[private] when I'm losing my control, the city spins around

[Gale]

Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you “Be still,” Gale the whale clicks to his young nephew. Picking through the boy’s heart is not difficult, but it is new to him, so Gale moves cautiously. What he’d done with Mazikeen had been haphazard and accidental, and in changing her he had permanently altered himself as well. This time, he intends to be more careful. It takes time - long moments of blue-eyed staring - but Gale finds what he is looking for. Will Bolder feel the way some of his goodness is pulled out of him? Will he recognize the shadows that rise to fill their place? Gale isn’t really thinking of that. Instead, he’s puzzling out what to do with the little bit of soul that hovers in the water just outside of Bolder’s skin. It glows brightly, good and cheerful and pleasant, which bothers him. So Gale forces it into darkness instead, his eyes turning back to Bolder. Had he felt the change, felt something separate within him? “You’ll be better now,” Gale tells him, as though that will explain the difference. “Focus on yourself, on what you want. You can take any shape, Bolder. You’re a shifter. You can take anything you want.” He waits for the boy to think of a shape - hopefully a shape that Bolder's magic alone is incapable of. Gale means to transform him into that shape, to give him, at least temporarily, the intoxicating sensation of power. Let that be the motivation, Gale thinks, knowing all too well how addicting Power can become.

@bolder

[bolder]

Bolder floats nearby, gliding closer out of curiosity towards his uncle. He turns upward slightly, angling his body closer to the bigger whale. But he stops his roll, following Gale's request that he stay still. A silver eye stays on the dark navy creature hovering above him, as his uncle looks down at him.

The sensation that follows is far odder than the feeling of sinking into the depths of Hyaline's lake. It is far more foreign than the slippery skin he is now wearing. Bolder doesn't know how to describe; it is like getting lost in thought and not remembering what had been distracting in the first place. There is a fog (a darkness) that hovers over his mind, his thoughts, and even his emotions; the murky lake they swim in suddenly becomes more obscure.

There is a faint glow - something no longer a part of him - and Bolder watches with distant interest as it becomes swallowed by the lake.

You'll be better now, his Uncle pronounces. This is what Bolder had wanted. He wanted to learn how to shift, to prove to his father that there was nothing wrong with it. He wanted to become an able one, a competent and capable shifter that was a credit to his talented mentors. Focus, Gale says next and so Bolder tries to imagine something like Mazikeen and Gale. Something fantastic, something his mind wouldn't have dreamed on its own.

The tawny orca - for a brief moment - becomes something larger. His fins grow larger and back ones emerge. The tail becomes larger and shark-like, like a creature he once saw washed up on a Taigan beach. His jaw grows thing and long while the predatory teeth in his month become more pointed. Gale's Power seeps into Bolder, making him take a shape that he has never become nor would become without his Uncle's help.

And that Power spreads into the shadowed parts of his soul, filling him with the want to be this great.

@ Gale

[Gale]

Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you There is an unfamiliar pressure within Gale’s chest. It has grown as he watches the boy, sees the way his tawny shape ripples and grows. It is one of the pleasant emotions he’d taken from Mazikeen, but he’d only stolen part of it, and cannot quite feel it strongly enough to give it a proper name. It is pride, but he settles for satisfaction. “This is what they’re afraid of,” he says without words the boy who has become a monster of the depths, feeding even more magic into his nephew. The feeling of invincibility that comes with such sensations is familiar to Gale, and he wants to be sure that Bolder feels it too. “They know you are stronger, better. Superior. And it makes them afraid.” Them, Gale says. The others, those without shifting. Bolder’s parents. They are weak, and so deserving of any fate given to them, but Gale does not yet push quite so far. After all, knowing that his son willingly chose this path will make Nashua’s suffering all the sweeter. The way his brother had recoiled from the bloody image of Bolder after a hunt has made Gale determined. Bolder will see far more blood before he next meets his father.

@bolder

[bolder]

What was there to be afraid of, the brownish liopleurodon thinks?

When he was this size - when his sharp teeth glinted in the minimal light that the murky lake offered - the young shapeshifter considered the question again. He had wondered about it several times since his arrival in Hyaline, and Bolder had wondered if it had something to do with his accidental killing of the rabbit a few weeks ago with Mazikeen. But that had been mishap - a result of not being familiar with his own strength as a wolf - and as the massive creature floats near his Uncle, Bolder can only think that it was because he lacked the skill that Gale or Maze had.

As one flipper stretches out through the dark water, the adolescent considers how much greater his skill might become if he learned as much as either as his Uncle and Aunt. He could learn to be better, to better control the shapes he took (and some part of him wonders if he continues to learn, could he make shapes of his imagining?)

How could that be bad?

Bolder remains his current form only a moment longer, before he grows smaller and the Magic drains from him. His fins shrink, his tail changes, and the pointed teeth retracted into the predatory grin of an Orca again. He spins under the water, angling himself below Gale as he clicks up to Uncle: How strong are you? Bolder asks, wanting know more about this Power the other shifter wields.

Wanting to know just how deep this Power was.

@ Gale