Chapter X

     

    The woman-turned-deer’s eyes flickered open and shut as the wind gusted and sheared around her. The blusters were by no means dangerous or even that strong, however they were brisk enough to irritate her vision. She willed herself to keep them as bare as possible amongst the windy currents for the sake of viewing all nature had to offer for her, even if that was restricted to the backyard. For now at least.

    As she watched an elder pinecone tumble across the rearmost edge of her lawn, Cecelia was molding her visage from one of a doe to that of the robin she had seen resting on her shed. The mode of shapeshifting she was exercising caused the transformation to look tranquil and fluid, like everything on her head was slowly but deliberately assuming its place, appearance and function. My body is a flowing river of change.

    She continued observing the vagabond pinecone. As she did, she entranced herself deeper and deeper, causing the gradual transfer of her body’s control to her subconscious forces, which drove her to assume new facial forms. From the robin’s visage, she transitioned her head into a grizzly bear’s, only to seamlessly copy the cranium of a whitefaced owl. Cecelia blinked twice before spinning her new head 360 degrees, slipping it back into doe form as it revolved.

    In the midst of the moment, Cecelia welcomed the slow crumpling and restructuring of her body. Scaly spines began to protrude from her hair-covered skin as her tan color gradually deepened. Her legs increasingly gave way to a dainty fatigue, like the muscles and bones within them were simply reducing into warm air. So Cecelia continued to condense as she rested her tough chest on the grass beneath her, the natural heat of her body diminishing as her head wilted away between her shoulders. She was much more spine than skin by now. Her shape reconstructed from a tall quadruped animal to a small wooden mass that tapered at one end. A pleased whimper cooed from Cecelia’s redefined self as her doe eyes melted into no existence.

    The wind sent the seemingly insignificant pinecone a few inches right of her original position on the lawn. Cecelia hopped and flipped gleefully over blades of grass for only a second or so, but she loved it... though she did not desire more.

    This was unlike any inanimate transformation of hers in the past, or any transformations outside of a controlled environment for that matter; once the forces of the world acted on Cecelia in a form that wasn’t her own, she’d yearn for the experience to continue, for her environment to continue treating her as whatever she may be disguised as. It clicked in her mind just then that this simple fact was much more than a fetish. It was an element of her personality.

    In such, Cecelia sat in her spot on the organic ground. She didn’t induce her own movement or even long for it to occur. Spawning an eye, she caught sight of the pinecone many feet away from her. It too was still.

    The temperature had begun to drop around her. She’d nearly lost track of the passage of time, so she decided to head indoors. Mentally Cecelia sighed, her neurotic zephyr relaxing her further as her shape renewed yet again. Her many spines rotated closed along her body as her complexion shifted to a shade of speckled gray. Her form solidified and gained weight, smoothing out its bumps.

    The new stone then bulged at its side, growing a bulbous node that enlarged to a size that eventually severed it from Cecelia, even though she controlled both rocks completely. She repeated the process many times over, building a substantial pile of sedimentary masses all around her.

    Now her body was modular and nomadic. Cecelia adopted a hexapod configuration to traverse the lawn but morphed into a grippy wheel to hoist herself onto the porch. She then collapsed and rearranged into a serpentine rope to slip back indoors. From here, Cecelia coagulated into a lofty, jagged boulder, out of which she chiseled her human form.

    Cecelia exhaled in her zen delight, closing the back door. It then occurred to her that something had felt... off... when she ventured into the ‘wild’. Once more she attempted to transform into an African-American, finding her efforts of no use. Dropping to the floor she became a sparrow, a pear, a dinner plate, a rat, but not once could she become a human that wasn’t herself.

    Then it finally hit her. “All this damn time!” she exclaimed in a mix of anger and joy once she’d returned to her usual semblance. Skipping to the corn plant that stood statuesque in the corner of the room, she caressed its leaves to inject within it her transformative force. The houseplant dwindled in size, shrinking and simplifying into a single twisted strand that disintegrated into a thin layer of soil atop the rest of the dirt. Cecelia’s fingers traveled to the large metal pot next. She watched in satisfied intrigue as it gracefully changed, thickening from its rubbed bronze to pure terra cotta. “Ah-ha! It worked! I knew I was missing something!” She almost wanted to hug it, its placid transformation and cozy atmosphere attracting Cecelia’s calm sentiments. “You’re perfect for a shapeshifter plant,” she mused, deftly rubbing the smooth clay pot.

    The zen sensations returned to Cecelia, and off of them, she reduced her size such that she was only twice the height of the pottery next to her. From here she turned her lower body into a tail of green slime, guiding it over the jardiniere’s lip, dragging her upper half in tow. The gooey pseudopod burrowed in the soil and multiplied easily into a system of roots. Meanwhile, Cecelia’s arms flattened, melding into nothingness along her sides.

    At the joint between sludge and skin she tilted just barely while five pink flower petals bloomed around her body. They spiraled around her like Esperanza petals but exhibited the colors of a hibiscus, designing for Cecelia her ‘shapeshifter flower’. The petals expanded to a caliber taller than Cecelia’s upper half, which rendered this part of her as the flower’s pistil. Though, a few gooey stalks soon surrounded her, christening the new plant with anthers and filaments.

    From a gap between two petals Cecelia gazed at the room around her. Never before had its adaptable features been so obvious. The parts she could change shone like stars to her. I can adapt to anything. I can exist as whatever I please. I can even shift my surroundings... god, that even sounds magical!

    “Mmm, I’m like... anything...” she murmured, eliminating any human traces of herself and completing her grandiose flower form.

     
    Cecelia’s meditative pinecone state. It’s a very humble form, one where she learned to appreciate her powers’ many capabilities rather than dwell on the single hangup she’d faced. She can look like anything she chooses, but her mindset is universal.