In a world of might and magic, many of our characters have some sort of mystical power. Some have spells ranging from shape-shifting to shooting fireballs, while others have unnatural strength and agility, allowing them to perform near superhuman acts. Others have powers that are completely internal, such as mind vision.
What is your character’s power? Do they have a power at all? Are they able to control it, or does it control them? Do they enjoy using their power? How has their power affected them?
With great power comes great responsibility…
Firelight danced across the obsidian pendant Mythrenathen held between his fingers. It was a crow, strung on a silver chain dangling with glass beads, feathers, and a few black talons. Running his thumb across the pendant, he pulled his gaze away from the necklace to fall on Talandrea, curled up peacefully on the other side of the fire. There were many nights like this, more than she probably knew, when long after she had fallen asleep he’d sit by the fire keeping watch and stroking that black carving of a bird deep in thought. Sometimes, when the night was quiet and he was certain she’d never know, he’d steal away into the trees to think on his own.
This was one of those nights.
With one last glance to make sure she was still content, he pushed himself to his feet and turned his back to the fire, lifting the silver chain over his head so that the pendant hung against his bare chest. Darkness surrounded him as he moved through the trees away from the campsite, but he stayed close enough that he could hear any movement stirring through the forest around the fire.
When he was satisfied with the distance between him and his sleeping companion, he slunk down til he was sitting against the base of a tree. After scanning the underbrush around him one last time, he closed his golden eyes and concentrated on clearing his thoughts.
There was a sense of agitation in the back of his mind as he sought the quiet calm of meditation. It had been years since he had needed to heed his memories of his druidic Shan'dos, and having to recall their voices rankled. How many millennia since he had first successfully shifted his form from a stocky Kaldorei to a formidable bear? Since then he had learned to change forms as easily as it was to walk; it had been ages since he had to concentrate so fully on his own breathing to attempt shifting, and the knowledge of it was aggravating.
It took longer than he remembered to squash the irritated monologue parading through his mind. Slowly he did a mental inventory of his physical self - ten toes attached to his two feet wrapped in leather for protection, two legs folded beneath him against the cold ground, his hands laying relaxed on his thighs. Focusing so hard on his sense of self, he could feel the touch of the crisp night air across his skin, and the lack thereof around the four puckered scars on his upper arm where the slashes ruined nerve endings.
He allowed himself a brief pause in his meditation to strain his ears for a moment, listening for the span of ten heartbeats for any noise stirring from the campsite. Content that Talandrea was still asleep and nothing was about to disturb her, he went back to his thoughts.
Next he thought about his being inside his body, and all the different characteristics and failings that made him unique. It appeared in his mind as a shifting image of himself in his physical body, as if he was looking at himself from someone else’s point of view. Mentally he went through the list of words he associated with his being; he was strong, yes, resilient, formidable and protective of his own. She had told him that, and he knew it to be true.
Out of habit as he thought of himself in that way, his mental sense of self changed to that of a hulking bear sitting slouched against the tree trunk where his Kaldorei form had been a moment before. Letting his concentration wane enough that he was aware of his body, he could physically feel himself taking on the characteristics of the bear he saw in his mind - nails extending to become claws, already stocky form filling out with raw muscle, shaggy fur spreading across his body. Reluctantly he forced his mental image back to a Kaldorei male, and felt the strength of the bear’s stature ooze out of his body.
After many minutes of concentrating he was able to superimpose an image of a crow on his physical body. It was slightly larger than a normal bird, with sleek wings and too-intelligent eyes - it looked like Talandrea’s form when she shifted and took off into the sky. Nothing happened. He concentrated on how the feathers layered against each other, how the claws curled when it was in the air, and still nothing happened. Almost in a poof of smoke his mental crow vanished, leaving him fully aware of his surroundings in the physical world.
It occurred to him as he sat under the tree clutching the obsidian pendant that he had skipped an important step in his mediation when he thought about shifting to a winged form - he could hear the cold tone in his Shan'do’s voice as he criticized himself. Hurriedly he rushed through the beginnings of his concentration and began thinking of all the words he associated with a bird. Swift. Witty. Intelligent. Curious. No wonder she was able to master the form so easily, but these were all characteristics he wasn’t.
An annoyed twinge of doubt threatened to rip this one word from his mind, but he fed it to his mental self. Strong. To be able to fly through storms, they were. Protective. To defend their nests. It became easier as he concentrated, and he formed a faint image of a bird above his body in his mind.
Painstakingly slowly he felt his physical form change, shrinking, sprouting feathers, and losing much of the night vision he was accustomed to. Disoriented, he hopped around on taloned feet and tried to keep his balance with wings that felt too big and awkward for his size. A glint among the fallen leaves and twigs of the underbrush caught his eye and he pecked at it with a wickedly curved beak; he had dropped the obsidian pendant when he had changed.
Returning to his Kaldorei form was far easier to do once he was able to shake off the initial bewilderment of having wings. Plucking the carved crow pendant from the ground, he hung it around his neck and wove his way through the trees back to the camp. Tomorrow, he’d ask her to teach him to fly among the clouds, but tonight he’d let her sleep.
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