Lance waits in the forest, alone. Well, not entirely alone. That is, if you count the serpent on his shoulders as a separate entity from him. The fog enshrouds him, obscuring him from view save for the twin azure pinpricks of light which become the shimmer of his gaze. In normal light it would be all but unnoticeable, but in this fog those eyes are a shimmering beacon. One which sounds a siren call, beckoning travelers and passerby to their doom. Or something of that matter. Lance isn't so much in the people-eating mood. One could hope that he never would be.
It would be those eyes which Guide Eztli to her ultimate destination, whether by her conscious reasoning or by result of the underlying hypnotic effect. Whichever the reason was irrelevant, as both circumstances ended the same way - with the young woman face to face with a serpent in the woods. Usually, this would not end well for one of them.
Eztli Tecuatl || It was at her owner's command that Eztli dressed herself in one of the very few outfits that she possessed, one of the few brought with her to the isle and that Sato kept upon having her stripped down. The fabric on her skin was an alien feeling to her - not only because she had not been allowed to wear any for many months, but because this was no longer truly 'Eztli', at least not in the sense of her memories or the state of her soul.
Even so, the ever-neutral expression on her face didn't waver, nor did her total obedience. She went off into the woods at Sato's behest to meet someone that she vaguely understood was important to him, in that very Sato sort of way, to do for the man whatever he required of her.
He wasn't hard to find, even despite not being in any of the more utility-based shapes that she had been forged into, and rather the subconscious default to which her soul still clung to; she simply followed the azure pinpricks of light, until she was face to face with the serpent.
She'd stop in front of him, bowing her head, her expression still utterly blank as if she was more automaton than woman; "I am Naoki's familiar," she tells him. It's not terse in the way that Naoki could be - but it clearly followed a similar pattern of being quite inexpressive, short and overly concise.
Lance blinks at Eztli as she supplies him with that introduction. Noting that it was devoid of a sense of self, an identification separate from that to whom she belonged. He pauses, and then squints at the woman, willfully looking past his sight to her true form. It was not something that he had to deal with often, and in truth, it began to disgust him. Visible derision crosses his face, sparsely intermingled with hatred. Not hatred for Eztli herself - after all there was nothing there to hate. Rather, it is hatred pointed at the world. The earth itself for sustaining such a beast on its soil, the sky for fostering such a thing beneath its breast. The plants for fueling it, and mankind for engendering it.
For a moment, he considers whether or not to kill it here.
Fortunately for Eztli's continued (albeit tortured) existence, Lance decides not to. Instead he clears his throat, "Yes... I see that," he says, "Sato said that you would work as a sufficient substitute for himself? I take it that means you will not succumb to death upon my touch? Furthermore, you can effectively serve as a canvas for experimentation until I have a firm grasp upon this power?"
Eztli Tecuatl hardly seems to note the derision, the disgust on Lance's face as he comes face to face with the familiar's broken down sense of self. It most likely would have been a kind of mercy, had he attempted to kill her there - at the very least if he would have succeeded.
Even so, it was not as if she was really 'alive', either. She was like the zombies raised by necromancers, the golems made by sages, only of a much more terrible, and just so much more aware fashion.
She nods as Lance composes himself, confirms the purpose of her being there. "I am here to be of whatever use you require. Please have no concerns for my own well-being," she continues, bowing her head obediently. "Whatever damage may be done to me will be restored with sufficient time or efforts; please use me as your canvas without worries."
Lance reaches out, hesitantly. After all, without forcing himself to look past his sight, he is greeted with the constant, horrid image of.... /that/. His glove is removed, and a bare hand extends to hover over her flesh, feeling the way that his senses now spark and buzz as they near her. As if a thousand thousand strings now flew from his flesh to hers, latching onto an immaterial concept, and could with but a touch distort her.
Those azure eyes look from his hand to Eztli, and then back again as he reconciles the last of his concern. She was quite clearly human. Or at least, so human in design that it was irrelevant to consider the difference. She had once possessed a sense of self, and with it a mind to comprehend it. In what remains of the humanity within his soul, a single bead appears, a thought, a concept, a conviction. This is bad change. Its victim is to be pitied, wept for. But Lance does not have that privilege right now.
His hand closes the distance between itself and her, then dips to cup her chin, slowly molding it underneath his touch. The poison in his flesh would seep into hers meanwhile, at first slowly - causing numbing and loss of sensation.
Eztli Tecuatl quietly steps into Lance's hesitant hand. Almost encouragingly, except her facial expression never changed - yet even so, for a moment it felt from the way that she moved that she was giving him permission, even wanted him to make use of her, telling him not to hesistate.
There's a small stinging sensation as Lance's hand finally makes contact with her, reflected briefly in the way her self-perception suddenly seemed to sprout needle-like spines promptly before fading into something like smooth, volcanic glass as the numbing loss of sensation spread through her.
If anything, it's this that first prompts the surfacing of SOMETHING in her of her old self, a kind of surprise - as if this utter lack of sensation was something she wasn't used to, inspiring a kind of primal fear.
But the moment passes as quickly as it comes.
She presses up closely to him, her deep, dark, empty eyes staring up at him with the kind of innocence found only in those who had been fully broken inside - her chin cupped in the man's hand.
It'd look almost romantic, from a distance, with how gingerly he cups the latina's chin. Almost.
Lance grimaces as he sees her self ripple like that. Unsure if it was a result of the toxin seeping into her, or merely from the sensation of touch. He does not question it either, sure that even if he did she would not have an answer for him. So bereft is she of her senses that he does not believe that she could even comprehend the meaning of the question should she be asked.
So instead he averts his eyes from her, looking instead solely at the shape of her chin. At first, he pulls it away from her. Leaving her head long, and thin. With a comically pointy chin as he uses her - quite literally - as a canvas upon which to test his ideas. For the innate disgust he felt at this creature's presence, for how little he would suffer its presence under any other circumstance... He had to admit that in this singular situation it served his needs. No other creature would be so pliant, so willing to submit and let him do with it as he will. After all, even a beast would fight back at this point.
Eztli Tecuatl felt the sensation of her chin being pulled down, drooping, sharpening to a point. She shuddered; not out of revulsion for what had been done to her face, but out of the physical pain that came from being fleshcrafted, a sensation she was all too familiar with.
She couldn't speak anymore even if she wanted to, though she could have readjusted her back to her original shape at any point. Even so, she waits before Lance - a pliable putty, a canvas on which he could freely paint and experiment and try and retry as he wished with little consequence.
Her fingers clutch his coat for a moment - little hints of her remnant humanity, the faint but still-just-there feelings that ran through her, the echoes of everyday pains just like this...
And again, that fear of the numb, the volcanic-glass-silhouette shifting, rippling like the surface of the deep waves. Nothing else provoked such a reaction from her as the absence of the full extent of pain she expects - something that seems to pre-date her 'creation', even of being owned by Naoki. Deep, primal, utterly embedded...
Lance notices the way that she clutches at his coat suddenly, pausing ever so slightly to watch the way her fingers grip at him. Not as if he believes that he is awakening something within her, but rather in the same way that a farmer might watch the last vestiges of life leave a beheaded chicken. It is a grotesque display to him, yet one that he watches with a morbid interest.
His next action is to push the chin back in, a single finger on its point pushing to return the flesh to its prior shape. More force is used than necessary, perhaps out of Lance's own revulsion for the way that she looks now. He is unable to return her to her original appearance, but at least he can restore some modicum of humanity to her. From here, he decides to operate solely within the constraints of what might reasonably be considered human.
The man's second glove comes off, and his fingers dance up to the woman's cheeks - spreading toxin along her flesh as he goes. Patches of numbness spread across her face as he does, soft fingertouches raising her cheekbones, altering the structure of her nose. Her bridge is raised, her ala widened and then made thin again. These things are done without concern for the way that Eztli might feel - for after a moment of touch, she wouldn't. His toxin seeping ever deeper into her skin, and as more of it seeps into her, she becomes more susceptible to it, the volume reaching a tipping point and shifting from mere numbness to confusion and dizziness.
Eztli Tecuatl 's chin was returned to its place, or at least mostly so; it wasn't quite ENTIRELY right. Eztli would fix that herself later - if he had made a mistake, she couldn't know it right now - could she judge what was intended or not if Lance did not say anything to her?
Her fingers tightened again, and she trembled as she pulled herself closer to Lance almost instinctually as his second glove came off and yet more numbness spread through her, her body tensing. This, more than anything, was utterly unknown to her, frightening despite the fact that the vast majority of her memories are of a blank darkness and aching bones and joints as she hangs in a torturous pose - more neglected decoration than creature.
Even that does not frighten her in the same way that numbing toxin did - yet even then, she neither ran away nor resisted as he pulled at her cheekbones, the bridge of her nose.
No, she withstood it - even as the toxin dulled her physical senses, a mere thing to be painted over as Lance needed.
Lance pauses here, his hands removing themselves from Eztli's face. Was there more he could experiment on here? Yes, clearly. He had hardly messed with her lips or her ears, or her eyes... No, all he had done was alter the proportions of her flesh. Whether that was her cheekbones or ears, that didn't matter. It was all just poppycock - bereft of meaning or purpose. There was nothing to pursue, no image, no ideal for him to seek after. Thus he frowns, considering what else he could do, what more he could explore to grant him understanding of this new sense. And he speaks, finally, shimmering eyes meeting Eztli's gaze once more, "Tongue." It is a command, a singular word, that in its brusqueness speaks again to the disdain he feels for this creature's tortured existence.
Eztli Tecuatl continued to stare up into Lance's face, the woman's mildly altered face occasionally blinking. Already she seemed somehow yet more a stranger, yet further divorced from her already broken self-sense; but then the man had found a purpose for his canvas, declared it with a singular word.
She parts her lips, her human tongue stuck out willingly, exposing herself to Lance's touch, his modifications of her. She was entirely vulnerable to him - and seemed to drink in the disdain, as if it were familiar to her.
Lance reaches out again, this time with less hesitation than the first. Setting his finger atop Eztli's tongue as she extends it to him. It is at first bitter, though before long the taste vanishes from her conception as even her tongue becomes numb and loses its sense of taste. His nail digs into the flesh slightly, though is ultimately unable to find purchase. Probably due to the fact that Lance has neatly manicured nails and not claws. The keratin drags down Eztli's tongue, and with it she would feel the muscle begin to change. Thinning, lengthening. Becoming beholden to a sudden wash of taste and scents previously unknown to her in the air. Lance has rendered it serpentine, watching the way that she reacts for clues as to whether she is beholden to the same senses that a snake would be, or if it is merely cosmetic in nature.
Eztli Tecuatl feels the tongue shift. the feeling of the keratin dragging down along the muscles and taste buds - the bitter replaced yet again by that horrible freezing numbness that even in her broken, spiritually-mangled state, dragged up a terrible, visceral reaction. The nails digging into the tongue, if anything, seems to calm the near-puppet of a girl down more.
As he renders it serpentine, he'd find that she adapts to it with ease - as if this particular transformation was common and familiar to her. The tongue flicks out just as a snake's would, tasting the air.
Everything awash again in feeling.
Lance watches Eztli, searching her face for any sign of sensation from her, but finding none resolves that the change is - at the very least - ineffective at granting new senses. So, he withdraws his hands from the woman, and gestures for her to turn about, "Turn around," he says, and this time even goes so far as to offer an explanation for his actions, "I would see your back."
It did, in fact, grant new senses - senses that the woman was familiar with for the reason that such a transformation was common. But he couldn't tell, not from her face alone, which was always blank and unassuming.
But then his fingers are withdrawn from her face.
The first of the numb areas is gradually becoming less numb now, her own body starting to counteract the toxins, or perhaps resistant to them from the start; but it was gradual. Even so, she about-faced as ordered, her fingers unlacing it and then pulling it from her shoulders, letting it droop around her hips as she exposed her back to him.
Lance may have asked to see her back, but it doesn't seem he's particularly interested in it. Instead, his fingers dance down the sides of her arms at first, changing her skin to scales wherever his fingers tap. More serpent based transformations, it seems. Or perhaps, rather than being particular to them, mayhaps it is all that Lance can bestow? The scales that Lance grants unto Eztli are far from the protective bulwarks one might wish for. There is no keratin, no hardness beyond what one might expect from dried, firm skin. In nature, it is a beginner's work, though admittedly a beginner who is quite talented in dealing with aesthetics.
The scales shimmer with a soft iridescent hue, casting a rainbow over the woman's tan flesh. patches spreading out from where Lance's hands had landed, and then fading back into flesh as they escaped the operative area given to Lance to work with.
The scales spread out over the woman's tan skin, shimmering with their iridescence over the green grass, silvers and pinks and pale blues dancing over her body and their surroundings. The transformation feels like burns, the woman's self-image shifting as the changes happen; fire seems to rage where Lance's hands pass, her lungs letting out gasps as the somewhat amateurish changes are made to her body.
It's gorgeous, though, perhaps more than was deserved by a creature which Lance so despised, which he held in utter contempt.
Lance narrows his eyes and furrows his brow into a frown as he beholds the changes he has wrought upon Eztli. Gorgeous, yes. But for him that is the bare minimum. His fingers, bereft of magic now, prod at the scales he has wrought for her. Feeling how they give way to him, how he is unable to enhance them beyond this.
In a way, perhaps the canvas and the art are similar. In Lance's eyes, both achieve the bare minimum of what he desires from them. For a human, this is the capacity to change. To grow and evolve as they make their way through life. For his own powers, this is to be beautiful. To be aesthetically pleasing to the eye, even if their effects may not be so under the skin. Yet for a human, Eztli lacks the knowledge, the sense of self, the innate spark that separates man from doll. For himself, his powers lack function. Like this, he might as well be flinging globs of paint at the wall, making wild and thoughtless strokes against a prize mannequin.
His own inadequacy disgusts him. Which is why he will push himself to grow. To change. To shed who he is today and emerge anew tomorrow.
Yet Eztli cannot do that. She cannot even comprehend why it is necessary. She cannot even picture it. So she disgusts him too.
"I think this is it for today," Lance speaks, letting his fingers depart the woman's flesh, "You were... Useful."
Eztli Tecuatl 's body shifts back into its fully human, original shape a few moments after Lance's hands leave her body, the man dismissing her with a clear contempt for what she was. Even so, she simply nods, as feeling comes back to her face, "I will let Naoki know that you are satisfied," she responds, her voice even and benign and neutral - as if she had not suffered through transformations that would have broken a more aware human being.
She was an empty vessel. That was beautiful to some, but not to Lance, certainly. She was no more than a mannequin, and barely even that.
Even so, she returns her top to its previous position, bows her head, and begins to head back 'home'.