there's only so much I can turn into

[mswoods]

The thirteen-year-old girl is coming back home from school, on foot.

There's a cat following her. It's been following her for a while, but from a distance.

She decides to be friendly. She stops and turns around to look at it. It stops as well. "Mow?"

The girl's face- changes. It's still a human face, mostly, but now there's something different about it. More feline than anything. Whiskers grow, her pupils dilate and her eyes get a bit rounder, her bones move under her skin, their shape changing a bit. "Mew," she says, vocal apparatus having changed a bit, apparently.

The cat blinks and approaches cautiously. "Moow...?"

She doesn't giggle, but she feels like giggling. She's talking to a kitty! Well, kinda talking to a kitty, it's not like she can understand kitty-speech. But still! "Maw!"

Comments

[mswoods]

"That depends on what you mean by 'start with,'" she says, then looks at the sky. "I should probably go home, it's getting late, also you're a complete stranger and I shouldn't be talking to complete strangers about magic at night. But I wanna talk more about magic and you’re the first person to know anything about it.”

[taste_tester]

"That's what I'm here for, talking about magic. When would be convenient?"

[mswoods]

"I'd have to ask mum. And she would actually consider it. Actually, if you come with and show her that you can do the same thing I can it might help, she's been looking into this stuff like crazy for years, you wouldn't believe how many whackos she's met. Anyway, yeah, unless you wanna kidnap me in which case I'm gonna run a lot and scream, I could show you to mum."

[taste_tester]

"I don't usually kidnap people, so we should be fine. Lead the way."

[mswoods]

She does!

It's small. Really small. As she opens the door to the apartment she calls out, "Mum! I'm home! There's someone I want you to meet!"

"New frie- oh, hello," Laura says, clearly surprised by the fact that 'someone' turned out to be an adult. The fact that she's absurdly stunning and very very pale doesn't help.

"Mum, mum, she can do the same thing I can! Look, show her!" That last part looking at Addy.

[taste_tester]

Addy shifts skin tone down to something more human and less sparkly-should-the-sun-come-out, adopts a new hair color (brown), and turns her eyes blue.

[peterxy]

Laura blinks.

"Would you like to come inside and have some tea?"

[taste_tester]

"Oh, no tea for me, thanks, but I appreciate the offer." She steps in.

[mswoods]

Laura nods and grabs tea anyway, which Sadde apparently drinks as well.

"How did you two meet?"

"She, erm, saw me shift in the middle of the street."

"Sadde!"

[taste_tester]

"It's all right, I'm very stealthy. There really was no one else around."

[mswoods]

Laura pauses-

And decides there's no polite way to ask someone why they were being stealthy in the first place, so she changes the subject. "And you can do the same thing Sadde can?"

"She can copy magical powers - apparently they're magical - and she copied mine."

"So there are more."

"Yes!"

"Can I just assume you asked the obvious questions and the answers were unsatisfactory enough that you didn't just tell me all of them already?"

"...yes?"

She looks at Addy again. "So, what's next?"

[taste_tester]

"My thing is going around, finding witches, and helping them expand their powers in creative ways!"

[mswoods]

"...that's quite convenient," Laura says after sipping some tea.

"Will you tell me about other witches? How do you find them? What other powers are there? Oh also mum there's one non obvious thing, powers are apparently never duplicate."

"That, on the other hand, is quite inconvenient."

Sadde giggles.

[taste_tester]

"My power - the copying, not the one I'm borrowing from Sadde - gives me a decent chance of telling from a ways off whether somebody's a witch or not. But there's some trial and error. What do you want to know about other witches?"

[mswoods]

"Everything! How many you've met, where, when, who they are, what their powers are like, how they work, how you helped them, how much they changed, what they're doing now..."

"Why is there such secrecy around these witches?" Laura asks.

[taste_tester]

"You tell me, why isn't Sadde allowed to shift in front of people?"

[peterxy]

"Chesterton's fence," she says. "Until we know why it's not talked about, we don't talk about it."

[taste_tester]

"Well, fair enough. But I don't recommend sharing it around. If too many people believe you, you'll have some people very invested in it not getting out at your throats. This isn't why most witches keep it secret; most witches don't know that - but it's why you should keep your mouths shut and mouth-shaped. Most people are doing more or less what you did: keeping quiet because they don't know what would happen if they didn't."

[peterxy]

That's disturbing. Both mother and daughter look disturbed. "Why are there people so invested in it not getting out?"

[taste_tester]

"Fears of witch hunts, obviously."

[peterxy]

"Obviously," she echoes.

[mswoods]

"Okay, but anyway, witch classes from a witch trainer, that's kinda dropped onto our laps, good, right?" She's clearly very excited about the prospect.

[taste_tester]

"I'm so glad you're enthusiastic about it!" says Addy. "So how far have you stretched it already?"

[mswoods]

"Well, the first time I turned was... surprising."

[peterxy]

"That's one way to put it," Laura says, dryly. "She switched sexes in her crib when she was one."