shapeshifting stasis

[marycatelli]

So we have dove maidens and swan maidens, peahen maidens and heron maidens, and a few others, and out in the farther reaches, unseen by our main character, there are some oddities:  spoonbills, selkies greyhounds, frogs (even though frogs are mostly cursed in this world).

Why stop there?

Hmmm. . . . . .

At first I thought:  low-hanging fruit.  They had gotten all the ones that are easy to do, especially since the form turns on the temperment.  Which I think is still going to be true. . .  .

On the other hand, there are shape-shifters of this ilk in fairy tales with no backstory, and some from families of shape-shifters, still others feature as a Mad Scientist's Wizard's Beautiful Daughter.  (Which is why, men, that if you get a woman's cloak that she can't shape-shift without, you want to give it back at once.  You may really need her help against Daddy.)  And he's not a shape-shifter.  He's also exactly the sort of unpleasant fellow that they would keep carefully trapped in one of the other worlds of magic. . . hmm. . . is there a world for the crafty?  I may have to consider that. . . . but having done so, part of the reason to keep them ignorant of the very fact that they can make such cloaks for their daughters.

And, of course, for those in the know, there's the trade-off between the liberty of shape-shifting and the ever-present peril of captivity from the cloak.  Would they want to?  Though they might want to give the Mad Wizard's daughters a means of escape. . . .