter and far stockier, but the knowing that there was another being within her, lurking, with thoughts of its own outside of her control. Something that was somehow... her? But not her? What did it mean?

What did any of it mean?

It was unnatural. An imperfection.

by **Marion Kay** on May 28th, 2015, 4:28 am

It troubled Marion deeply. She understood, on some base level, that it couldn't be real -- that it was a side effect of her magic, conjuring things that weren't there. A trick of the mind. It was the price paid for altering reality.

But it was something to be filed away and revisited later, when the city was asleep once more and she was left alone in the world. Right now, she had one goal and it was not yet finished. She examined her reflection, eyes tracing over the body of what looked to be an akalak boy. There were flaws, subtle but noticeable. The skin was too smooth -- the pores had shrunken as well, lending the flesh a rubbery appearance. The hands were too small in comparison to the feet. The torso was top heavy, shoulders too broad for how young this model was meant to appear. And the face... the face was still hers. That was the next step. Everything else could wait.

The flow of djed still throbbed across her body. She prodded it slowly, pinching it with a new found precision born of caution. it was necessary, not only to avoid further complications, but because the face was delicate and small, and required a certain level of exactitude. It was the center of sensory input, as well as the first thing people would see when meeting someone. It needed to be flawless. And Marion, without an example to base it off of, needed to keep a vigilant eye on how everything slid into place.

She closed her eyes, visualizing the face she wanted to recreate. Small, pinched, scowling, boyish. With gentle coaxing, she willed bones and cartilage to action. The movement was unhurried, almost imperceptible, but she could feel the drain on her energy. She began with the simple structure of the head, the jaw widening and the chin rounding. Cheekbones sank lower and the brow grew more pronounced. Then the more detailed work: Eyes slid closer to the center of the head, tilting slightly inward to counteract their natural cat-like slant. The eyebrows followed suit, growing fuller, narrower, and more angled. The bridge of the nose flattened, the tip widened. Lips grew more plump but less wide, settling into a naturally pursed position. And lastly after, a number of chimes, came the irises, which transitioned easily from Marion's clear blue to the piercing pale gold that was so common among the population of blue men.

Velatos stirred before she had a chance to truly appraise her final results, rubbing his eyes furiously in the now morning light and letting slip a low, crooning moan. His head had to be killing him, after both the twelve-odd mugs of ale he'd downed and the subsequent beating he's taken. He blinked, long and slow, making his way along a painful journey back to the waking world and taking in his surrounding. Marion watched the confusion play out on his face. This wasn't his room. How did he get here? Why was he nearly naked? He stayed laying on his back, eyes lolling about the room before finally settling on the child. "Who are you, boy?" he groaned, pressing a hand against his eyes while he tried, and failed, to pull himself into a sitting position. "And why... wait, are you wearing a bra?"

Marion breathed a sigh of lingering relief that she had, for the most part, finished the transformation. But she was indeed still wearing her ladies' underclothes. That would be difficult to explain, posing as both a boy and an akalak, but Velatos was hungover and possibly hallucinating, and she declined to answer for it, instead slipping the thing from her body, trying to make the motion appear as nonchalant as possible despite the fact that she was now standing topless in front of this stranger.

She would have liked to make one final adjustment to her body's vocal cords, but she was positively spent, her hold on her djed loosening. She retained just enough control to keep it fueled for the time being, a trickle at the back of her mind. Either way, wasn't she an actress? This was a role to play like any other, and fooling a man who was operating at only partial mental faculties would not be the most difficult thing she had done over the course of the past few bells.

Chin dipped slightly and doing her best pre-adolescent male impression, she responded. "I'm --" The parallel to the earlier incident was not lost on her as she wrestled for a name for this body. It needed to be something easy to remember, something perhaps based on her own name while still sounding feasible for an akalak. Letters danced through her brain, rearranging themselves again and again within a tick before settling on a single decision. "-- Iramon." She continued, keeping her face a neutral mask despite the small beam of childish joy that echoed deep within her (A name!). "The miss that lives here wanted me to check up on you," she lied easily. "Said she probably wouldn't be around when you woke up. Had some business to attend."

"The miss that lives here?" Velatos brushed sweaty hair back from his face, either forgetting or ignoring the fact that the boy in front of him had apparently been trying on some woman's undergarments. He glanced back and forth between the bed, his folded pile of clothes, and Marion's own shirt laying across the floor; and after a long moment, he seemed to finally come to conclusion she had hoped he would. "By Wysar," he cursed, "what've I done?"

'Iramon' offered only a shrug.

by **Aoren** on May 28th, 2015, 12:30 pm

Marion

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Meditation	+2 EXP
Morphing	+5 EXP
Investigation	+3 EXP
Planning	+3 EXP
Intelligence	+1 EXP
Medicine	+1 EXP
Subterfuge	+2 EXP
Acting	+1 EXP

Lores

•	Lore Earned
•	Meditation: Balancing Between Emptiness and Focus
•	Medicine: Assessing The Severity of a Bruise
•	Morphing: The Outward Differences Between Male and Female Forms
•	Morphing: Iramon Model (Basic)