I slip into your body easier than any outfit I’ve ever owned, no matter what shape you take each time. How other creatures shrink before you, oh eldritch beast, oh queen of the abyss! You are a predator both humanoid and fishlike, with the manta’s wide fins branching off from human arms and the barracuda’s long, swift tail pushing a human torso. Fingers tipped in talons, dark, placoid scale skin, and rows of serrated teeth behind a hungry smile – you are a sight to behold as you glide through the cold waters. You have no enemies, no rivals, nothing and no one that can best or even match you. You sit on a throne at the very top of the food chain, content to let the smaller creatures hide in your shadow while you hunt larger prey. Human prey.

“You walk with a limp, yet you do not have one,” the Oracle once said, but they were not her words. “Mage is unapologetically who she is. No one wears her skin. That’s why she’s your alter; because you’re always sorry.” And it’s true. I am often sorry and always striving to be better, to be stronger, to be more than what I am. But when I am inside your body, with all its inherent power and deadly competence, not only am I not sorry, I do not have the ability to care in the first place. I am utterly free of such fetters as guilt or concern, manners or rules or laws, and I delight in this prerogative to do, and be, exactly as I please.

Once upon a time you were stripped of your name and since then you have won for yourself a thousand glorious titles, have transformed yourself into magic and mayhem with a black hole heart. You have never in your millennia of existence apologized for anything; why should you, when you are perfect?