If you need me to pretend
Word Count: 913
There's hardly any information on people they call 'half-youma'.
Half-youma, like their humanity is negated by youma pollution.
But this general, Cinnabar, managed to figure out a glamour all on her own. How lucky she must feel.
The Negaverse documented nothing of the process that he could find. Youma themselves never took glamour that he noticed; the act of glamouring must stem from his humanity. And Faustite wagered he had a great deal of humanity to spare - enough so that he looked no different from a normal boy with the addition of sunglasses and gloves. A glamour, he supposed, stretched a little further than sunglasses and gloves. And yet, a glamour was his assurance of dipping back into a life he once led.
Faustite knew that his previous tries to power down left him wanting, but they remained his starting point to sussing out the method. Standing in the stark shadow of a looming warehouse, Faustite afforded himself plenty of space and quietude with which to practice such an ill-documented craft. Even the moon hid behind clouds that night, and his sense of different energies remained blessedly silent. There, among polluted detritus and cracked concrete, he could delve within himself for some answer to the eternal burning question -
How was he to become Elex again?
Pacing back and forth along the great stretch of the warehouse, Faustite listened to the city's errant emptiness for answers. Distant car horns and shifting trees echoed back to him with no further input. The moon itself remained hidden, ensorcelled in its own gauzy clouds. Not even the desolate landscape that was the work yard stirred. How was he to know how to proceed?
Restless footsteps paused; Faustite sighed. His hands fell to his sides with gusto, waving slightly after their descent. He looked to his hands where black tipped his fingers and wretched nails grew out further than he ever allowed, and found no magic holding them back. He recalled how he looked, how he felt to be Elex, and opened his eyes once more to find Faustite's fingers spread and stiff. He thought of his old clothes, his usual habits when he powered down, and nothing came of it. Another check left him still in the tell-tale aubergine and charcoal that comprised his uniform.
So he sought to combine the pair. He remembered keenly what he looked like prior to his partial youmafication; the memory was easy to dredge up in light of the recent travesty. Close-trimmed fingernails, pale fingers that hinted at chill or blood loss for their bleached tips, eyes so dark and stormy that they themselves looked black. He recalled the school uniform, the poached London fashions that his mother oft bought for him, the numerous shoes he paired with those outfits for a small rebellion. His life in those moments looked nearly fictional, fantastical for how he found such predestined garb so quarrelsome. Now, he wished anything for alternate outfits - for shoes that no longer hurt his feet after long hours spent walking.
Next came his thoughts, feelings, behaviors. Often he dwelled on school projects or vitriolic rumors circulating through the classroom. Sometimes he considered his family and the constant mess of it that his father made. He used to compare the relatively banal United States to all the countries of the world that he himself visited. He'd meet anyone with a hope of fascination, and a reality of disappointment. He would balk at Negaverse initiative.
His feelings followed similar roads - often a roiling dislike for his own life and its limitations, followed by burgeoning interest in his city and often derision for the Negaverse. He hated their method of leadership. He hated the way they insisted he rob people of their energy or their souls. And beyond that, perhaps, he hated the connection formed between himself and his still-missing commanding officer. But he similarly knew a bountiful excitement, a reckless schadenfreude, that haunted him into his civilian life. He knew pleasant interest at Rhona's company. At Cabhan's eagerness. At Jack's consternation. He remembered the thrill of aceing another test, of wandering beyond the bounds of his parents' control with his brother.
And the behaviors were simple - mostly restless tics carried with him into Faustite's life. The pacing, the wringing of hands. The cocking of his head. The slight smiles, just damning enough to give away his own pretension.
And in the spell of a moment, those thoughts, feelings, and behaviors culminated into paw magic. Into skin that stretched over merciless claws, over eyes that knew nothing but black. He felt his uniform shimmer and shift subtly. He felt pressure over his face, his hands - light, but definitively present. And as he looked to those now-gloved hands, he saw what he remembered as Elex. He saw the hands that seldom worked a day in their young lives. He saw no hint of black, no fleck of overlong fingernails to taint his vision. His heart leapt with this realization and Faustite stole away to one of the warehouse's many broken windows to look upon himself.
And look he did - with a quiet gasp, he finally saw Elex staring back at him. Hair mussed and eyes tired, he looked like the very same Elex for which his parents mourned.
Absent is the new present. Human is the new monster. Skin is the new disguise.
That wasn't so hard, was it? Looks like Cinnabar has no right to brag. Pity for her.
