Amanda took a quick look through the rest of the infusements in his coat but he had neither empathy or mindwalking. There was nothing really interesting or unique like psychic magic or time travel either. She wasn’t surprised at the lack of the former. Psychics were rare and the real ones often pretended to have a different power, if they hadn’t gone insane. Seeing the future tended to alter the state of one’s mind in undesirable ways. She’d yet to ever encounter psychic magic in the form of an infusement. Time travel she had played with but for some reason she couldn’t quite remember what it felt like. It was probably for the best that it wasn’t there. Short span time travel wasn’t so bad but the further back you got, the more difficult the magic got to control and time travel was the most unpredictable of all magics.

She did manage to find some firestarting magic and teleportation.

“Could we jump back to civilization?” Sirius asked.

Amanda shook her head. “You’re much more likely to end up in the middle of the ocean or worse.”

“Worse?”

“Half stuck in a tree. I’ve seen it happen. A girl at that facility I went to teleported right into the middle of a table. It cut her completely in half.”

At those words, Sirius grabbed the infusement from her and put it back inside his coat. “Let’s leave that one then.”

Amanda gave a surprised laugh. “Having said that though, this isn’t the worst place to learn teleportation. Here on the beach is relatively open. You’re not actually that likely to jump into the middle of a tree. You just have to control your thoughts.”

“I thought you said it was about feeling?”

“Well, yeah, but also thoughts. It depends on the magic a little. If you‘re thinking about a tree you’ll probably end up in a tree.”

“Hmm.” Sirius was frowning.

Amanda considered things some more. “My friend, Wolf, he used to come up with tests and stuff, and I guess some of it was useful, but mostly I don’t really think too hard about it. I just do it. One time I was using teleportation and I was thinking about someone and then suddenly I was in their room and I didn’t even mean to be, but later when I tried to do it again I couldn’t.”

“I thought you said there was a possibility of teleporting into the walls and stuff. Wasn’t that risky?”

“Well yeah, but I didn’t know that at the time. Not until much later and by then I was already kinda good at it. I mean, I wouldn’t teleport around your ship but on this beach would be fine. There’s also a risk of sometimes only teleporting half your body when you’re first learning but that’s rare.” She gave Sirius an overconfident smile.

“Yeah, I think we can definitely leave that one for now. Can you teach me shapeshifting? What are the risks with that?”

“It depends on the type of shapeshifting.”

“There are different kinds of that too?”

Amanda nodded. “Sort of. Just like with empathy. Reader empaths and controller empaths are considered different powers too even though some people can do both. With shapeshifting there are temporary shifts and permanent shifts. The first requires you to constantly use energy to maintain a shape, or you can put enough energy in that it lasts for a certain amount of time, like materiokinesis but of your own body. That’s harder though. The second requires you to actively shift back, although I think even that one uses some energy while you’re shifted. And the first uses some energy to shift back but it’ll usually happen automatically before you burn up so there’s less risk of magic overuse.”

“So the risks are different for each?”

She nodded again. “Permanent type shifts do weird things to your mind. They’re easier to do. You just think of the thing or animal. You don’t even need to know anything about anatomy or the physical structure. It just works. But you can get stuck, start thinking you are the thing you shifted into or stop thinking altogether. If you spend too long shifted you might not be able to shift back. It’s also harder, maybe even impossible to do half-shifts. I don’t know. Temporary shifts take more energy to maintain but they don’t mess with the mind the same way. They’re a bit harder to do. You need more understanding of what you’re shifting into, supposedly. I’ve never actually encountered the latter. That’s just from notes I read in books we found. Who knows if they’re actually true.”

“What about clothes? I know some people can shift with their clothes on but isn’t that an object.”

“Yeah, I dunno. I’ve never managed to pull that off successfully. Always had to do it naked. To be honest, I never really liked shifting that much. It really messes with your mind. I could never manage objects either, only animals.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Sirius fingered the infusement. “Okay, so if I want to shift into an animal of some kind as long as I come back quickly I should be fine?”

“You should also keep in mind what happens if you get injured in animal form. You don’t lose the injury when you shift back and sometimes they translate in weird ways. It’s possible to get mortally wounded in animal form and have it be just a scratch when you shift back, but the opposite is also true.”

“Okay, don’t get injured, got it.”

“If you pick a bird, you need to keep in mind that flying isn’t as straight forward as you think and you really don’t want to fall out of the sky. This is probably also true for anything aquatic and breathing underwater. Also don’t pick something with a lot of predators.”

“How about I just try a dog or something?”

She nodded. “Keep in mind that your dog instincts will be different from your witch instincts.”

“My dog instincts?”

She nodded.

“So I could be a dangerous dog?”

She shrugged. “It’s possible.”

“Hmm, maybe I should try something less dangerous. How about a cat?”

“That sounds better.”

“Okay. And I should take my clothes off first?”

“I think if you’re a smaller cat they should just fall off you anyway so you should be okay.”

He nodded. He stuck his finger in the vial. After a few moments he said, “Nothing’s happening. How do you do it?”

“Try pour some into your hand then shut your eyes and try to think like a cat.”

He poured some onto his hand and then he paused. “But I’ll need some to turn back right?”

She hesitated. “Right.”

“How did you used to do it?”

“Most shapeshifter infusements tend to be jewelry. A lot of them are designed so they’ll shift with you or at least stay on I mean, like shrink and grow to fit. I did say the sand was weird. Mmm, let me double check it is that type.” She held out a hand.

He gave her the vial.

She poked her finger back in. Beyond deciding it was shapeshifting when she’d first touched it she hadn’t really paid much attention to the type. Nor had she noticed anything that weird about it but now that she was paying attention it felt strangely like the one she was familiar with and one she wasn’t at the same time. But then, all magics kind of had their own unique feel. She frowned. “Let me try it first.”

She poured some of the sand into her hand, sat the vial to one side, and then she closed her eyes and imagined herself as a cat. When she opened them again she was much shorter and warmer. She was sitting on a pile of clothes, her own clothes, but she didn’t feel undressed at all. Looking down at herself, she could see stripy ginger fur. A glance back showed that she had a tail. It swished from side to side. She could feel it but she didn’t feel like she had that much control over it. It just moved on its own.

She got to all fours and then she stretched. Oh what a magnificent thing it was to stretch. It made her whole body feel amazing. She sat down and licked her paw, then rubbed one pointed ear with it before she remembered that wasn’t a normal witch thing to do. She glanced around. Sirius sat nearby, watching her silently. His own fist still clutched infused sand. There appeared to be a slightly amused expression on his face.

The open vial of shapeshifting magic sat nearby and Amanda resisted the overwhelming urge to bat it with her paw. Did she need it to shift back though? She didn’t think she did. She couldn’t explain how she knew but she was almost certain that the second she decided she wanted to turn back she would be able to. So was this the temporary kind of shapeshifting? She didn’t think so. She felt far too cat-like. The mind feeling was the same as she was used to, although on second thoughts, maybe a little less overwhelming than she’d been expecting. It wasn’t like she had experience with this type. It felt too easy too. Maybe she’d gotten better?

She shifted back. She was right, she didn’t need to touch the infusement again. “I think it’s the temporary type,” she told Sirius. “But I didn’t really feel like I had to maintain it so I don’t know. I just know there are some infusements that if you lose the infusement it can be really hard to shift back.” She glanced up at him and realised he was pointedly looking the other way. She was confused for a second before she glanced down and remembered that she was now sitting on top of her clothes rather than wearing them. “Oh, right, forgot I was naked for a second.” She gave a puzzled frown at his reaction. “You know you have seen me naked like a dozen times now.”

He glanced at her and then away again. “Yeah, well, that was different. This felt impolite…” He trailed off as he glanced her way once more, this time his gaze stuck and he trailed off into silence.

She chuckled. “Well, now it’s your turn.”

“Mmm? Oh, right.”

She giggled.

He glanced down at his hand. Then he frowned. Then he looked at her again. “This is going to be a weird question, but have you... you know… ever... had sex in shapeshifter form?”

She started laughing and couldn’t stop.

He blushed a beet red.

Eventually she gathered herself. She shook her head. “No. I mean that’s definitely a thing but the idea of it always kind of weirded me out. Not that… I mean, for werewolves it’s pretty normal but for me when I’m shifted I feel more like… well, why don’t you try it and then you’ll see... or, hey maybe it’ll be completely different for you.” She poked her tongue out between her teeth.

He looked thoughtfully down at his hand and then nodded. “Alright.” He closed his eyes.

She couldn’t help sharing a story he’d just reminded her of though. “You know I once heard about a guy who shifted into a spider and had sex with his girlfriend while she was also in spider form and then when they were done she bit of his head. Could just be a rumour though.”

Sirius cracked open one eye. “No spider sex, got it,” he said with a snort, then he closed his eyes again.

For a little while nothing happened, then Amanda blinked and Sirius was gone. No, not gone. Shrunk. Not into a pile of clothes though. Those appeared to have vanished completely. In his place, sitting upon bare sand, was a black cat.

She looked at him thoughtfully.

The cat looked at her with familiar green eyes. It blinked once, and then suddenly took off running into the bush.

“Uh…” Amanda stared in the direction he had gone. Now what?