This is going to be a short writing exercise inspired by something Prismlotus said. It may be the forerunner to a longer story. I'd have to re-write the whole thing if I did that, so I'm not gonna think too hard on that right now.
And yes, I know the title is a total cliche. I'm too tired right now to think of a better one, so that will come later.
If Prismlotus would like to make suggestions on alterations/potential directions for this story, she may feel free to do so. This is pretty much a gift to her, since I left my pencils at school and can't draw.
So. Pool of Enchantment:
Physical manifestations are so tiring.
I don't mean that manifesting itself is tiring. That comes pretty naturally, with practice. You just pull what you need out of the swirling mass of existential debris that accumulates with each manifested lifetime lived. Thoughts, feelings, ideas, whatever resonances you wanted to hold onto. And then you focus on that, mashing it all together and focusing all the energy you've got.
You turn it into something physical, a kind of pool of semi-matter forming in fold of your current plane of existence. And then you imagine a form diving in. You climb into the form (force yourself into the form, really; sometimes the skin is stiff too small and your presence must struggle to reshape itself, to compress, to fit. But you must do it, and quickly. We've all heard the stories of what happens when your presence breaks the form before manifestation is complete) and immerse yourself in the pool. You let it wash over your solidifying self, you breathe it until your lungs demand air, you drink it in and you become very aware of how it flows over these new appendages. How it feels pouring through your expanding body.
And then you surface, gasp out that first stinging breath, and you climb into the corporeal world.
What I didn't expect at first was that when you do that, you have no idea what the results will be, physically.
This manifestation is that of a young woman.
I wish that could be enough. It isn't. I have to learn her, assess her. I have to make her presentable.
Her hair. How is it, exactly, that I created this hair? I hate it and it'll never work, not in this society and not in any other that I've encountered. Lank and dim curls prone to tangles, grown out all the way down her back. I'd cut it if I were confident in my ability to control these hands. I have to get used to hands again. My previous form was a cephalopod. Much easier, much more fun, and I manifested that way for a while. Got used to the tentacles, and now I have hands. Flexing the fingers feels off somehow. I guess I took some of my previous form with me.
In the mirror, I observe the form that is now mine with a combination of fascination and despair. I move, she moves. It's an odd sensation, raising her thin arm and feeling the weight of it. It the mirror, the arm jerks in unison.
Her face is pale and narrow with a bony jaw, her eyes a bluish gray.
Her hips are a little heavy in proportion to her torso, but not so heavy as to be unwieldy. Finding garments that fit well may prove difficult.
Her face is marred by clusters of pimples, her forehead broken out angrily red.
She has a pretty mouth, small and luscious and a deep, dark pink.
She needs to make people like her. She needs to be influential, she needs to win them. I can already sense, shifting around in this newly formed mind, that this is not a girl who knows how to win people. This girl will be easily overlooked.
No human would overlook her if they knew that the power of the pool gathers in her cupped palms and drips from her fingertips. if they knew she is breathing its vapor into their air, that she swam through it and swallowed it and carries it within her.
But I can't let them know that. So it'll be no help.
I cannot understand why this is what formed out of my collective existential debris.
I know what I need to do, and I've yet to see how she can accomplish it. But she may yet surprise me. They can do that in ways I could never have imagined.
When I was younger, before my first manifestation, I always thought that no matter how much it tired me, I'd just re-manifest until I was satisfied with my creation. But it doesn't work like that. The only way to leave this body would be to kill her.
And she can't die yet. She's got work to do.
I flex my fingers again, and begin to work the tangles out of her hair.
