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

[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.

Not like the ones found here.

The spirits - things? That we have in Brazil are like. They're real. And they can cast illusions but sometimes humans know they're there.

[She looks at her dress.]

Yeah, it does. Thanks.

You're welcome. It's a very pretty color.

[Smoothly switching gears, as if the two tracks of this conversation have any relation to one another whatsoever:]

But they are distinct creatures, then? When I hear spirit, I always think of ghosts and the glorious kingdom of the afterlife and all that nonsense. --Uh, not that the whole idea is nonsense. Only I've never seen a ghost.

[She leans back a little.]

Ghosts are ghosts. I've seen a few, but not many.

But yeah, I mean. Spirits aren't the right word, but I don't know what the right word would be.

[Her hand pauses in its note taking.]

You've seen a-- no, never mind. If we get into this, we'll be here all afternoon and I regrettably do have things I ought to be doing. Spirits. [She shakes her head and takes a hard left turn back to the most primary subject at hand.] Have you always been able to do it? To change, I mean. Or it it an ability you developed later in life?

My first shift was when I was six. I don't remember not being able to change.

[Casual-like.]

Oh, six. It's certainly early, but not so very young really. [This seems to almost be a note for herself, murmured absently as she jots it down into the margin of the herbal guide.] There are magicians at home who come into their Talent as young as that. Ten is more common, of course, but very powerful skills have a habit of making themselves more obvious earlier, don't they? I don't think anyone realized what I could do until sixteen. Isn't that funny-- the things you live with and never occur to you as being a skill until someone else points it out.

[None of it really sounds at all like conversation she means to be carrying - something she expects Luana to have some part in. Rather, it's Wysteria thinking out loud as she jots a few more notes down on the page.]

--oh, there's a thought. Is this talent common where you come from? You said other people changed into different things, but can most people change? Or are you rare?

Not common. Rare. There are only like, ten lobo-guara in Brazil.

[Well, of the ones that turn into humans.]

What do you do?

Only ten! My, that's very rare.

[She seems wholly and completely delighted by the whole idea. Only ten. How marvelous. And here Luana is, rolling about on the grass and tumbling down the stairs as if there's nothing at all particular or magnificent about herself. What would any of the scholars in residence at Somerset say to such a thing? That she should be taken in and seen to and observed at regular intervals and have her behavior and talent recorded and indexed, to begin with. How charming.

As she writes:]

Me? Oh, nothing much at all. I have some minor Talent, but nothing at all like yours. Only you musn't say anything about it beyond the Gallows, of course. Though I'm sure you got the same talking to as I did. Ten. My word. --Are you certain? How do you know there are so few lobo-guara?

[She makes a valiant effort at the pronunciation.]

That's what the Caipora said, and it doesn't lie. I have three teachers, and then there's my father, and a couple of people go out and scout, and I think that Aluisio has a kid or two.

[She shrugs.]

It's a secret if you keep this one, too.

[She takes her necklace off. It's a small charm of a figa, and it looks like a closed fist with the thumb protruding out from between the index and middle fingers.]

That's magic. The caipora made it so when I transform I keep my clothes.

[Shifts closer to get a better look, she examines the necklace as one might a very strange insect. The caipora is written blindly in slanting letters over the margin then Wysteria sets aside pen.]

Could I hold it? Just for a moment.

[She hands it over, easily.]

Don't do any magic to it. I really hated whenever I ended up naked in an alley.

I promise not to break it.

[Her notes temporarily forgotten, Wysteria takes the pendant in both hands and turns it about slowly between her fingers. Here, at last, she thinks she senses something strange. It's a clever little thing, isn't it? There's no faint hum to give away it's enchanted, no low pulsing heat. But she touches it and she knows immediately that it's more than what it appears to be, whereas Luana herself is simply-- herself, as if there is no trace of magick in her at all.]

It's a very strange kind of magick. Nothing at all like what I've seen before, here or otherwise.

[The itch to take it apart is incredible.]

It's a shame you don't have a second one. I'd like to see how it's done, but I'm not sure I'd be able to repair it after.

If I ever find a caipora here, I'll make it tell you.

[That's easy enough. She reaches for it back, because she's worn is so long that she feels naked without it.]

It's not like the kind of magic that the mae-de-santo do. They do like. Witchy things. I don't know. The stuff here doesn't make sense to me.

[OPEN] there is a light that i leave on

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