Selkie Power Talks V
You ponder what feels best to you – you imagine if you were a ‘natural’ selkie, that tapping into these extraordinary abilities would be pretty easy, since Moirine showed no problem doing just that. But, you aren’t, and, as you hover there, thinking, you wonder if it would be difficult for you on the off chance you did have more than one power.
‘I guess it doesn’t hurt to try,’ you muse, before you look at Moirine. ‘Sure.’
Moirine nods at this. ‘It is much the same as what you just did, pup. It’s merely a matter of you digging into your mind. In essence, just imagine yourself doing what you’ve seen me to do – imagine turning invisible, or imagine being able to move as though your body was lighter than air, and so on. You’ll find out rather quickly if you can’t do something.’
You frown. ‘Has it been this easy from the start?’
‘Well, yes,’ she says. ‘But you know why I didn’t tell you, yes?’
‘Yeah,’ you say. ‘Oh, uh, before I start trying anything else…’ You take a moment to try and word what it is you want to say. ‘This… this feeling I have, the one that…’
‘That feels as though your body and mind are far, far larger than before?’ Moirine offers.
‘Y-yes!’ you say. Then, you chide yourself, because of course she would know how to phrase it, being that she IS a selkie. ‘Does this feeling stay, I guess, turned on forever now that I’ve discovered it, or, does it shut off when I stop focusing on it long enough?’
Moirine tilts her head to the side as she eyes you. ‘A curious way of wording it, pup… I suppose you’re thinking of it like a button you can push in your head, then?’
You nod.
‘I’ve never thought of it that way,’ Moirine says. Her features turn thoughtful for a moment. ‘It must be your human way of processing such information at work. How fascinating to learn,’ she chuckles, ‘regardless, to answer your question… I would say that, yes, to an extent, it is sort of like a switch or a button in your mind. You would very easily become overwhelmed if you were to continue on with it still active, I believe.’
You certainly don’t disagree with that notion.
‘It isn’t difficult to do, mind you,’ Moirine adds. ‘Now that you have learned how to turn it on, as you say, you simply need to put your mind back into that state to do the reverse. And going forward, it should be no trouble for you to flip that switch off or on.’ She offers you a bright smile, still looking thoughtful. ‘It’s funny. I have never felt my abilities like buttons to push, yet I CAN comprehend how you would. If anything, it’s likely a lot easier for you to process what you’re doing, so by all means, continue to do so.’
You don’t close your eyes this time around as you concentrate, and, you find that you can, in essence, ‘feel’ how to shut this sensation off – it’s like you push a button, and, the feeling of your everything stretching around you weakens. You blink, and, you feel like you did before you started to concentrate; you can’t bend the waves anymore.
‘That is trippy as all hell,’ you muse to yourself, and you shake it off. ‘This is definitely going to take getting used to… then again, so is being in a selkie body, I guess.’
For now, you let it slip away, and, you instead decide to try and experiment with the other selkie abilities that Moirine has shown you – invisibility, controlling the temperature around you, and moving at superhuman speed, your three options. You decide you’ll tackle the invisibility one first, and then the temperature manipulation, since those two (in your mind) feel like they’d be the easiest to tell whether or not you can use them.
‘So it’s similar to bending the water with my mind, you said?’ you ask, since it doesn’t hurt to be double certain of what you’re doing. ‘I have to envision myself as invisible by digging into my mind, and, if I can… er, feel the invisibility, then, it’s working?’
Moirine nods. ‘I apologize that it’s perhaps harder to wrap your head around than you might have expected, but, yes, that is the gist of it. I will inform you if you are actually invisible… although you would feel it if your attempt proves to be successful.’
You nod in respond to her words and decide to give it a shot: you close your eyes once more, only now, rather than trying to focus on the water, you focus on the prospect of turning invisible. You’ve never given much thought to HOW turning invisible would work or how it would feel, but, you have a hunch that it’s centered on envisioning yourself as simply not being there in front of Moirine anymore, so that’s what you go with.
You concentrate, long and hard, on this, but, as the seconds tick by, you find that it doesn’t seem to register with your mind – you don’t FEEL anything out of the ordinary, you don’t experience any sudden new sensations pulsing through your body… nothing.
You try for about a minute longer, until you can tell that nothing is happening.
‘Am I invisible?’ you ask Moirine.
Moirine chortles. ‘No, pup. No, you are not. If anything, you look like you’re about ten seconds away from farting with how intensely you seem to be focusing, though.’
Your eyes snap open and a snicker escapes you at the rather humorous – and random – comment from Moirine. You find her grinning at, clearly showing this was her intent, and after a beat of amusement, you shake your brief laughter away, and glance down at your body. You don’t look invisible, nor feel it, so, you deem that one a lost cause.
‘Alright, I’ll scratch that one off the list,’ you remark.
You decide to then change gears to try and focus on the temperature manipulation ability that Moirine showed you earlier – and you don’t ask her, you automatically figure that it’s based on concentrating and thinking yourself able to change the temperature.
You imagine making the water around your body warmer, but much like with your inner attempt at turning invisible, it doesn’t seem to register in your mind; the water doesn’t grow warmer, or colder around you, and, despite your best effort at really, truly digging into your mental space to try and concentrate on this power, nothing happens. Again, you end up opening your eyes and deciding that it isn’t an ability you possess, so you scratch off the power to alter temperatures alongside invisibility. Three down…
‘That only leaves the speed ability for me to try out,’ you tell yourself. If you want to.
You ponder for a moment if you wish to try, or, if you want to hold onto it for later. You feel like, since you have hydrokinesis, and, since you didn’t really move at the same blurring speed that Moirine did back when you were following after her… you don’t know for certain, but you have a gut feeling that you likely don’t have super speed, either.
‘I could be wrong,’ you think, since you aren’t entirely sure. ‘But at the same time, I’m not all that bothered by it if I do or don’t. Besides, there’s plenty of time for me to explore if I have the power to move at superhuman speeds in the water, so I could shelve it…’
While you weigh this decision in your head, Moirine swims closer to you.
‘You seem to be lost in your thoughts, pup,’ Moirine remarks. She snickers. ‘Are you trying to decide what to do next? Do you not want to attempt to see if you have speed as a boon, or, are you simply wanting to hold onto that for later on? I understand either way, of course. There is no rush, no need for forcing yourself into these things.’
‘I’m leaning toward trying it out later,’ you say, and you give the closest thing to a shrug you can as a selkie. ‘I dunno. There’s a lot to take in as it is, so I’m still adjusting.’
‘Fair enough,’ Moirine says. ‘We can always go and explore the area. There are some spots where only we selkie can go, after all. Or, if you prefer to relax and do your own thing, that’s an option. They say the sky is the limit, but, in this case, the ocean is the limit for a selkie.’ She winks. ‘What would you like to do next, pup? You tell me.’
You continue to think…
Written by Hollowpage on 04 May 2021
