Neirenn returned Yorda's smile. It was hard not to feel a liking for the girl, strange though she was. She seemed so innocent, even more so than Ash had been.

But her expression became one of wonder as she watched Yorda's transformation. Everything light and radiant about her shrank back like draining water, darkness flowing into its place. "That's amazing... so this is what you mean by shapeshifting..." Neirenn had been expecting some kind of transmutation, turning from a person to an animal, but this was no less astonishing. Even more so, perhaps. That was just a changing of, well, shape. But Yorda looked as though she had just reversed the nature of her very being.

Even her voice was different. Neirenn felt her create the shield around herself and remembered what they were trying to do. "Okay," she said, conjuring a small orb of soft blue light above her hand. The darkness pressed in around it immediately to squeeze it out. Will this work? That shield is definitely dark magic... Still, Neirenn pushed her hand into it.

Her hand went through, but the light struck it and bounced back. Neirenn felt the shield's strength flicker, too. "Okay, it looks like that doesn't work," she said.