okay, so, the general idea is that magic is hereditary, which makes it a little suspicious that each time oz claims to have given others magic, it has been a set of siblings (the four maidens were sisters, the branwens are twins).
then the lost fable is released, and the whole point of it is to answer the question "what is ozpin hiding from us?" and jinn provides, fueled by all the stuff ozpin either lied or wasn't exactly 100% truthful about in volume 5 – for example: ozpin said that he was cursed by both of the gods for failing to stop salem, which obviously isn't the case.
now, part of that stuff includes ozpin's claims that he gave the maidens and the branwens their magic. so when the lost fable reveals that ozma and salem had four daughters, all of them said to be capable of magic (even if we only see one of them do so) and sharing the same colors as the maidens from the fairy tale...
predictably, that's going to raise some eyebrows.
but then, it's also revealed / heavily hinted at that ozma's children, when he has them with non-magical people, end up with silver eyes. the question is why, and the answer to that could be as simple as "ozma was cursed by the god of light, who used silver eyed powers, so the powers are magically connected to ozma's curse".
so at this point, the logic would go like this:
ozma (magic) + salem (magic) = the maidens
ozma (magic) + non-magic person = silver eyes
so where would the shapeshifting come from?
while ozpin saying he gave the twins their magical abilities implies that shapeshifting is a part of normal magic, we never actually see any of the first humanity use said magic; we see plenty of beam and elemental magic that is used in present day by oscar, salem and the maidens, but never shapeshifting.
except when the gods do it to shapeshift into their dragon forms.
and you know who exactly was cursed by both of the gods.
so, following the previously established logic, one possibility for shapeshifting magic would look like this:
salem (magic) + non-magic person = shapeshifting
(the less wild version would replace salem with one of the maidens, but that's not as fun to think about lol)
...obviously this logic is just one my brain came up with, but after lot of thinking and making sure i'm not forgetting anything, i think it still (mostly) tracks.
you can also probably see why i also go "press x to doubt" with it.
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