Dance Me Into the Night

“Ritual”

At origin, Agnieszka manifested in an early version of what would come to be her shadow form. She was unstable as a being; a fracture of the “Eve” vessel that splintered free when the stresses -both internal and external- became too great. Initially she had very little control over her state. She was bound to the walls and floor more often than not, and could only seem to willfully interact with things when she needed to hide herself and her sister. In time, with Katja’s help and power, Jagna coalesced into a proper form. This form mimicked the only “real” one either of them was familiar with: the semi-mortal, human-appearing vessel. Effectively, working together with the overabundance of power from their old form, they did as the ‘father’ had done, and built a body from dark magic and will. Once it was done and they were firmly detached from each other, they no longer shared power the same way and, stably bound to their own forms, cannot replicate this event.

Her Mortal Form 

—takes no power; it is her standard form, and what most people are used to seeing her as.

Stands at 5 feet, 8 inches tall; black hair, black irises, fair skin. By most accounts, appears and reacts to stimuli like a human body though she is disease immune and poison-resistant, rapid-healing, and has a greater base strength

She also has a lower body temperature with less ability to self-warm. (She’s low key cold-blooded, yes.)

When first created, she appeared to be around the age of 10; she aged and grew steadily, like a mortal, after this, and currently appears roughly 20 years of age.

She has features that share some similarity to Katja’s (who still inhabits the original vessel) but which are undeniably softer and more gentle looking. This is possibly due to Katja’s feelings about and perception of her “younger sister” shaping the physical form to an extent.

When invoking any of her powers strongly, she regularly experiences a “power bleed”, like her shadow form creeping in on the mortal one. Her eyes will seem to fill with shadow until they are solid black, and her hair sometimes takes oh a softer, blurred appearance, and begin to float as if she were underwater, and her hands and feet will start to turn black.

She reverts to this form if she is badly injured or her power is low

Her Shadow Form

—takes a moderate amount of power to maintain; she adopts it frequently for convenience, fun, sometimes just because

As stated, this is what form she took when she first became, but it is much more stable now. She has full control over it. 

It assumes mostly the same shape of her mortal form if she is standing freely, 5′8″ and of similar proportion, but lacks clearly defined features beyond her eyes, which white out and glow. She can hide the glow of her eyes.

She can stand freely, in a three-dimensional physical form, or be flat against a wall, floor, etc. like a mundane shadow. She cannot, by non-magical means, be forced out of being ‘flat’. 

She can also (and often does) change her shape in this form and ‘melt into the shadows’ of a given space, no matter how large or small those shadows might be. This is not common knowledge but you can tell which shadow is her because if you move between the shadow and the object casting it, it wont fall on you; you can also point a flashlight at her and she won’t disappear - but she can change her shape so if she’s being tricky this one won’t help you.

She cannot be touched (or injured) while she is ‘flat’ or in the shadows of other things, but also cannot interact with things without making herself solid and therefore vulnerable to some extent. (You can’t physically interact with her, but she can’t physically interact with you either.)

When flat or in the shadows, she is still bound to the mortal plane and obeys its physical laws. She is the shadow in a room or wherever, cast on the ground, the wall, etc. She can go under, around, behind things, but cannot pass through them. She cannot fly, though could move up along a wall or tree trunk, etc., as if she were climbing it. If you managed to get her inside of something and then sealed it behind her, she would be trapped there.

She can pull people into their own cast shadows, but cannot change their shape or move this shadow the way she moves and changes her own; they will look like the shadow that they were casting on a wall or floor. The shadow will be fixed, and she has to “hold them there”. She can keep them there as long as her power and their need for food/water allow it, but “loses her grip” if the room or area becomes too brightly lit, returning them to their normal state. She has never attempted this with more than one other person, nor with someone who was not one of her siblings. (She could bring a mortal, but I don’t imagine it would be pleasant for them.. or possibly safe? It would be a desperate act.) This is, as you might have noticed, purely a defensive ability. She cannot escape places with someone she has pulled into their shadow, but she can keep them both from physical harm.

She uses this form as a go-between of her two physical shapes. It is ‘home’, and makes the transition feel more natural. She could, technically, grow directly from mortal shape to demon shape, but wouldn’t choose to. It’s a mindset thing.

Her Demon Form

—takes a high amount of power and effort to maintain; she rarely takes this form

This is a new shape, discovered after devouring Chernabog and her powers expanding. She feels even less at home in it that her mortal body, and is still learning about it.

The upper part of her maintains a largely human appearance and doesn’t get much larger. 

Her teeth sharpen, and she can dislocate her jaw as snakes do to take really big bites out of something. Her face gains a new shape and tissue to accommodate this comfortably. 

Her hands keep their general human shape and dexterity, but are tipped with small claws.

She gains a considerable amount of “height” thanks to her lower half / tail, and stands between 6.5-7 feet tall when settled comfortably. She could potentially raise herself to something closer to 9 feet tall, but doesn’t generally. That’s intimidation behavior and she’s baby. 

The scales of her lower half are tough, and resistant to small projectiles, but still vulnerable to being crushed or pierced by blades (and teeth.)

Her wings are bat-like, with nerves and blood vessels throughout. The backs are tough, with light scaling, and can be closed around her upper body and potentially another person as a means of defense. The undersides are velvety to the touch and very vulnerable.

She has three digits at the outside bend of her wings that function like a thumb, pointer, and middle finger of a human hand. They are tipped by claws that are for grip, but which she can very much scratch and gouge with.

Other Notes

Despite her mortal form serving as her ‘standard’ form which requires no power drain to exist, in her mind Jagna tends to think of her shadow form as her truest form. Having arms and legs that keep a firm shape seems weird to her. She clips corners and bumps into other people and knocks things off bookshelves and catches her sleeve on things and (etc.)- a lot. 

She also likes to wear fluttery, layered clothing with lots of textures, they make her happy and feel more at home; same reason for her hair often being down and loose, though sometimes she will wear small braids or clips.

She is always capable of making a scream which sounds like (this), but it is mostly heard from her demon form. The chances of her doing this from the darkness to scare someone are low, but never zero :)

She can use her powers of emotional manipulation in her mortal and shadow forms, but not her demon form. She can still hide herself in shadows in her demon form, but it is considerably more difficult and draining; she is not likely to stay there. The demon form is for throwin’ down, not playing mind games or evading notice.

After consuming the Chernabog, she gained umbrakinesis; for her, this manifests as an ability to make shadows darker, to summon them in places where there are none, and “pull them out” of walls to make them into solid objects. All of these will fade without sustained attention. Intensifying shadows is fairly easy, but forming them from nothing and pulling them out into physical objects both take large amounts of power and focus. She does not often have reason to call on these abilities, and isn’t very practiced with them.

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