faderift | [OPEN] there is a light that i leave on

[There's a bright young thing tending the the Gallows' herb garden these days in a broad brimmed hat and a borrowed dress, its sleeves pinned high all the better to-- limply pluck little weeds from the planting boxes or uncertainly fuss over this plant or that. She seems to spend most of her morning puttering around the gardens and accomplishing very little, but looking very determined about all of it up to and including sitting idly in the sun when it happens to finally strike this particular courtyard.

But on rare occasions, Wysteria can actually be found sitting on the edge of one of the planters attempting to trim cuttings from the plants for the half dozen people who seem to require them. She's hemming and hawing over a stalk of elf root now, setting her sharp knife first against the stem of one of the leaves and then lower - anxiously consulting the open book on her lap to see where the proper spot to cut it actually is.]

Edited 2018-10-04 05:07 (UTC)

[She's not spending a terribly large amount of time as a wolf lately, except to eavesdrop; she misses it. So this morning when she went out, she shifted to find a sunny spot to nap, just nearby the herb garden.

Her big ears - and they are big, no mistaking it - twitch when she hears someone hemming and hawing, and she lifts up from where she's hidden behind shrubbery. There's that girl. The white rich one. Wysteria.

She lifts her nose to pick up the scene of her. This isn't the Brazilian scrublands, with tall grasses that hide her ridiculously long legs. This is open space, so when she starts to creep up, she's tall and visible, but she's quiet right until she presses her nose against Wysteria's hand.

Hello.]

[Luana's stealth benefits wildly from the fact that Wysteria is so engrossed in the contents of the book. She's so engrossed with anxiously comparing its diagrams to the real life plant under her knife and muttering to herself over the details that she doesn't tske any notice of the bandy legged animal until its right there, nosing at her hand where it's poised to turn the page.

Wysteria doesn't jump, though the nose in question is cold and her focus is well and truly shattered. Instead she pauses, knife lifting from the elf root stalk to avoid any accidental cut, and--]

Why hello there, darling. Where did you come from?

[What a weird looking dog.]

[There's a wag of her tail - exactly once, because it doesn't feel natural to do it, but she knows that people expect it from dogs. She is not a dog, but she's willing to do this, so there it is. Wag. She lifts her nose and snuffles after Wysteria's hand, because she can get a better hit of her scent.

She takes a moment and noses her hand again. Behind the ears, please.]

[Behind the ears it is. Wysteria's perfectly happy to oblige to the leggy canine's insistent nose and summarily inviting head tip. She clearly has pet a dog a time or two in her lifetime and knows how to go about it properly: scritching there behind the ear with her fingernails, not shy about getting under the layers of fur.]

Aren't you a pretty thing, hmm? What a shame it is that you're here in the Gallows instead of running about a nice field or farm house. Though I'm sure there are all kinds of good smells for your to smell, aren't there? And I'm certain a pretty face like that must charm all the ladies in the kitchens. Your master will have to mind you, won't they? Or else you'll be spoiled.

[She snuffles a couple of times, and goes after one of the plants that Wysteria is dealing with, nipping one of the flowers until she's chewing on it, and then rolling on her side, snuffling again.

She looks up at Wysteria, like. Yep. Hang out there, she'll be right here.]

Oh, stop that. That's not for eating.

[Though Wysteria certainly doesn't do much to deter the behavior as it's happening. Instead she bends down as the dog flops to the ground, gives her belly a nice vigorous scratching and then finally caps it off with a sturdy thumping pat.]

Wouldn't it be nice if we could all be as careless as you? Unfortunately, some of us have work they've sworn to very nervous Seneschals that they'll accomplish at a reasonable hour. That said, I hear if you like a good ear scratch that the boy minding the ferry slip at this time of day has a great affection for animals.

[This said as she sits upright, returning her attention grudgingly to the book laid open in her lap.]

[She makes a noise like a laugh, and then another one, and then she dissolves.

No, that's not right. A moment later Luana is lying in the grass, in the ground, wearing a dress, her hair all over her arms. She looks relaxed as hell.]

That guy has some serious nerves. I hope you're getting him something to help with that.

[Wysteria yelps. There's really no other word for it. The fact that the book in her lap is merely dislodged from it instead of thrown at the girl as she takes the place of the dog is happenstance - entirely miraculous or luck rather than logic of any kind. The young lady herself has scattered away as well, all but leaping into the planer to put some distance between her and--]

You!

[The smile is sly and genuine all at once.]

Surprise.

[And she stretches out just a little more.]

You're really sweet to dogs. I like that.

[She gawps down at her from her considerable height advantage of standing in the raised planter. The words themselves doesn't see to register - she's clearly still processing the shift in the creature before her.]

But-- but you were-- [She stutters. And then throws aside the knife into the tangle of herbs and vines.] --But you were certainly a dog. Not just in appearance. I felt the fur under my hand.

[She stumbles back down from the planter, nearly tripping on her own skirts in her haste to sit down in the grass beside Luana. She very abruptly takes the girl's face in both hands - pinches her cheeks; tugs her hair. Like either might somehow tell her something.]

How did you do it?

Technically I am not a dog. I'm a maned wolf, but we're not really wolves either. It's weird.

[She sits up a little so that this cheek pulling can happen with minimal fuss. Hello. She shakes her head - her mane of hair resettles after being tugged.]

I just do.

Do you want to see it again?

[There's that grin, pleased with herself.]

[She retracts her hands promptly - not out of embarrassment, but to get out of Luana's way and to turn one to the task of serioisly supporting her own chin.

Wysteria frowns at her, study intent as a needle through cloth.]

Please do. Slowly, if you can.

[She leans back, and thinks of Aluisio. He always tried to make her think about each moment of her shift, one piece at a time. She does that now, and tries to keep it slow.

It hurts this way. It takes a lot of concentration, but she manages, her spine going first, and then her legs, her hair blurring into fur, and her ears lifting, elongating. A moment later - thirty seconds - she's on her back, her long legs in the air, and then on her side, her tail thumping. She's breathing a little heavily.

And then she shifts back, and there she is. She looks-

-normal. Tired, maybe.]

Ay, Jesus.

[She watches, eyes sharp and mouth pursed thin with one thoughtful finger poised there curled under her lower lip. She listens for any tip in the air about them. She waits for the rise and fall of small hairs, the natural reaction to the shifting of magicks. And most of all, she feels: expecting the shifting, twitching quality of it and how the world must bend faintly about the girl in the grass becoming a not-wolf-not-dog in it. There are rules to this. The filaments of how the world is strung together are meant to vibrate over changes like this one.

But it's quiet except for the dog's heavy breathing and the whump of her tail in the grass. And it stays that way partly at Wysteria's behest after Luana becomes herself again. The girl shaped version of herself anyway. For a long moment, Wysteria remains silent and keen.

Eventually--]

How fascinating. [She straightens, her hand falling away from her chin.] What are you drawing on to change? Who taught you this? What other magick can you do? --No, but really, what are you drawing on? It's not the Fade, like the magicians-- uh, mages do here, is it? It doesn't feel the same at all. Or rather, it doesn't feel like much of anything at all.

[She lifts her head a little, considers the questions. These are things that she's never spent a lot of time thinking about. It's things that just are]

Well, I'm immune to illusions.

I see through them, which makes shit look awful and ugly if they're done by a cuca.

[She shrugs.]

I just do it. Like lifting my eyebrows. Or I don't know. Raising my arm. Something like that.

[Bizarre.

She's not quite nodding along, but it's clear from the rigidity of her attention that Wysteria is listening very, very carefully. It's as if attempting to absorb the secret of it like a sponge pulls in water. Because it should be impossible. There should be no way to just do magick. Not like that. And yet, that's exactly how it had seemed hadn't it? There are no threads of enchantment to pluck at in the air, no sensation of change or spellwork tinging at the small hairs on Wysteria's forearms. The girl and the not-dog simply seem to be.]

Two questions, then. [She reaches out blindly for the discarded book and flips it open to the back page. A pen is summarily plucked out from behind her ear as well-- which is odd. Was it tucked in her hair a moment ago? She clearly means to take notes in the margins of the book (with no apologies to any trouble Inquisition librarians).] First: what other shapes can you adopt? And you must tell me how you're changed. Do you see differently? Smell better? Do you recall all you see and do? And then the second: [scratching words down on paper--] What's a cuca?

[She laughs a little.]

I may not be good at math, but that's more than one question.

[But she's happy to answer. Wysteria actually makes her laugh, as opposed to other people. She lays back in the dirt, stretches out again.]

I'm a lobo-guara. And only that. I don't change into anything else, but there are other shifters where I'm from. The boto up in the Amazon, they're pink dolphins. And I don't know. Other countries have different things. The English are ravens. The Americans have all kinds. Coyotes. Buffalo. Porcupine. Who knows what else.

[She closes her eyes to think.]

I smell things better and see movement faster. I'm still me. It's like if you-

[She thinks of how to say it.]

You put on a hat. And you have a hat on, and you know it's there, but also, you're still you.

[And finally.]

The cuca's a spirit. It eats babies and ruins crops and stuff. We stop them. That's what the shifters do.

[They are related questions under the first initial inquiry, thank you very much. Were someone to outline them, they might fall beneath the primary point's umbrella. In fact, that's exactly what she does as she takes notes in a looping, delicate hand there in the margins. Ravens, coyotes, porcupine...--]

A spirit? Like the ones found here? Do they cross from some other... plane where you're from as well, or are they part of your world's nature, I suppose? Though that's not even really the case here, is it? But you know what I mean. Is there a Veil and Fade equivalent where you come from?

['It's still me,' she'd said, which yes. That much is undeniable from just the texture of the air about her, the distinct lack of enchantment lingering in her skin and hair and the grass about her. Wysteria pauses thoughtfully, pen rising from the page. A moment's thoughtful consideration, then--]

That dress looks well on you, by the way.

WYSTERIA

Herb Gardens [open]

please pretend I have icons for this, kthx

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Dining Hall [open]

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