[He looks around too, in a more unsteady way. It's disorienting to have a neck this flexible, to not have stalk eyes.]

'Genetic essence' doesn't cut it, I suppose? All living things carry instructive patterns in them. Something in a... newly conceived thing can read the pattern and builds its body to grow accordingly, as best it can. Your DNA told you to grow two eyes and ten fingers. Mine told me four eyes and fourteen.

With morphing I can rearrange myself to someone else's specifications.