Xaviers!

Will -- well, a Will, at any rate -- was sitting in the group common area on the floor of the dorms where, for some reason, all the important people seemed to be roomed.

Her hair was still a little wild and untamed, like she had recently gotten out of a shower. At least, that would be the impression if she didn't vaguely smell like detergent. She didn't seem particularly bothered by it, however, as she looked out the window and scratched her chin in thought.

What was she doing? Painting. She had a little pad of watercolors, and an easel propped up in front of her. At the moment, it wasn't particularly clear what she was painting, as it was mostly broad strokes and a wash of background color, but she was working on something.

((open))

After a bit, the painting was beginning to take shape.

It was some kind of outdoorsy scene in the woods -- a clearing of some sort; the fine details weren't exactly there yet, and they may never be there, but it was beginning to come into focus. There were also some vaguely flesh-colored blocks in the center that would probably become people when he she was done painting, though it was currently more about getting colors into the right places rather than getting specifics specifically specified. Will would occasionally look into the middle distance, as if she was trying to remember the precise details of something. Why she was painting this inside rather than going to the woods right outside the campus was anyone's guess, though maybe it was just nicer to be indoors today.

The three flesh-colored blocks in the center were beginning to take shape as Will continued to paint. They weren't exactly true-to-life -- Will was a better musician than he was painter -- but from context, it wouldn't be too hard to figure out what was going on. The muscular redhead in the center, running through the woods; the two women with wolf ears and tails flanking her on either side. The painting was angled as it the viewer was on the forest floor, looking up at the three women as they ran past.

Will scratched her chin for a moment as she took in her painting, and then touched her thumb to part of it, absorbing some of the paint so she could re-do some details.

"Can't you just take a picture?" a familiar voice asks from behind Will.

"Getting an action shot like this might take hours," Will commented back. "And then, you don't get quite the same...feeling of creation as when you paint.

How are things, Shari?"

"As usual, I guess. I feel weirdly better for every disaster that isn't my peoples' fault." she shrugs.

"Is this another one of those unnecessary but fun things like music?"

"Got it in one," Will nodded. "Art isn't really advanced on Skrullos, is it?"

"Not unless you're talking about the art of war!" she... jokes? The double-finger guns seem to indicate as such.

"I think my inspiration is more fun," Will nodded. "Though I'll admit, paint isn't something I'm...particularly good with. Not in my top three artistic thingys, for sure, but hey -- new experiences, right?"

"You did this just trying something new? That's crazy."

"Well, newish; I've picked up a paintbrush before. But, uh, you can tell I'm an... enthusiastic amateur. This one won't be hanging in the Louvre anytime soon.

But surely, you know about just going and trying something for the sake of trying something, right?"

"Fo' sho! But where do you even start? At least the saxophone's got buttons."

"Well, I mean, how do you even start with anything? If you try to look at every possible combination of things you can do to begin with, you just kinda end up paralyzing yourself with choice.

Beginner sets, like, come with eight colors or so, and you start by using those. And then you learn you can mix and blend, and things go from there. Baby steps first, right?"

"No, I'm pretty sure you start with finding someone who knows what they're doing and you imitate them as much as you can." she says, tapping her chin.

"Man, for a race that's all about shifting, y'all sure do go about things the wrong way."

"Yeah, yeah, as you're very keen to point out every chance you get."

"Well, I think you've proven yourself to be not Just Another Skrull, right? Otherwise, you would have peaced out of here long ago.

I mean, take the band, for instance. Because Shane wasn't clear on what kind of music he wanted to make, you jumped to a conclusion and came out all...Jazzmanny. Now, 90% of skrulls? That's where it would have ended, right there; we were playing hard bop and that was it. You were willing to experiment after the fact, though, and that's what made the hot mess...kinda work. All you need to do now is learn to experiment without copying someone for the base."

"I did! People did not seem to appreciate it. Well. Shane. I dunno about anybody else. You people are all the same, right?" she adds as a joke.

"Oh, mostly. But then, I'm not always people, so I'm a special case," Will joked back.

"You're some kinda case alright." Shari chuckles.

"At times, at times," Will smirked.

"Hey, you want to give this a go?" Will said, gesturing towards the art supplies. "We can go get you a canvas, and we can see what you produce or something."

"Sure! It's no saxophone but this could be fun..."

"All creativity is fun," Will nodded. "I do a lot of acting -- I think you can get the idea there, being a fellow shifter and all. Music, sculpting, writing, dance -- every way you can express yourself has some merit."

"C'mon, I just gotta drop this canvas off in my room, and we can head on down to the art room after that," she added, standing up. "Maybe dry my hair a little better while we're there."

"Alright, alright, sheesh." she chuckles.

Will led Shari into the Mythological Dorm Room as the two talked, Will pointing out some of the things she did in her art and some of the mistakes she had made in the painting.

She sat the painting down, propping it up in the corner by the mirror, before entering it, leaving the surface shimmering and rippling as she vanished into it's depths.

"Uhm... I thought we were going to the art room?" Shari says, looking confused as she knocks on the frame of the mirror.

After a moment, Will popped her head back out, stepping past Shari.

"And we are. Like I said, I just had to drop a few things off here, first." she nodded.

Some differences were immediatley obvious -- the flowing dress, a less wild hairstyle, a tad more makeup on the face.

But to Shari, a Trained and Official Skull Shifter (tm), the minute differences in posture, in facial tension, in the look behind the eyes -- all were equally clear. Was the mirror Will's version of a ritual chamber? It was certainly like this Will, the one before her, had gone through some sort of interior change in the seconds they had been in the mirror.

But then, I guess that was to be expected from an U'tlop'r, after all.

"What'd you do? And how'd you do it so fast?" Shari asks, taking a couple steps and leaning this way and that around Will to inspect the new shape.

"I, uh..." Will trailed off.

"I don't know quite how to explain it. But this," she said, tapping the surface of the 'mirror', which rippled and shimmered, 'is me. I'm in here. Mostly. And then I kind of...pick and choose which bits to come out?"

Shari's head swivels from the mirror to Will and back. "You turned yourself into a Kam'muutos? How in the heck did'ya do that?" she asks, poking around the edge of the mirror to see if it opens like a closet and finally just poking her entire head through the clearly permeable surface of the mirror.

"Now, you know I don't know what that is..." Will started, before Shari plunged her head in.

Shari's head passed through the surface, far deeper than it should have been allowed simply due to physics -- whatever internal dimensions Will had, it certainly wasn't limited by the physical space the mirror occupied. Below her -- fairly far down below, honestly -- she could make out...well, a whole world. A city, an industrial complex, some kind of nature preserve. A vast landscape, stretching as far as the eye could see.

It was below her, though, so there was always the possibility of falling in. It looked like there was some kind of --- slide? Ramp? Something, that would allow her to go down, but this was a rabbit hole that it may not be easy to climb out of.

The frame of the mirror, as it were, was sort of...floating in the air. If Shari craned her neck to look back over her shoulder, she could see the room behind her, with Will standing there. And if she looked too hard, she could start to experience some phantom sensations, as if she was the one looking back into the mirror. And not just of being Will, standing there looking in, but of the carpet being trod on, the lightbulb glowing in the socket, the television plugged into the wall. All simultaneous and perhaps a bit overwhelming if one stared at it too long.

"Whoa..." Shari says as she pulls her head back out, her Jazz-inspired appearance briefly smudging as if clinging to the mirror a bit and distorting into green-scaled skin and chin-ridges. "Trippy. How'd you turn your insides into all that?"

"It just sort of...happened. After a bit too much drugs and a bit too little intervention."

"It's almost rude how good you are at this accidentally."

"While that may be true, I do not recommend randomly shooting yourself up with uncontrolled drugs. I was in a bad space."

'And now I'm in a good one," she shrugged.

"In multiple ones, by the looks of it. And I'll have you know that drugs are a time-honored practice to help your shifting."

"So, uh...this is something you've seen before, then?"

"Well, no. Not like this. But Skrulls use drugs and chambers to attune with people or things we want to imitate. So maybe a little?"

"Yeaaah.

I've been looking through the archives, and I can't find anything like...y'know, this, either," she said, gesturing at the mirror. "Just a big ol' conundrum, and beyond my experience."

"Well what I know of our shifting chambers a lot of it's about isolatin' yourself from everything that's not what you're aimin' for, including yourself. But I don't think that's whatcha doing exactly."