>>5656919It is only a few days later that you are finally recovered to the point where you may confidently don the Amulet of Disguise which makes Theral of Bloodrise into Long Wang of the enigmatic Eastlands. Your regard your reflection, alien again and yet not SO alien. This face, this body… it isn’t YOU, but you’ve worn it long enough that it no longer feels so strange to see this narrow-eyed, golden-skinned human follow your movements in the mirror.
“Preening even now, in your most hideous form of all, oh Degenerateborn?”
You turn around and, to your surprise, see the Novice wearing a guise of her own—one you haven’t seen her adopt in over a year, that of the brown-skinned elf (or half-elf? You think you can now recognize signs of human hybridization in the mix, after so long among both Man and Elf) which her own Amulet of Disguise enables.
“I will take it as a compliment to my craftsmanship,” she sniffs.
“What are YOU wearing, Serpent Priestess?” you ask her. “And why?”
“I am coming with you,” she insists.
You arch Long Wang’s eyebrow, and the Novice hisses, then catches herself and huffs.
“I have worked upon my Northern Common-tongue,” she says, and indeed she speaks the words in a satisfactory imitation of a human. “I will not be a liability.”
“You wish to… Attend my wedding, Beloved One?” you ask, disbelieving, then add in the tongue of the Northmen: “Jealoussss much?”
The Novice crosses her arms beneath her false form’s angrily-heaving bosom.
“The lassst time I let you leave my sssight, you vanished for a month, lossst a preciousss artefact, and nearly died,” she spits. “I will not be sso foolish asss to trussst in you like that again, fool.”
You shrug. Fine—so be it. Sometimes, there is naught else you can do but humour this female… And anyway, she isn’t exactly WRONG.
