Warnings for... general grossness? mephi is a very sad man and inhabiting his body cannot be pleasant
// asjfbhjbs this got very strange and I interpreted some things about how a body-swap with Mephi might go in a weird way? orz forgive me. Also I am assuming that even though Mephi is a wreck some of his witch posse might care about gussying up and crap.
Maeve realized something was wrong the moment she saw her hands.
The paleness of the skin was what struck her first; its smoothness, the way the flesh tapered off into black claws that seemed as malleable and transient as quicksilver. It wasn't quite that they were fluid; Maeve simply understood that they had a fluidity to them. These hands she saw could become something else, had become something else, and would, in the future, become something else, though not under her hands, because all of these understanding came in the form of echoes in the cavern of the frame she now inhabited. None of it were things that applied to her necessarily; they were just things she felt by proxy because she inhabited this space. It was like rubbing the carved letters on a grave, or feeling the curved edges of stone left behind after the dissolution of organic material.
It was fossilized hunger. It was the lingering vibrations of a million shattered voices all screaming for recourse.
There'd been disbelief at first, which had her feeling at her face, mind reeling for some sort of explanation or point of reliable contact with the things that she normally accepted to be true. She found none of that - instead, she found hair that was now too long, which when she brought it into her vision was strangely brown. She recognized neither the slope of her jaw nor the planes of her forehead, and she had nubs of flesh on the sides of her face instead of the long, proud ears she'd been accustomed to throughout her life. Her chest was flat, her shoulders broad, and a vague sense of emaciation plagued her form, building in a dull throb of hunger that pounded in her gut. It wasn't quite hers though - again, it was a memory. It was something that had been carved into this body, and she was only experiencing the effects of it secondhand.
In hindsight, Maeve thought vaguely, looking at the strange face framed in the mirror, the fact that she now had two hands should have been enough to tell her that something was off.
Her first order of business after collecting herself had been to explore. While she didn't have a weapon, something told her she didn't particularly need one, though she took great pains to avoid potential encounters with other beings occupying the strange residence. This was less out of worry of her own safety, and more out of a desire to avoid an awkward situation. She had no idea how to even begin to lie in this state.
She'd found a bathroom after not terribly much struggle, and locked the door behind her as she tried to puzzle out what to do.
First, was a more thorough examination of her form. It looked masculine, the body she inhabited, though she had trouble associating any pronouns with it due to the current circumstances. It had deeply shadowed brown eyes, and once that she had the opportunity to really focus inward, she noted the putrid smell clinging to its flesh. Maeve had a vague sense that, had she been in her proper form, interacting with this creature would be nothing short of agonizing, but its nose had become so drenched in its own stench that it was simply a symptom of its own self-loathing rather than a crippling barrier to existence. Still, she wrinkled her forehead a bit, squinting and putting a hand over top of her stomach.
Everything else melted away. This concern was more pressing.
Inside of her, there was a hunger for something more. Endless, unceasing - to devour guilt, to consume it and revel in it like a hog rolling itself in manure. She could feel the rot dripping off of her flesh, a putrid grease baked into the pores of this thin, sallow body. It was enough of an echo that it almost drowned out her own voice, that of a woman who readily severed bonds in order to protect herself. Maeve did grow attached, not like this thing. Meave cut away the chaff almost too liberally, while this thing had been filled up to the brim with more than it could possibly contain, filling itself with bubbling concoction of guilt and sins.
This was a body that has never known self-love. This was a body that has never known self-satisfaction. It could never possibly move on from anything, and what could Maeve, a fool who had lost her purpose and her meaning, even possibly say to it? At least, that was the sense she got of her situation, an analysis comprised of half-formed pictures and flits of emotion and memories. Maeve stared at her reflection, and pulled a finger over the bridge of her nose.
Briefly, she saw the pale lips in front of her turn up in a smile of self-derision.
She looked down at the basin of the sink then, letting out a contemplative hum. There were a number of things on the marble counter before her, strange containers that she assumed were filled with a variety of hygienic creams. Their presence didn’t strike her as particularly odd; having something didn’t mean you had the strength of will to use it. For a moment, she thought, and then she reached out for one of them, unscrewing the cap and taking out a contemplative sniff. There was much she didn’t know: who this was, why she was like this, and when she would be returned to her proper form. However, she recognized that that if she let herself grow complacent, she’d fall prey to this gluttonous echo… and she must do anything in her power to resist the gnawing pain crawling around in this odd body.
After some fiddling, she figured out how to draw water from the tub in the corner of the room. There wasn’t much to strip, and after making a valiant attempt to distinguish between the various products littering the room, she lowered herself into the half-filled tub and let the warm waters spill over her. Her legs were furred at least, she thought to herself, beginning to rub soap into the fur to clean it. That was some small amount of comfort in this strange, smooth body.
Next was the hair, soaped and sudded. Then the feet, and all of the crevices of its body… and slowly, something like affection came to the forefront of her thoughts.
“Come now,” she murmured, sinking down into the rising water and wrapping her arms around her borrowed body. She felt like she was embracing one of her soldiers, not herself - and she was reminded of the days that she spent holed up with three-hundred men in a fortress, waiting to make a valiant last stand against a foe far greater than her. “This is a start, isn’t it? It can’t be easy, to hold onto all of this. Let some of it wash away. You’ll be okay… I promise you.”
“You’ll be okay.”
It was hard to tell whether or not Maeve was acting out of selfishness or empathy. Fundamentally, it was an action of self-preservation, a desperate attempt to quench the despair seeping into her spirit from the hollowed-out remnant that she possessed. And it wasn’t like she’d been asked to do this – she was acting on her own, unwelcomely, and invading another’s privacy while doing so. Yet, there was a genuine thought there, deep inside of herself as she contemplated the torrent of sensation and emotion coursing through her.
Poor thing. You’ve been through too much, haven’t you? Whatever happened to you… it took away your ability to look at yourself with love.
Hypocritical, certainly. But it is easier to say things to another’s reflection than your own.
