That works! It takes a bit of sustained concentration, but it's also a lot less disorienting than taking the necklace off.

Great. She tucks the necklace under her shirt, and then she's going to go for a little walk to find somewhere she can stretch out a bit.

Options: a tangled section of gardens usually used by clubs for luncheons, which all have low walls but non-zero traffic and might be hard to let loose in; a walking trail going into the woods, which doesn't seem to have traffic right now; a deer path going up a hill into the woods which should have zero traffic; various lots in towards town, variously abandoned; the dorm basement slash mechanical room which is only technically locked; actual national parks a drive out...

There's probably some kind of interaction she can do with electricity which she should explore at some point but right now she'd really rather do something moving, so deer path it is.

She's able to rather quickly get over a ridge and out of sight of campus, into a little valley with a stream. No deer currently in sight - just some birds chirping.

She shifts form, taking a moment to notice any sense differences out here.

Her smell's definitely better. Her hearing seems keener, tiny rustles in the forest floor suddenly discernible - there's rodents in this forest. The world looks a bit odd, with dull colors and fewer fine details up close, like she's trying out someone else's glasses - but her depth perception's much better, and movement stands out more than it used to. Her peripheral vision is much better, which is probably the most bizarre change - a leaf drifts to the ground off to the side of her head.

Also, she can see a sort of odd humming light layered over the world. There's not a ton of consistent variation in it - mostly static noise - but there's a little bundle of hum under that leaf, which is making scratching sounds, and a hum overlaying those birds who just startled and flew off, and a diffuse something running up the other side of one of the trees (with little scrabbling sounds).

She pushes the leaf aside.

There's a very scared mouse! Which freezes when it sees her.

What is it cats do with mice? Ah, yes.

Lift paw, claws out... and strike.

This is a very quick mouse; it makes a break for it when she lifts her paw, dodging as it comes down -

And dying when lightning flashes from Ellie's claws.

She hadn't meant to do that. At least not consciously.

Can she make the same thing happen to other targets?

Yes. The lightning seems to happen by default if she just wants to hit or kill something, but she can focus on 'without lightning' to use just her paws.

The next thing she wants to try is moving around as a cat. Running, jumping, abrupt movements, testing physical strength and agility.

This is all very intuitive to do. Her strength and agility are both high, and she doesn't seem to get tired - so far, at least. She's fast, too, especially on a straight away. The increased depth perception helps a lot with judging jumps.

This is a very nice body.

Is it getting dark yet?

The sun is jjust starting to set. It'd probably be a lot noisier in her section of the woods now thanks to twilight activity if there wasn't an oversized glowing cat running around.

She should go back, then. Before it's dark enough people ask what she was doing without a flashlight.

She'll go most of the way as a cat, though.

Avoiding being seen is non-trivial but possible. She does get to a point where she can't sneak past people, though.

Does she get the same blur with people as animals?

Yes. Doesn't seem to correlate with much else, though - everyone has roughly similar light blurs.

Hmmm.

She concentrates and turns back into a human, and goes to find the dining hall.

The dining hall is fortunately pretty close to the dorms, and not extremely crowded at twilight.

After food is acquired, she goes back to her room.

Can she see electricity if she tries without turning into a cat?