Timestamp: 55th of Winter, 518 A.V.
Continued From: Bending Ones Body To One's Will III
Kelski napped then, moving from her meditation into Nysel’s realm of dreams. She rested, the magic having taken its toll on her. The couch was comfortable and sometime during her bells of rest, the throw blanket over the back of the couch took on a life of its own and snaked its way down the couch and across her prone form. She snuggled in deeper, sighing softly as the warmth surrounded her and deepened her rest.
The Gem took care of its Mistress, understanding inherently that the mage was learning new magic…. magic that The Gem was watching closely and learning as well. It could already mimic Kelski’s gemstones, turning its walls into slices of smooth Lapis Lazuli or rough amethyst geodes at will. It could mimic any wood it saw and had seen quite a bit of wood from the fine grain of its inhabitant’s tools and weapons to the wood that was washed up along the shore or brought into its walls in the form of furniture.
All of it, the Gem loved.
And as Kelski learned to Morph, The Gem began to learn as well. She understood Djed, not only because of all the mages living in her walls, but because often her Mistress touched her, feeding her Djed and hurrying along her growth.
The feedings Kelski provided were beneficial. The sessions both helped fuel The Midnight Gem’s growth but it also circulated the djed within the Kelvic and got the mage to be more reactive with her djed, pulling it and utilizing it and then refilling her own personal djed from her well.
It was as a muscle was, unused and brought into use suddenly and repeatedly which made it … stronger. Equally beneficial were the times The Gem was linked to Kelski and she was learning or dreaming – like now. As the Kelvic learned, so too did the building. It’s understanding was directly proportional to the Kelvic’s awareness of how the magic worked.
And so, as the woman slept, The Midnight Gem learned. It learned to paint its walls with the colors of sunset as it had witnessed Kelski doing. And because its form was inorganic, the same rules that the Kelvic knew from morphing did not apply to it. Its magic was older, more flexible and not bound to the flesh of a mortal.
And as the Kelvic had done, letting night fall over her skin, so too did The Midnight Gem… and instead of her ceiling being dusted with a spackling of white stars, the stars on her ceiling glittered like the real stars The Midnight Gem lived under and witnessed every night.
Kelski dreamed she slept under the stars yet still cocooned by the blanket the Midnight Gem had wrapped around her without using arms…. with only a power like projection born of need. And as the Kelvic slowly woke, she stretched, stared at her arms and legs, and seemed to be startled they were their normal pale white.
Even still drenched in sleep, Kelski infused her flesh with djed, pulling it with an awkward jerky syphon and infusing her flesh with power. She darkened her skin from its pale natural ivory to a more muted neutral flesh tone. She felt sun-darkened and bronzed, though in truth her tone only became that of a more normal human like Anja or Vasin. She didn’t darken her skin to Ixzo’s depths because Ixzo’s coloring was as rare and exotic as her own.
