June 6: the world is mine, feat. Sarralyn Salmalín
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Numair Salmalín strode down the hallway, his long nose buried in the stack of notes he had just received containing new insight into the gruesomely fascinating Scanran killing machines, but a flash of movement lifted his eyes from the paper.
The door to Sarralyn's room was slightly ajar, but he knocked out of propriety. "Come in, da," she called; he knew before he pushed open the door that she had rolled her eyes at him. Sometimes she so resembled her mother in the way that she laughed at his instinctual manners.
Sarralyn was admiring herself in the mirror, absently piling her dark curls on top of her head and letting them drop to her shoulders, over and over. Numair actually shoved his notes (carefully) beneath one arm and took a few moments to gaze at her with fatherly pride.
He remembered – how could he forget? – the nine months, with the added terror of a shapeshifting baby piled on top of the challenge that neither he nor Daine thought they would ever be ready to face, but his fondest memories were after Sarralyn's birth and naming ceremony. Upon moving into their larger suite of rooms at the palace, Daine had purchased a wooden rocking chair, too simple to have been spelled for any special purpose. At his mild confusion, she had explained, her voice slipping back into the lilting mountain-town softness that evoked memories of fevers and healing as well as inane conversations about horsetails, "My ma had one when I was a babe." That settled the issue.
Ironically, it had been he who had spent hours in the rocking chair, entirely by choice: he couldn't seem to get enough of bouncing his baby girl (and later her brother) on his long legs or cradling the soft body to his chest, hardly daring to breathe for fear of disturbing the dozing child. It had been in that chair that Numair had first awed baby Sarralyn with his magic; just a puff of black mist that dissolved into sparkles when captured by her chubby hands. Sarralyn had grinned toothlessly up at him and declared, "Mine." He was so astonished that he nearly dropped her; when he had recovered, he whooped joyfully, and, amazingly, she joined in, crying out in glee and clapping her hands together.
"Yes, da?" Sarralyn prompted, jolting him from his memory.
He shook his head, sending some of his hair loose from its horsetail, as he came over and briefly rested one large hand on her shoulder. "Nothing, sweetheart. You're just growing into a beautiful young woman, that's all." He gave her a small peck on the cheek and left the room, pulling the door shut with one hand while retrieving his notes from his robes with the other.
Sarralyn inspected her reflection with a critical eye. "Beautiful . . ." she repeated. She fingered her long nose, and beneath her fingers crooked itself. Her skin lightened so that it resembled less her father's swarthy Tyran features and more the golden-brown of a K'mir. Her hair darkened to pitch black and straightened itself a bit, framing perfectly hazel eyes and full red lips.
The image of her undeniably beautiful aunt didn't occupy her for long, however. Presently thoughts of another dark-haired ruler came to her. She broadened her shoulders and flattened her breasts, though at the same time she sent new muscles rippling over her arms and chest. Her black hair withdrew into her head, only to pop out again along her jaw. The steady hazel of her eyes brightened to an astonishing blue. Now this was more interesting.
The portraits that she'd studied in the east wing of the palace flitted through her mind like pages from a book, and she rushed to keep up with her speeding thoughts. She thinned out the jaw, filled out the mouth, and touched the hair with brown, all the while adding inches until she towered over the maiden-sized mirror. She recalled the story her mother had, with not a little bit of awe, passed down to her about the famously short Lioness dueling against the six-foot duke of Conté, and she couldn't help but grin; Roger smiled nefariously back, though all she could see in the mirror was his mouth.
Yes, she decided, much too tall. In a flash she was five-foot-three again; her brown-black hair turned entirely chestnut and began flowing down her shoulders in thick waves. Her skin bleached itself to an entirely milky-white color; her hands turned small-boned and delicate, accustomed to wielding nothing heavier than a soup spoon. She interestedly examined the smooth, uncalloused fingers; it occurred to her that she had yet to encounter a woman in Tortall, even the Queen, who did not bear such toughened skin. Her breasts strained against a shirt fitted for someone with more modest curves.
Just for the hell of it, she decided to try an image she hadn't seen in the palace at Corus. This one would be more difficult since she couldn't just assume the last form this man had occupied without imprisoning herself in a life of steel feathers and the gods-awful stench of fear and war. Of course, there were enough relics and such of him that she had an accurate image of him in her mind's eye.
She thinned her chestnut hair but kept its color; she watched with curiosity as her eyes lightened to a pale amber. Her white skin flashed like lightning before assuming a dark hue that only long hours in the sun could grant.
She reflected that the majority of her transformation wasn't complete since she had not a stitch of gold or jewelry on her person. She rather resembled a peasant in her simple tunic and hose, but the natural power and arrogance was firmly ingrained. She stared back at her image with a look of bored disgust; then suddenly she opened Ozorne Tasikhe's mouth wide in a garish grin.
With a contented sigh, she shrugged her shoulders, and the late Emperor Mage's features melted off her like candle wax. The figure that stared back possessed Daine's smoky curls and Numair's long nose, but the eyes remained amber and catlike, the skin golden-brown, and the mouth was Roger's, red and full – or was it Delia's?
This time her inspection held a smile at the end, and one word: "Mine."
