Solo Reflecting on Reflections

[Clyde Sullins]

32 Summer 516

Looking at himself in the mirror, Clyde let out a sigh.

Sitting perched on his bed, Cha across his lap, he gazed at his own reflection and pondered on it.

Being in the city of illusions, the temporariness and non-truth of something seemed paramount in his mind. It seemed a place perhaps perfect for morphing.

His face was a face, it was the one he was born with, but it could as easily have been any other face looking back at him.

His nose could have been longer or shorter, his eyes and hair another color, or his ears a different shape. He wasn't however his face, it was just the one he wore. Seeing all of the illusions about the city, people changing faces and buildings and the laws of nature as easily as one put on a new coat, he knew morphing was right in that his physical nature was just a facade, an ornament he put upon.

Focusing on this thought, that he could be anything, he tried to practice his morphing.

He'd decided today he'd take his time and try a much larger change than before, he'd try to change the appearance of his entire face. Small scale in comparison to a full body change, but still larger than anything he'd done before.

Setting the mirror down on the bed beside him where he could glance down as he worked, he began feeling at his cheeks. He tried to mold and shape it, as if his flesh was but warm clay ready to be altered. He emptied his mind, occasionally glancing down as he worked, trying to bring out his djed, to pull it to his flesh, and thereby make it warm and malleable and ready to be changed. His goal to begin was to darken his flesh on his cheeks, as if he'd spent a long time out in the sun.

Feeling and pulling and pushing at his cheeks, he focused on the image in his mind of his face. He focused on it darkening, changing, the shading, mentally willed the imagining to become reality and for the morphing to take place.

In his mind he focused on the image, focused on the change, willing the morphing, the magic, the djed to transfer and transmute. His body was but an illusion, one he could modify at will, he thought to himself.

After about five chimes of this, of feeling and pushing at his cheeks, he looked down, expecting to see that under his fingers dark skin settled. Instead he saw his normal cheeks, his normal face, and normal color.

Cursing under his breath, Clyde grew a bit frustrated. He knew he could do morphing, knew he could make the change, but for some reason it wasn't working.

“What the petch do I have to do to get a new face... Petch...”

Clearly this attempt wasn't working. Perhaps he was going about it the wrong way, or needed to focus differently. Perhaps that was it... Taking a few calming breaths, Clyde stilled and emptied his mind, focusing on the task at hand and at another way to attempt his morphing next, as his current attempt clearly wasn't working.

[Clyde Sullins]

After spending another few chimes breathing, slow measured breathes in and out, Clyde continued with his practicing.

As his prior attempt hadn't been working, he tried for a new mental focus. Instead of thinking himself an illusion, a new tactic, he went back to the one he'd used when he'd managed to succeed at morphing.

He was but a clay golem, a flesh animated by his soul, but the flesh itself meaningless.

Clyde knew from his own experience with magic that failing was as useful as succeeding, if not more useful in some ways. And so he hoped that even his failed attempts earlier would make him that much better at the magic. After all, as one worked out what didn't work, you inevitably learned better what did work, he reasoned to himself.

“I am but a soul in a clay golem, malleable flesh ready to be molded as I require. My flesh means nothing. My face means nothing. My body is but a vessel I use to touch the world. I am but a soul in a clay golem...”

After he reached the end of his odd little incantation and mental focus, Clyde began to repeat, saying the words over and over. As he did he cleared his mind, emptying and voiding it, letting stark blackness fill his attention as the words he spoke lost meaning.

Next he pictured his head as it currently was, but pictured it as a painted sculpture shaped out of clay and hardened. He pictured this floating in the midst of the emptiness, darkness and nothing all around.

He imagined a fire being added to the face, to the cheeks, warming and making the flesh there maleable and ready to take on a change. As the flesh there grew hot in his mental focus he felt small tingle from within, the tingle of djed shifting and moving and being expended. For the moment he kept his eyes closed, focusing on his task, but felt that the feeling of djed being used was a good sign.

He kept focusing on this image within darkness, focused on this golem head that was his own flesh that he molded. He focused on the cheeks darkening, taking on a shade, a darker hue. He willed it to shift and darken, imagined sculpting the clay golem with his hands, of painting with his fingers and adding color and paint to the flesh to darken it. He kept on focusing on this until he saw it within his mind as his flesh being a dark brown hue, as dark as a desert person's flesh which he'd met before.

Finally he willed the cheeks to cool, willed a stream of djed to flow there and cool and harden it, to keep the change as long as he could, or at least to lengthen how long it lasted.

With that he opened his eyes and glanced down at the mirror to see his face. However he was somewhat disappointed. The flesh on his cheeks had changed hue, had darkened, but instead of the dark hue he'd imagined instead it had only shaded to a deeper tan, more akin to his own flesh after days out in the sun.

However his disappointment was lessened by the fact that he clearly had done some morphing, even if not achieving his exact goal. Clearly he was getting on the right track, even if he hadn't completely worked out how to change the color just right.

“Progress I suppose, even if only a little...”

[Clyde Sullins]

After the small progress of darkening his cheeks, Clyde decided to continue on to something a bit harder. While keeping the prior morphing in place, something that in and of itself took a piece of his mental focus, he progressed on to shifting his hair.

His hair was currently a dark brown, a somewhat unruly set of hair that he didn't often comb or treat or prepare in any way.

Next, he wanted to change the color of his hair, altering it to a reddish hue.

Focusing on the image within his mind of the clay doll within darkness, he shifted his main attention to the hair upon its head. Within his mind he focused on his djed, the stream of power within himself like a deep well, and mentally imagined some of it flowing up within him.

He pictured the djed shifting and changing, moving along and within his body, coming to surface on the top of his head and flowing along the length of his hair. As he worked he continued to chant an incantation more or less the same as from before. “I am but a clay golem, flesh to be molded...”

He pictured the hue of his hair, the dark brown, and focused on a changing image of it. Subtly the color shifted, altering from brown to a lighter color, the shifting over to a copper. After a few moments more he focused on it shifting further, going from a copper to a full red color. He imagined this change as a series of ripples, ripples of color splashing across a pond and expanding outward from a center point. He focused on a dot at the center of his head, the center bit of his hair, and imagined it shifting in color. Then a slightly larger bit of hair, a bit further outward in all directions, shifting and rippling as water and turning from brown to copper to red. He could feel a light tingle of djed, of the shifting and changing, as he worked his magic, a tingle across his aura that made him feel he was once more on the right track.

He kept this up till he'd covered his entire head, all while keeping a small bit of his focus on his cheeks, on keeping them darkened. After what felt like bells but was likely chimes he opened his eyes, expecting success. Expecting to look at his mirror and see a head full of vibrant red hued locks.

He gazed down at the mirror, only for consternation to cross his face.

“What the petch! Can I not get color right?”

His hair had changed color, in that he'd succeeded, but once more he'd not quite gotten the change he'd desired.

Most of his hair on his head had changed to a red, though more of a copper-ish red than a pure redish hue of red. It was a dirty red, with a bit of brown mixed in.

However, that wasn't the main cause for his consternation. Instead his main annoyance was at the single steak of a completely different color on his head. For some reason he couldn't fathom he had a single thin streak of green hair going across the top of his head.

“Now that doesn't even make sense... I wasn't even trying for green, or aiming near that color!”

[Clyde Sullins]

As he gazed at the hair reflected in the mirror, Clyde frowned. Today wasn't going quite as he'd hoped. He had thought he was getting the knack of things, but clearly he hadn't and had a good bit to learn with morphing.

He wasn't perhaps struggling as bad as he did with shielding, a magic he'd never felt a knack for, but still he was struggling all the same.

As he stared at his reflection a bit longer he also noticed a small shifting in his cheeks. The hue of them hadn't returned fully to their normal color, but they had become a bit lighter than the hue had had achieved earlier. Now they were lighter, though still a bit darker than his normal shade.

He supposed that in his concentration on his hair being shifted, he'd lost focus and hadn't been able to keep his cheeks morphed. That or in his annoyance at seeing his hair oddly colored and not as he'd desired he'd lost focus and the cheeks had lightened then. As he'd not thought to check his cheeks before his hair he couldn't be sure which it was, if his anger and loss of focus was to blame or simply a spreading of concentration causing the return of hue to a degree.

Passing it aside and forgetting about the hair problems, Clyde calmed himself with his breathing, focusing within his mind on the image of his golem clay flesh self floating within nothing.

He felt he was learning some things, though also learning how much he had left to learn. Wanting to keep going though while keeping on the same body portion he decided to shift the length of his hair next.

Right now his hair wasn't long, but neither was it short, a generous length of hair. Focusing on his next task he would shorten the hair to a tiny buzz across his head. Perhaps if he had issues with shifting color, a more physical alteration would work better for him.

Feeling the slight weight of Cha across his lap, he moved both hands up to his scalp and began to kneed the flesh. Pressing and slightly shifting his hair and skin he focused on the clay doll golem within his mind.

Once more he imagined the djed shifting and moving, willed it to rise and flow up through him and out of his head, sapping into each individual hair.

As he pushed and pulled at his hair and head flesh he imagined the clay golem head shifting slightly, imagined the hair growing shorter and receding back in length. He imagined this happening starting at the tips, the end bits shortening and shrinking and falling within.

This time as he worked he felt the gentle tingle upon his fingers aura, and could feel with his mundane sense the odd feeling of hair slowly sliding past. Where once rested a good bit of hair though he slowly began to feel less and less. Finally as he kneaded at his head he felt but a thin bur of hair across his head, little more than a freshly shaved scalp.

He opened his eyes and looked down at his mirror to see that his hair had indeed changed, shrinking in size till there was nothing but the tips poking out of his head. It appeared a bit odd though, since the color changes from before still lasted, though appearing differently due to the shifting that was the lessened hair amount and size.

[Clyde Sullins]

Ready for a break, Clyde laid back across his bed, clutching Cha in his hands and laying the mirror on the bedside table.

He rested in meditation for a time, closing his eyes and picturing void and emptiness within his mind with the flesh golem floating within, picturing the air in his lungs leaving a black emptiness inside each time he exhaled, only for the air to rush back in as he breathed in his next breath. He pictured each time he breathed inward the golem flesh did likewise, and that each time it exhaled a bit of the changes reverted back to normal.

Resting was always a good idea with magic, as he didn't want to over do it or strain himself. Today was to be a safe practice, simply a good chance to train and improve. There was no particular rush.

After resting for about ten chimes he opened his eyes, moving one hand to pick up the mirror and gaze at his reflection.

It was odd to see that in the intervening time all of the changes he had done had gone away. His hair had expanded back outward, coming back down to the ear length he'd had before.

His cheeks were their normal shade, with no sign of the alteration's he'd made. Atop his head sat his normal brown hair, all signs of the copper red and green gone.

His flesh had all sprang back, undoing the change, all non-permanent.

With all of the changes gone, and feeling rested after his break, Clyde decided to try one last change.

Picturing in his mind his left hand, a clay golem hand that looked like his currently did, he decided to shift his nails. Going through his many memories of nails, Clyde thought on different ones. Zith, kelvic, dogs, cats, human, all had different nails. He settled on one, cats, and decided to shift the nails on that one hand to appear as cats claws.

In this instance since the change wasn't on his head he could see it even without the mirror.

Eyes closed he focused on the mental image of the clay hand, imagining the nails lengthening and sharpening, growing narrower and different as a cats claws protruding from its pads and hands.

Pressing upon the backs of his nails with his right hand, he willed the clay golem to flex and shift, willed the nails to lengthen and point and sharpen, ready to tear and claw.

After a chime or two he felt a slight tingle of djed, felt the contours of his nails slowly changing under the pressure of his right hands touch.

With more touching he pressed onward, keeping his mind clear but for the mental image of the clay doll hand which he imagined shifting and changing.

Once he was done he opened his eyes, peering down at his hand after moving his right out of the way.

They weren't perfect cat claws, though they certainly seemed more like them than human nails. They had certainly lengthened and narrowed, now each finger's nail ending in a pointed tip.

A smile cross his face, Clyde let out a sigh, glad to end his lesson on a high point. On a success. However he couldn't help pondering the issues he'd had. All of his attempts at changing color had not gone right, while his physical changes had been slow but ended with success. Perhaps, he pondered to himself, he had issues with colors? If nothing else it was clearly an area he needed to work on.

[Sayana]

Don't forget to edit/delete your grade request. If there's anything I may have missed, please PM me and I'll be happy to look into it.

 

Clyde

Skills

• Morphing: 5
• Meditation: 4
• Planning: 1

Lores

• A face is just the face one wears
• Morphing technique: Imagining one's current features as but an illusion
• Morphing technique: Imagining oneself as a soul trapped in a clay golem
• Morphing model: Tanned cheeks
• Morphing model: Coppery-red hair
• Morphing model: Hair shortened to a buzz cut
• Morphing model: Fingernails akin to cat's claws
• Morphing: Currently morphed features need upkeep of djed and concentration

Comments: Very well structured practice thread. I liked how he didn't immediately grasp the magic and it well reflected his skill level. Plus the bit of green in his hair was amusing.


Your Grader,

Sayana

Boxcode design: Firenze