>>“Mirrorwalking? I’ve never heard that one, before. How’s it work?”

"Ummm..." Maya made a face. How do you explain it without actually doing a demonstration? Right now she was too comfortable sitting on the counter, halfway through her cereals, to go and find something reflecting.
"Well... I can go into mirrors. Or pretty much anything that reflects me. And then I can go, from one mirror into the other. 'tis like teleportin'." she smirked "I can also... steal someone's reflection, and... wear it. It's sorta shiftin' an' mirrorwalkin' together."

>>“Question! Who is this Guingalet? I feel I need must be properly versed, now that I am he.”

Maya grinned. Now that question was much easier to answer.

"Guingalet is Sir Gawain's horse. Y'know, in Arthurian legends 'n' stuff. He's an aughisky. That's kind of a water horse, up North on the Orkneys, where Sir Gawain's from. It's a... thing, looks like a horse, but lives in water, and comes out to... prey on people." she explained, too excited about the topic to be cool "If one can tame it, it's the best steed ever. But if ya can't... well, it eats people. Comes in handy in battles though. They can tear a knight's arm off..."

Running out of breath, Maya suddenly turned pink in the cheeks.

"Um. Yeah. Sorry. That's my inner mythology buff..." she chuckled "... comes with the name, I guess."

>> "Ummm... Well... I can go into mirrors. Or pretty much anything that reflects me. And then I can go, from one mirror into the other. 'tis like teleportin'. I can also... steal someone's reflection, and... wear it. It's sorta shiftin' an' mirrorwalkin' together."

“That,” the boy said, with an approving point of his spoon, “is slick. Can you wear the reflection outside of the mirror, or just while you’re passing them by, as it were? And can you bring other people with you? ‘Cause Gawain and Guingalet galloping past bathroom mirrors is sure to liven up a few people’s days.” They would find a lance, somewhere, if this was to occur. Knight armor was optional, but a lance? He had a new policy: there would be absolutely no more free rides to knights without lances. A proper steed must have his standards.

Standards that were clearly lower than they need be, given his namesake. Calley’s chest puffed out as Maya regaled him with her excited mythology lesson.

>> "Um. Yeah. Sorry. That's my inner mythology buff... comes with the name, I guess."

Complete with blushing, even. Calley smirked over at her. “Madam,” he said, making sure to sit up properly straight, “your taste in names and legends is matched only by your taste in who you bestow them on. I formally accept the title of Guingalet, steed of Sir Maya-Gawain.” He flashed a toothy grin. “Some taming required. I imagine it will go hand in hand with you actually learning to ride.” He drained the last of his cereal-flavored milk. “You are so lucky I wasn’t a real horse, last night. I hear they don’t take too well to getting hooked to shopping cart trains, and fighting tentacle monsters.”

Fortunately, his knight had him. Yep. Maya was clearly in good man-hooves.

>>“That, is slick. Can you wear the reflection outside of the mirror, or just while you’re passing them by, as it were? And can you bring other people with you? ‘Cause Gawain and Guingalet galloping past bathroom mirrors is sure to liven up a few people’s days.”

"Ya bet" Maya grinned. A certain morning in a certain lady's mirror came into her mind. "I can only go alone though. I'd need to practice with someone to learn how to bring people with me."

Because that would be tons of fun.

>>“Madam, your taste in names and legends is matched only by your taste in who you bestow them on. I formally accept the title of Guingalet, steed of Sir Maya-Gawain. Some taming required. I imagine it will go hand in hand with you actually learning to ride. You are so lucky I wasn’t a real horse, last night. I hear they don’t take too well to getting hooked to shopping cart trains, and fighting tentacle monsters.”

Maya rolled her eyes.
"Please don' call me 'madam', makes me think of dresses." she stuck her tongue out, then nodded at the rest of the speech "Yeah, I kinda figured you were either a very smart horse, or a not so lucky mutant, because ya didn't throw me off right away... Y'know, ya were my first." she added with more chuckling and an unladylike grin "So, yeah, taming sounds like a plan..."

>> "Ya bet. I can only go alone though. I'd need to practice with someone to learn how to bring people with me."

The (animal) shifter quirked an eyebrow, leaning a little bit to the side to set his empty bowl in the sink before reaching behind him, and grabbing a banana out of the fruit bowl that dwelt there. After a moment of thought, he took out the whole bowl, and graciously offered it to his growing Knight. After she was done with it, he set it back behind him.

“You shall have no lack of volunteers for that practice, Madam.” The blue eyed teenager said, gesturing knowingly with the half-peeled banana. “Walking in mirrors? That’s just cool.”

>> "Please don' call me 'madam', makes me think of dresses.”

“Heh.” Peeling finished, he took a bite, and swallowed it down (after some obligatory chewing). “So your main form is the Gawain one, then? I mean, you hate dresses, and like girls, and stuff?” Aka: ‘you’re a boy.’

Unless you were his roommate Cafas. Then you might be a boy who showed signs of liking other boys. Being the boy to whom the signs were shown, Calley would rather not think about that, right now. He’d rather just... eat his fruit. Except... not like that?

>> "Yeah, I kinda figured you were either a very smart horse, or a not so lucky mutant, because ya didn't throw me off right away... Y'know, ya were my first. So, yeah, taming sounds like a plan..."

He snort-grinned, his blue eyes impish as he looked to the girl next to him. “I stole your horse cherry, Madam. Heh. Or would you prefer ‘My Fair Lady Maya’?” He had mentioned that Gawain’s Little Pony came with some training required, right? Look on the bright side—he could be biting her arm off, instead of messing with titles. Clearly, he as well behaved of an aughisky as the Fair Lady could hope for.

>>“So your main form is the Gawain one, then? I mean, you hate dresses, and like girls, and stuff?”

"Umm..." Maya scratched the back of her head, then picked an apple from the fruit basket. Polishing it on her T-shirt, she throught about it for a while "... nah, I don' really have a main form. I was Maya on the day I was born, but I'd been changin' een before that, so there's really no way of tellin'. But, yeah, I hate dresses an' I like girls." she nodded with a grin.

>>“I stole your horse cherry, Madam. Heh. Or would you prefer ‘My Fair Lady Maya’?”

"... and that means I don' have to wait for a Gawain day to kick someone's ass" she concluded with a grin that matched Calley's, and then took a bite from her apple. "We'll work on the courtly manners of mythical steeds first, and on mirrors later." she nodded is a more serious manner "An' in the meantime, ya're allowed to address me as Maya."

“This ass kicking of which you speak,” the brown-haired teenager said, loftily lifting both his nose and his banana into the air. “I dare say, I must doubt it until proven otherwise. An aughisky is more than the match of one little girl.” He finished off his banana, and gestured with the empty peels towards Maya. “And if you come to me tomorrow, I’ll say the same: an aughisky more than the match of one little boy, too.”

He dropped the more-majestically-mythic-than-thou-art attitude, and raised an eyebrow to her for confirmation. “They are, right? More than a match for a person?” He, err, wasn’t so up on his aughisky legends. “Except for this Sir Gawain. What’d he do, to tame Guingalet?” There was no way that Guingalet just rolled over and allowed himself to be tamed, mind you. As a fellow bearer of that name, Calley’s own pride revolted at the mere idea.

Maya snorted and kept chewing the apple; she didn't grace that promise of knight/lady vs. steed death match with any comments.

>>“They are, right? More than a match for a person? Except for this Sir Gawain. What’d he do, to tame Guingalet?”

"Oh yes they are" Maya nodded, grinning "And, um, I'm not really sure how he did it, they don't tell it in the stories. It's probably lie tryin' to tame any wild horse. Plus the fact that it can take you underwater and try to drwon you..." she smirked "Gawain had this... ability, he was stronger as the sun went higher on the sky. So whatever he did, he probably did it at midday..."

Almost like a mutat ability. Another great thing about legends and lore...

“Iiiinteresting,” Calley said, twitching his legs over the counter’s edge while he watched her eat her apple. There was an easy smile on his face. “So, Sir Gawain-Maya, do you find your shifting easiest at midday, then?”

It still hadn’t occurred to him that these changes of his/hers weren’t voluntary. Losing control sometimes, like when you slept, was one thing; and a fairly normal thing, if he did say so himself. For their age, anyway. He had trouble picturing himself as a forty year old man, still waking up as mice and sparrows. That was all just a matter of control, though. To have a complete lack of control, to never be able to control the shift: he couldn’t imagine it. He’d had a degree of control from the very beginning. That first day, when he’d just been a scared thirteen year old trapped in a mouse’s body, it had taken him well past the next sunset to change back. But he had changed back.

Of course Maya/Gawain could, too. What kind of shifter would she be if she couldn’t?

>>“So, Sir Gawain-Maya, do you find your shifting easiest at midday, then?”

Maya frowned through another bite of apple and shook her head, unruly dark locks flying left and right.

"Nah, I always shift at midnight. I usually get very sleepy before that... which is good 'cause I've shifted awake only a couple o' times in my whole life, and it sucks." she added "And then I wake up as Maya, or as Gawain. I don' really do anythin' about it. It just happens."

Taking another man-sized bite from the apple, she shrugged the rest away, and looked at the boy next to her.

"So, how does your version work?..."

She was curious. She grew up with a shifter, but somehow Mom never tried to teach her how to control her ability. Maybe she was just waiting for Maya/Gawain to be the right age or hoping s/he'd figure it out for herself. And ever since then, s/he didn't really have an opportunity to talk to another one like her...

"How does it feel like?"

Shifts at midnight, not midday. Gottacha. Waking up as the other form, check. Always get sleepy before...

Calley’s legs paused in their merry twitched, as he quizzically looked over, finally catching her slight frown. Blink. Blink, blink—

Wait. “Wait. So you mean—“ seriously? “—you don’t control it? It just happens?”

Those were the lady’s exact words, yes. Baby blue eyes blinked again, showing 1) he’d been listening closely, but 2) he clearly didn’t understand.

>> "So, how does your version work?... How does it feel like?"

“It feels just like...” He scratched behind one ear. “Like making myself right, I guess. My human form really isn’t my dominate one. I always feel a little off in it.” He also tended to be distinctly more prone to cringing, simpering, and getting beat up by tennis shoe clad women in the Sanctuary foyer. “When I shift to an animal form, I guess I just—slip over. That’s me. And sometimes me is happy to lurk in alleys, and knows it can find all the food it ever needs in a city as mice-infested as this one, and sometimes me likes how it feels when it flies between skyscrapers—there’s kind of this blast of wind, and you can—”

He cut off with a sheepish grin, his eyes refocusing. He gave a little shrug. “It’s just... pretty much awesome, I guess. There’s no pain for me, like with some shifters—I pretty much think of a form, and I’m it. Like changing clothes, sort of.” Coincidentally, it had also been the death of much actual clothing. That was why Calley didn’t really bother to own nice things. Or wear nice things, for that matter.

“So... you really can’t control it? At all?” He crossed his legs at the ankles; his heels drummed thoughtfully against the cabinet below. “ ‘Cause we’ve got to work on that, way before we work on your horsemanship and my manners. I’ve never heard of a shifter who can’t control it. It’s like blinking, right? It’s something you’ve been doing all your life, and it’s going to keep happening if you don’t think about it. But there’s got to be a way to just... keep your eyes open.”

He tilted his head at his fellow shifter. “Haven’t you ever wished you could spend more than one day as Maya, or as Gawain?”

It was a cruel question, really, for someone who didn’t have their choice of forms. Hypothetical questions were best left alone, sometimes.

>>“It feels just like...”

Maya listened to Calley with a slight smile. If he had a hard time wraping his mind around the fact that she didn't control her shifting, she had a had time imagining human not being one's main form.
Same difference.

>>“So... you really can’t control it? At all? ‘Cause we’ve got to work on that, way before we work on your horsemanship and my manners. I’ve never heard of a shifter who can’t control it. It’s like blinking, right? It’s something you’ve been doing all your life, and it’s going to keep happening if you don’t think about it. But there’s got to be a way to just... keep your eyes open.”

Maya shook her head. No, she can't control it. At all. What's the big deal?...
She opened he rmouth to answer, but anoter question came first:

>>“Haven’t you ever wished you could spend more than one day as Maya, or as Gawain?”

Touché. Knocked clear out of the saddle. Fair joust. Three to nothing.

"Ummm..." Maya blinked, and looked away "... no, not really. But lately... I wish I could wish I coud stick with one form. I like both of me the same. But being one of them would make life so much easier..."
Especially certain parts of life. Like dating. A girl.

"... and nah, I really can't. Sometimes it comes sooner or later... if I'm awake it's usually late, and since yesrterday I shifted waaay past midnight I'm guessin' adrenaline has somethin' to do with it too..."

Actually, that was a brand new thought. Maya blinked as she realized it.
This is why you should talk to your steed more often.

Your steed is wise, Lady Knight. Don’t you be doubtin’.

>> "... and nah, I really can't. Sometimes it comes sooner or later... if I'm awake it's usually late, and since yesterday I shifted waaay past midnight I'm guessin' adrenaline has somethin' to do with it too..."

The multi-shifter smirked a smugly smirking smirk. “There you go, then. You can control it, at least a little. Maybe that’s all you’ll ever be able to control it. But have you ever really tried to stop a shift? ”

When Calley had first woken up as a mouse, he’d known there was a way to shift back. Even when hour after hour he’d failed to succeed, he’d known. Because, to a boy who’d spent his first thirteen years thinking he was human, the thought of staying a mouse for the rest of his life caused a mental revolt. For someone who’d been shifting even before he/she was born, maybe she/he had never had that: that panicked, frustrated, can-not-fail willpower it had taken to first gain control over his shifts. Had he/she ever tried to? Really tried? It might not work. But there wasn’t any reason not to give it a try.

“So. Staying awake, and adrenaline.” Calley lips quirked with a perfectly innocent smile. “I propose a midnight riding lesson.”

The smile twitched into a toothy grin. “Your loyal aughisky will do his very best to give you that adrenaline rush.”

>>“There you go, then. You can control it, at least a little. Maybe that’s all you’ll ever be able to control it. But have you ever really tried to stop a shift? ”

Maya blinked, then shook her head.

"Nah, I'm usually asleep, and if not I just want it to be over a.s.a.p." she smirked "If I'm awake during shiftin' time that means I've got important things to do..."
Like dancing, drinking, running for my life, fighting clay monsters, and... dancing and drinking.

>>“So. Staying awake, and adrenaline.. I propose a midnight riding lesson. Your loyal aughisky will do his very best to give you that adrenaline rush.”

Maya grinned. "It's a date, then. But let's do it without our friend Chtuhu this time..."

((ooc: Continued in Your Aughisky, Fair Knight.))