Yiv: Following a ... sibling?

Yiv quickly walked down the hall, doing her best to keep her head down and avoid prolonged eye contact with anyone she passed. She knew that if they were able to get a good of a look at her face she would be found out. A sixth sense somewhere inside her guided her like being pulled by a string toward where she’d last sensed whatever that thing like her was. As she approached the room her ‘sibling’ was in she felt the ‘string’ she was following plucked like a stringed instrument. She hurried quicker towards the strange feeling. Pushing the door open she was faced with a portal, sensing it was closing and dove through. Falling into tall grass with a flop. She landed on her stomach and lost her form momentarily. Yiv struggled to get her form back after the powerful magic portal interrupted her focus of keeping her humanoid form, pulling herself together when she heard footsteps moving away. She wanted to scream for them to stop but momentarily had no mouth.

Laying there in the grass she opened her other eyes, her magic vision locking on to the bobbing light that was her sibling. At least when seeing through her magic eyes. Yiv wriggled in her noneuclidean form. After some time she managed to retake a version of her typical form though she lacked any fake skin tone, managing to only take on a transparent black. Like jelly made from squid ink. An inhuman mouth full of gelatinous teeth, and sticky saliva. Huge pure white eyes took in the moon lit field.

“fahf mgvulgtnah ye'bthnk…” she said looking at her oversized clawed hands on thin arms. (this terrible form…) Sitting down in the grass to rest, she couldn’t go anywhere near a town in this shape, she’d be attacked on sight and she didn’t want to hurt anyone in response to being attacked. She settled in for a long wait. Making sure her head was long enough to not be seen from the road.

Yiv sat all through the night watching the moon crawl across the sky, and the clouds form and break. She could feel her fingers pulling back and taking the shape of a human woman’s, flexing them and spreading them. In her head she smiled but her mouth still wouldn’t allow it. It was a strange thing being in this form her mouth always remained open but she managed to speak, but even to herself it was odd, it coming from seemingly both nowhere and the center of her chest rather than her mouth. Even if in human form it did roughly the same, the act of moving her mouth was a trick to make it feel and sound normal.

Eventually the morning had come and the sun was coloring the sky in oranges, pinks and reds. She stared down at her outstretched legs, her feet almost fully human now it wouldn’t be long before she could start moving again. So she closed her eyes and looked towards the town. In the odd black and grey scape of her magic vision she saw the green blip somewhere far off like a star in the sky. Lucky for her they’d not gone far in the night. She was about to lock on with the same ‘string’ as before when she was broken from her spell but the snarling and growling of several dogs, and the shouts from some gruff sounding men for them to heel. Peeking through the grass Yiv saw several guards, likely from the town and large mastiffs on heavy chains leads barking at where she was hiding.

“Woah!” one of the men shouted, pulling the chain tight. “Its just an animal calm down.” the dog let out a confused whimper before barking at half the volume again. Yiv was a little sad to be seen as such a threat by the dogs. In some ways they might be right, but she wouldn’t hurt them. Not unless they tried to do so first but they never did. But Yiv remained statue still until the guards had managed to get the dogs to move on. She’d need to keep in mind the dogs seemed to sense her when she was moving through that town. Yiv could at a passing glance pass as fully human, and even small, quick interactions passed scrutiny. However when fixated on for a moment too long the ruse began to crumble. Not to the point of causing terror in the one looking at her, however if did speak to something in the primal part of the brain. An uncanny feeling, something unsettling. Things just ever so slightly off. Eyes slightly too big for the face, teeth a bit too straight and white, a voice just a bit too ‘perfectly’ fit for the look. Nothing so off as to be monstrous, just a feeling of ‘offness’ one could never quite place, the only aspect you could have is that you wanted to not be around her, especially when she is staring.

Yiv finally managed to fully assume humanoid form. Rising slowly from her hiding place she scanned the road for travelers. Seeing none she slinked from her hiding place, and started down the road. Stopping at the gates to the town knowing after a few mishaps that the guards at those gates didn’t like her trying to just walk in. Lessons learned.

At the gate to the town stood two guards. Both are built like clothes bureaus, with jaws as square as flagstones. Almost as intimidating as that one paladin…almost.

“State your business.” The guard said in a deep voice.

Yiv put on her best smile. “I’ve…” she thought quickly. “I’ve come to visit my sibling.” she said, which wasn’t fully a lie at any rate, which should count for something.

“Sibling?” The guard echoed.

Yiv nodded emphatically. “Yes. He sent me a letter asking me to visit to meet his…” Yiv flashed through info in her head trying to remember the word. “His wife.” she said.

The guard didn’t seem interested in asking more questions involving her business. “Any weapons?”

Yiv held up her two fists.

“Very funny.” the other guard said dryly

“Thank you.” Yiv said but it came out as a half question.

The guard stared at her for a moment longer. Yiv could have sworn she saw the second one out of the corner of her eye shiver slightly. Like his skin was covered in gooseflesh. She could see the other guard trying to work something out in his head as he made long eye contact but she could tell he couldn’t quite place why he thought something was wrong. Not surprisingly, it was like this almost every time. The smarter the person the less it seemed to bother them. Nobody ever quite figured it out but the smarter ones always seemed to have a faster response to either reconciling the oddness or an ability to compartmentalize and ignore to cloister their sanity.

The guards moved aside and let Yiv pass into the city. Now was the hard part, finding the ‘sibling’ and doing it without her powers.