Foxside: The Temple of Inari 56 - Rice, Wine, and Spell Slots

[Recaiden]

"Excellent. Remain that way as long as you can."
Arlem suggests, and he begins quietly counting upwards.

[Deathkeeper]

[Gardens]

Steven just kind of stares at Arlem. Moving is usually what messes him up. Especially talking, as he's used to his mouth and tongue being shaped a certain way. So the best strategy of not messing things up is just to stand still. And so he does.

[Recaiden]

Arlem lets Steven maintain his shape for several minutes (if he can), focusing on other parts of the temple.
But eventually, Steven will have demonstrated to his satisfaction that if there are no distractions, he can stay focused.
"Now, remembering how you are right now, try to move. Careful. Keep your balance, and without using a tail to do it."

[Deathkeeper]

[Gardens]

Steven nods, and he moves his arms and hands without trouble, though the hair on his arms seems to fluctuate in density in a most unnatural way. Walking, however, poses a much larger problem, as even as he takes his first step it starts bending the wrong way and getting the bones all wrong. And it's a bit on the painful side. Steven falls over onto his rear end. "I'm sorry, Arlem. I'm awful at this." he says, which only causes his muzzle to reappear and collapse the whole thing.

[Recaiden]

"You need practice."
Arlem says simply. Then he steps forward to hold out a hand and help Steven back to his feet.
"You ought to try this form at a minimum whenever you aren't walking or talking."
There are alternate ways to learn, but Arlem waits to hear Steven's answer before suggesting them.

[Deathkeeper]

[Gardens]

Steven takes the hand, frustrated with himself.
"Well, I suppose I could do that. Or maybe I should start with something not as different from myself. I don't know, I feel like I don't know where to start getting used to a different skeletal structure and all that." he says, scratching at the back of his head in irritable thought.

[Recaiden]

Arlem shakes his head. "You expect too much of yourself. Be patient."
"Now, I suggest that form for a few reasons.

1. You wore it for years, right? It shouldn't be too unfamiliar to you.
2. It's important to get started with skeletal differences early, because it takes time and experience. But don't overthink it.
3. Taking on human form is a traditional nogitsune power and for us, was, is one of the first things we learn.

You say 'different from yourself', try to think of it as also yourself, you know?"

[Deathkeeper]

[Gardens]

"I mean, it is, but I un-learned a lot of those instincts when the contract happened. Maybe I need to get into the nogitsune mindset more..." Steven ponders. As a scholar, overthinking things is a serious risk in anything that he does.

[Recaiden]

"You think you need more pressure? A trick that will fail if you slip back to normal? Maybe. Just don't find reasons not to practice."
Arlem shifts to black-catgirl form and slowly adjusts the ears and tail to those of a fox.
"I don't suppose it would help to tell you not to think like a scholar. Reconsidering what your body is, that's one thing. But avoiding sytematizing and thinking through and asking questions? Near impossible, right?"

[Deathkeeper]

[Gardens]

Steven looks away, embarrassed. "You got me." he admits, embarrassed.
"It's just how my mind works. If I could make my head not overthink everything and just be comfortable randomly turning into, he gestures at Arlem's cat-girl-ness that I would do it. But I can't change that.

What do you mean, pressure and tricks?"

[Recaiden]

Arlem's ears fold back a bit.
"I mean, what do you think a nogitsune mindset is like?"
"Now, you might be right that you can't change that. But I certainly could."
"If you wanted to find out."

[Deathkeeper]

[Gardens]

Steven ponders the question(s), not sure exactly how to respond.
"Well, most of ours are a bit skittish, somewhere between mischievous and pernicious, and closer to the wild than anyone else. But that's just the few in our congregation here. I don't want to stereotype the whole race.

Well, I wouldn't mind your help, but I wouldn't want you to entirely change my personality. Maybe what's relevant to this..." he says. Arlem can be strange, but Steven doesn't question his benevolence in the slightest. He has the utmost confidence that Arlem would not willingly harm his mind.

Though Steven left out the important Nogitsune trait of also walking around with far too many tails.

[Recaiden]

"Well, here. I won't actually make any changes. Just give you a few things to think about."
Arlem leans in, putting one hand against Steven's forehead, with the other drawing her knife.
"I admit I'm a little surprised you ended up in Tamamo's purview. It never seemed to suit you."

Thoughts should pop into Steven's head, from nowhere in particular. He could have thought of them himself. They could have been there before, only now remembered.

Imagine you knew your own doom, and you think you know it's hour. Many people believe in an afterlife, in spirits, in something more. Many have good reason to believe in it. Not you. You know with certainty that day when everything you are and everything you've done, all your memories, will be worn away like dust in the wind.
Imagine that otherwise, you are free. Nothing and no one can hold you back, you need nothing from the world or anyone else, all is ripe for your taking. And don't you deserve it, as wonderful as you are? Everything is so easy. Of course, you only notice that for others, everything is so hard. Not for you. You don't have their faults.
Imagine you have a sense of humor. That's important. A cruel one. You have to laugh at them, or you'd be crying for them.
Imagine the moon is rising, your hunger burns so bright the flames spill forth around you. It's time to hunt.

[Deathkeeper]

[Gardens]

Steven shudders. The foreign thoughts float about in his head, some landing and others clashing too much with himself to be anything more than a foreign perspective to refute. He can almost feel the heat of the spiritual fire. He realizes he's never tried conjuring it.
But he looks up at Arlem, dead serious.
"Me being my shade was nothing more than a political move by Tsukiko; it was just above a prank. Honestly I don't think you're wrong.
I'm quiet, even boring. The nogitsune are capricious, the shadow vulpans can be vengeful, the werefolk wrathful. I have hoped that I have been a stable personality for their sake. But the bottom line is that I have eternity serving them to look forward to and you're right, I was never entirely suited for it. And now I'm the highest ranking member of their order in this whole realm. Tell me honestly, Arlem. Do you think I'd be able to serve them better if I was a little different? If I tried to let go a little bit?"

[Recaiden]

Arlem thinks back on what she knows of Tamamo. She's said less than ten words to her ever, and they weren't any important divine communication. But she's seen her, and heard things from other gods. She breaks into a grin.
"I was wrong, you are perfect here. Just like your patron. Now, you know I'm big on following traditions unless there's a very good reason to. And you are not exactly the traditional shadow priest, are you? But I think it's good that they have someone more measured. Meaning no disrespect, Tamamo is very impulsive. She tends to get carried away. You're quite level-headed, and it will be good to have that balance."
"On the other hand, 'being Keiko' obviously works. You might understand your fellows better if you followed her example. Just a little."
He's betting Steven hasn't thought of it that way, but it's certainly a true way to look at things.

[Deathkeeper]

[Gardens]

Steven chuckles.
"What, as in being impetuous, caring as she is careless, reckless, and sometimes nudist? Keiko is a wonderful person but I don't think I could ever act like she does." Steven isn't the type to hold her immaturity (or nudism) against her, as it's simply who she was after all that time being dead. And the latter seemed to be only as a nogitsune anyway; he's never been sure how that worked but she's allowed to put forth the image she wants.
Steven appreciates Arlem's guidance in this matter. He wants badly to be the best he can be for his people.

[Recaiden]

It works by magic, of course. Specifically, something inherited from their father, who had all those tails.
"That's right! You can't get much more of a wild shadow person than that. What's stopping you?" Arlem presses him. "If you can answer that, you'll know how to serve your order."

[Deathkeeper]

[Gardens]

"Well, it's just not me, for one thing. I'm not a reckless prankster. Or a nudist vixen. Wildness just isn't in my nature." Perhaps he can understand it a little better with the thoughts Arlem gave him, but it still simply isn't his personality to act anything like Keiko.

[Recaiden]

"Part of what I've been trying to tell you is that you can be anything. Literally, with your magic. And in personality. What you choose to do matters. It's not in my nature to get married, care for children, run an organization - but here I am doing them all. You could be a nudist vixen. Just try."
The next shape she takes on is that of Steven's wife.
"Here, try copying me. Shouldn't be too hard."

[Deathkeeper]

[Gardens]

Steven crosses his arms with a distinct frown.
"Arlem, I am not turning into my wife and taking my clothes off. I won't drag her down with this silliness." Arlem might have to give him some different vixen shape for him to copy.
Though really, Steven is just too much of a quiet, shy person, caring too much for what other people think, to really let himself do any of this. He might need a bit of pushing.

[Recaiden]

"It's a joke, Steven. Keep all your clothes on. But do change your shape."
Arlem flickers through plenty of different vulpans: his family, the other clergy, various temple employees...before settling back on Hierophant Primerra.
"Whatever you think of silliness, you're not even trying!"

[Deathkeeper]

[Gardens]

Steven doesn't seem happy about it, but he acknowledges that Caroline is the only vixen he knows well enough to easily know her proportions. So he does turn into her, which causes her to bear Caroline's signature frown accidentally. It's a new, strange experience, but she's not about to go embarrassing herself by moving about and exploring the differences there on the spot. But it is certainly odd-feeling, especially since her male robes don't really fit well with a female body.
"This is very odd." she says flatly.

[Recaiden]

"Odd. But you managed talking without interrupting your transformation." Says one Caroline to the other.
"Lesson complete." She adds delightedly. "Though next time you practice shapechanging, maybe wear looser clothing."

[Deathkeeper]

[Gardens]

"But that's only because the mouth isn't any different!" Steven sputters. "I'm still not any closer to turning into anything that isn't this same basic shape." she insists. It doesn't feel like a completed lesson at all!

[Recaiden]

"Your voice has changed, hasn't it? Or didn't you notice?" Arlem asks. "You think you aren't any closer, but you are. A little bit. Because there's no fundamental difference between a different skeleton, only a matter of degree. The other thing is, I'm afraid you haven't mastered that basic shape yet. Get practice with tiny differences, and you'll become able to handle larger ones."
She hangs there, waiting to see if Steven has any specific questions or objections.

[Deathkeeper]

[Gardens]

Steven frowns, but is determined to master this. At the same time being her wife is weird, so she changes into something closer to one of the notable nogitsune at the temple. Deep black, long-legged, and even less suited for the clothes she's wearing, both in the torso and in the backside, as she now has a quintuple bundle of tails. Though if Arlem is perceptive she might notice that they move all in a bunch because Steven can't really grasp having them separately. Still, she doesn't have too much trouble with it, solely because Steven doesn't think there's much of a difference; this form doesn't cross the artificial barrier (s)he's made for him/herself. She sighs.
"Still odd. I suppose all the other things I've learned, I shouldn't mind that this is one more that I have to take time to master. I still sort of wish this could've been one thing that I grasped instantly. But you can't just zap skills into people. How did you learn how to do all this, Arlem? Were you born with it?" Steven doesn't really know what Arlem was originally. She wonders if Arlem even has a sense of consistent self, or if everything is equally familiar to them.

[Recaiden]

If Steven still has trouble after plenty of practice, Arlem will focus on helping him overcome those barriers. But for the moment, she thinks he should try to overcome them on his own. And seeing him change, she turns into the normal vulpan-esque shape.

"I could zap skills out of people. But the reverse is much harder."
"I have a lot of practice, and yeah, I was more or less born with it. But no more-so than you were reborn with it. We're born in a body matching what our mother had at the time, and we keep that until going through puberty."

He collapses into a human boy of 11 or 12, with a heart-shaped face, bushy eyebrows, neat black hair. "This was me when I first managed to change. Then we learn a specific second shape which comes pretty easily, then with practice a third and fourth, and after that point we can usually manage anything roughly humanoid. Some stopped- stop there, but others of us keep training, for years, to stretch the boundaries of what we can do. Personally I have a little magical help. We can't ever manage inanimate objects otherwise."
He has to remember not to talk in the past tense, since Ziselle's around.
"But once we're grown that first shape is nothing special. It's not like I have some form to turn back to."

[Deathkeeper]

[Gardens]

Steven spends the conversation trying to alter her proportions; swelling her shape to be plump and then slimming down to a more slim and curvaceous shape. It's not smooth but she's doing it.
"Ah. So you don't really have any preference for your original self. I can't tell if it would be helpful to not have a...baseline for yourself.
I think in my case it's hindering me, but just for using this particular skill." she posits.

[Recaiden]

"Honestly I was glad to be rid of it." Arlem resumes his normal fox-priest shape. "It's wonderful not to have a base weighing you down. Not that I necessarily do a whole lot with it. I'm happy to spend most of my time in a shape matching others." It's really only in fights that he puts his capabilities to real use.

[Deathkeeper]

[Gardens]

Steven ponders Arlem's answer.
"Well, I suppose it would be easier to understand someone if you weren't judging them based on your own baseline. There would be advantages..." Steven considers this. She wouldn't really be a different person if she didn't consider herself a male vulpan temporarily made something else, but she would be more comfortable being other things, possibly. Better at empathizing with all the strange folks at the temple.