#apparently I'm too tired to do a Multi-Tangential Ramble but I'm really going to try completing All the Prompts by Halloween this year!

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

OC-tober Day 7: Power

OC-tober prompts by @oc-growth-and-development.

Oh dear gods, I waffled HARD on who to write this for! But Kary rarely gets the spotlight in my rambles, and even in the stories her REAL level of power is hardly ever unleashed! So I thought I’d write down more about her and her power. (Or as she likes to think of it: her magic’s power.)

Yes, Kary thinks of her magic as something separate from her. To be fair, the magic IS technically provided by a semi-sentient fire entity that was ritualistically sealed in her body and essentially grafted to her soul.

Kary can access that magic any time she wants, but she can't control it as well as she likes to pretend. The abilities granted to her in any given moment are largely dependent on what "her magic" (i.e. the parasitic fire entity) agrees to let her use. Among the only constants are pyrokinesis and canid shapeshifting. The full roster of her abilities is a chaotic mess of one-offs and flukes, enough that I've recently been considering that she might more accurately be described as having a very low level of omnikinesis, but since she doesn't have conscious control of it, I'm not sure it counts?

(Sidenote that she does have some low-level empathy inherited from her mother, but she's neither experienced nor interested in honing it, so it's kind of a vague awareness in the back of her head that she can ignore like the background humming of a fridge.)

The pyrokinesis is the one she practices most with, so naturally it's the one she's most skilled at. It's also the one that varies the most greatly in power level! The magic entity sort of "opens the gate" to different abilities based on what it "considers" a threat to its hostess, and thus to itself. More severe threats unleash greater power. Kary can sort of willpower-brute-force stronger pyrokinesis if she's sufficiently angry or fearful, but overriding the magic's will to Not Drain Her Beyond Self-Defense takes a lot of "convincing".

Low-level threats get her easy access to throwing fireballs at things, stronger threats might also give her heightened reflexes, and in the most desperate circumstances, well... This is where "power" really comes into play.

Kary's body becomes a blaze of light and heat, damage resistant with superhuman reflexes and acute awareness of other magics in the area. It's the state where she's most capable of producing wind tunnels, rapidly switching forms, and producing shields and/or walls of fire to hold for extended periods of time.

Though it feels ecstatic in the moment, being in that state drains her energy very quickly, and it leaves her perpetual fever even higher than usual for awhile. However, it seems to "quiet" the magic's protests to being around her friends and family who have other forms of magic, which the parasite generally reacts negatively to. (In a typical day, the scar that acts as The Actual Seal that keeps the entity attached to her might start burning for any reason it considers a threat, including being around other powerful people, and if she remains near the "threat", it hurts her until she starts using the magic. After using the magic, it quiets down for awhile.)