"Concentrate, child." Sibyl rapped on the table with her willow wand. "You have to get this right before I can allow you to take off into the wild blue yonder."
"Yes, Mother."
Talia took a deep breath and focused once again on the dancing demon in front of her.
The imp was her pesky brother who had changed from his normal handsome form to that of a devilish gremlin with greenish grey skin and pinkish red eyes. Her task was to shapeshift into something at least resembling such a creature.
"Look at the lines of his body. Incorporate that line into your mindset." Sibyl began again to instruct her daughter.
"Feel your cells change. Feed the change with your inner energy."
Talia scrunched up her face and hunched her shoulders in an effort to look like her brother.
"Tee hee hee." Tarot laughed and hopped from one gremlin foot to another. The bells on his toes jingled and jangled, causing a sound that was at once comical and irritating to Talia.
"Don't try to hard, Child." Sibyl tapped on Talia's shoulder. "This should come fairly naturally to you since you are a high level witch in your own rights."
Talia sighed. "I've never done a single witchy thing in my life, Mother."
"It's in your genes, Darling. You just need to awaken your powers." Sibyl shook her head.
"Watch."
She raised up a hand, and with a delicate genteel gesture, waved it over her body.
"Remember. You are a light being, and light can be shifted. Focus on the cells within your body. Use your eyes and make the cells of your body do what you ask it to do."
Within seconds, there were two imps standing in front of Talia, both looking quite similar although Talia could tell the difference between her mother and her brother.
Sibyl gave another wave of her hand and once again, she was back to her normal elegant form once more.
"Try again."
Talia nodded and squeezed her eyes shut as she concentrated with as much intensity as she could.
Light being. She was a light being. She needed to shift the light.
Talia honestly had no idea how to shift the light, but if Mother could do it—heck, if her dorky brother could do it, why couldn't she?
It was simple. She only needed to turn into light and shift it so that she could look like a gremlin.
Rooting around within herself, she began to focus in on the particles that made up her body. The more she focused in, the larger the gap grew between the particles themselves.
Talia was amazed to find that her body was made up of mostly air!
The particles that made up her body were so tiny that the gap between one particle and the next was the length of a football field!
This was not a workable situation. She was too far down in the magnification.
Talia backed up a bit. As she decreased the magnification of her mind's eye, her body's particles began to grow closer together.
Now.
What was she supposed to do? Shift the light?
Talia began nudging the particles around and found that it was malleable, almost like aluminum foil. Where she pushed, it remained.
She cast aside the understanding that this was her body she was shoving around.
Hopefully, there would be a reset button so she could get back to her normal shape, because if not—ugh! She didn't even want to think about being stuck in some weird shape for the rest of her life.
"Holy smoke!" Tarot gasped.
"Hush." Sibyl whispered. "Give her a chance to figure it out."
Talia opened her eyes.
"What's wrong. Did I do something bad?"
Tarot began cackling and slapping his knees.
"You're supposed to focus on me and try to make your shape look like mine. Instead, all you did was push your body around. Hahahaha!"
Talia turned towards the full-length mirror and gasped as she covered her mouth with both hands in horror.
Her body had gotten all warped looking and was barely recognizably human. She really had done some serious shapeshifting damage to herself!
Sibyl smiled. "Don't be scared, Child. Focus on the shapeshifting again, but this time, don't close your eyes. Look at Tarot and try to change yourself so you can morph into his shape."
Talia stared hard at her brother's greenish grey skin and pinkish red eyes. Inside her mind's eye, she visualized herself wearing the same form around her like a costume.
"That's my girl!" Sibyl encouraged.
"Am I getting close?" Talia breathed, not daring to move for fear of breaking the illusion.
"Take a look for yourself." Sibyl smiled and indicated at the mirror.
Talia slowly turned her head towards the mirror and took a sharp inhale as she saw a green imp looking back at her with those dazzling blue eyes.
"My eyes are all wrong." She laughed and squinted as she strained to make her eyes red.
For a moment, nothing happened. But then gradually, Talia's blue eyes turned a pale pink color which deepened into a red that was even more pronounced than Tarot's were.
"Awesome! You look like you have rubies for eyes!"
"Lessen it a bit. The goal is to look exactly like him, not better than him." Sibyl chided.
"Sorry…" Talia murmured and took the color down a bit.
"You're missing the mottled warty look of the skin. Your skin is too smooth."
Again, Talia focused on the skin until it matched Tarot's frog-like skin.
"Take a look at his hair." Sibyl pointed to Tarot's head with her willow wand.
"You see how greasy and nappy it looks? Yours is too clean, too shiny. You need to emulate not just the physical look, but also the physical condition it is in."
Talia nodded and doubled her effort. This time, she added a layer of dirt and grime onto the soles of her feet and the pads of her hands. For added effect, she even threw in a bog stink that matched his appearance.
"Ewww!" Tarot gagged. "Did you fart, Talia?"
"Tch." Talia clicked her tongue. "Of course not. I just added a bit of smell to make it more authentic."
"Smell?" Tarot turned to Sibyl with questioning eyes. "Can we actually do that?"
Sibyl pursed her lips. "Apparently…we can…"