//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: Doctor Doctor, Give Me The News // Story: Queen Chrysalis, Attempted Mind Thief // by HiveLordLusa //------------------------------// Despite my assertions that I’d eaten some toast already, my very Italian mother insisted that she cook me – and my new ‘friend’ – more food. So we ended up having the bacon and eggs, though I managed to convince Mum that she didn’t need to fill my plate like it was a bucket. After I had finished eating, I realised I hadn’t had any interjections from Chrysalis since her attempted insult earlier. “Hey, Chryssy? You okay over there?” Out of my mouth then came the most satisfied groan I had probably ever heard. My eyes were wide as I looked to my mother in confusion. She was looking back at me with the strangest look on her face; though to be fair, she had just seen and heard her son emit whatever sound I had just heard. Then her expression broke into a thoroughly amused one and she started laughing. In the middle of this, I sat there with no idea what had just happened. “…Well that was the strangest answer I’ve ever gotten.” “Wh… what?” Chrysalis spoke somewhat normally this time, but her voice sounded a bit weak. “Um… Chrysalis, what was that you just did?” Because I don’t understand what I just heard, I thought. “I… what? Oh, the food! The food was simply divine…” she sighed again. “…Thank you, I think?” Mum said from the kitchen. I realised something from what Chrysalis had told us about her journey here. “You haven’t had any real food or anything for a year, have you? I’m surprised you’ve been able to talk as much as you have at this point.” “Actually, so am I.” She hummed for a second, thinking. “Though it’s love we changelings feed off, not food. I believe I felt some in the food, which is why it was so nourishing to me.” I gave my mother an amused eyebrow raise. “Well, I guess in this case the secret ingredient being love isn’t just advertising. Though, no offence to you, Mum, but I’m not exactly sure how that’s possible without magic.” “That’s probably something best thought of another day,” Mum said, as she looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. “Since I did just remember that we wanted to go to the shops tomorrow.” I grimaced as I realised how much our plans might have changed. She spoke again, “If you still wanted to do that I think we could… though I think it depends on your new friend-“ “She’s not my friend!” “And he is not my friend!” Mum looked at us, somewhat concerned, before continuing. “I think it depends on whether or not you’re both okay with going. You should probably try to decide now, while I go call your GP.” “Wait, what? Why are you going to call my doctor?” “Because this is an entirely new experience and I think we should make sure it doesn’t adversely affect your health. And we might also have to cancel with Ray.” “Wh- no, why would we… I can understand your point about seeing the doctor, but I haven’t seen Ray in months! Besides, we should at least check with him first!” I was frustrated now; I started to see the bigger picture of this situation and realised how many things were actually going to be changed by it. Suddenly things looked a lot less potentially fun than they had ten minutes ago. “Hah! So just by being here I’m hurting your chances at doing things?” Chrysalis said with a smirk on my face. It was quite annoying being talked down to out of your own mouth. “I am suddenly much more okay with this arrangement.” “Oh, no you don’t. I’m not going to stop my son from doing things just because of you.” Mum looked disappointed at Chrysalis – Well, I’m fairly certain that’s who the look was directed at, hard to tell when you’re using the same body. “We are going to the doctor, yes, but I’m leaving it up to him as to what he can and can’t do, just like before.” I gave Mum a smile, then turned my attention to Chrysalis. “So. I want to be able to go out today, since I saved up money specifically for several things I want. However, I want you to give me good behaviour as per our agreement.” I then hesitated for a second. “Actually, given you already broke our first agreement, let’s revise it. You can talk, okay, but I want you to not do it often and to not insult people… unless we’re clearly out of earshot. You understand?” Mum pretended not to hear the last part, but I could tell that she understood. Controlling Chrysalis was going to be hard enough without disallowing her freedom. “Hmmmm… Fine, I agree to your terms,” grumbled Chrysalis with a bit of hesitation. “As long as I keep being fed and am not kept quiet forever, I think I can stand not talking to a few of you humans.” I sighed in relief. “Alright, then. I’ll get us ready to visit the doctor, and we can go soon hopefully.” Mum turned on her phone and called the clinic. As I went to my room to get dressed, I heard her start to talk, and picked up on the word ‘emergency’. I sighed as I thought more about this situation, until Chrysalis interrupted. “’Emergency’ indeed!” she said in disgust as I walked. “This is the least covert appearance I’ve made since… oh, the last one, actually,” My mouth pulled back in a bemused sort of expression as she realised, and internally I chuckled at the slightly embarrassed feelings her presence emitted. “Well, I suppose it could be worse,” I said. “You could be an enemy of the state already or something.” I stopped outside my room and looked up in thought. “That would probably end badly for both of us.” I reigned in my imagination before I scared myself. A few minutes later, Mum and I (and Chrysalis, of course) set off for the doctor. Luckily enough, the doctor I’d gone to for years was about five minutes’ walk from where I lived.* Inside, Mum and I went to the counter, where a bored looking receptionist sat. She almost began to ask the standard, time-wasting questions, but Mum cut in immediately, knowing what would happen if she didn’t. “We’ve made an emergency appointment with Doctor Maxwell Andrews and we’d like to see him as soon as we can,” she said, her tone slightly forceful. “He told me over the phone about five minutes ago that’s he’s free and will see us now, so sign us in and let us go through, please.” The receptionist stared at her for a few seconds before looking down to her computer, tapping a few keys, and then dismissively waving us through to the doctor’s office and examination room. “Thank you,” said Mum as we walked past. I smiled at her and she jumped a little in her chair, reminding me about my new eye. I had been thinking up how this situation would go during the walk, short as it was. I was worried, and because of that, Chrysalis was worried, which worried me even more. Mum noticed as we walked down the hallway, and stopped me where I was. “Hey, don’t worry, okay?” She smiled at me and put her hands on my shoulders. “I’ll make sure you’re alright, I won’t let him do anything to you. Though I don’t think he suddenly would act that way after all the times we’ve seen him.” She gave me a hug. “What about me, hmmm?” Chrysalis finally spoke up again. “You’ve both made it very clear that nothing like this has happened before, and I can’t say I’ve had any experience with this kind of situation either.” Her tone made it clear she wasn’t thinking highly of us or how we might act. “…actually, yeah. What about you?” I said. My tone wasn’t indignant, but she was feeding the worries I had. “Whether or not the doctor finds us to be fine this way and not likely to destabilise mentally, or reports what happens to some ‘higher power’, I worry the government will find out somehow.” Despite Mum’s continued hug I was working myself up with my thoughts again “I mean, god knows what kind of stuff they can intercept, what they’ll be interested in.” I felt a squeeze in the hug, and sighed. “Let’s just put this all to rest and go talk to Dr Andrews, okay?” Mum pulled away from the hug and gripped my arm, leading us into the examination room. Dr Andrews sat at his fairly undecorated wooden desk, the only ornaments being photos of his close family. He looked up from his aging work computer as we entered the room. It was large for both a single office and GP examination room. Dr Andrews’ desk was to the left as we entered, the right wall being an old, sealed off fireplace adorned with more personal photos as well as many medical diagrams, posters and models. Even in all the times I’d been to that room in seventeen years – a great many times – I still didn’t know all the different medical things inside, there were so many and they were too varied for me to remember. “Daniel, and your lovely mother of course, how are you both?” he said, smiling at us. He barely reacted to my changed eye when he noticed, but he had the slight twitch on his forehead that told me he’d seen it. He made no comment and waited for us to sit at the two empty chairs near his. “Well, that’s why we’re here…” Mum began, though she was clearly a little unsure of how to proceed. Dr Andrews noticed that too, and raised an eyebrow. “I’m guessing it has something to do with Daniel’s new eye decoration? I’m absolutely certain I remember nothing like it before.” Turning to me, he continued, “Where did you get that, Daniel? And is the reason only one is visible the problem? Let me guess, you’re not sure how to remove the second from behind his eyeball? Classic problem, and I understand why you felt you needed a trip here,” he incorrectly decided was the case. He had the tendency to talk, so this was fairly normal, though usually we said a little more first. “Um, no, it’s… a different thing entirely,” I said, almost not wanting to cut him off. As pressing as Chrysalis was, it was always interesting to hear what he said, and I half-wondered what else would have come up if he continued. “Though yes, it has to do with my eye.” “Ah, then is that why you’re wearing a coloured contact? If I didn’t know better I’d think it was real, it looks so well-made.” I glanced at Mum and looked back at Dr Andrew. “Can you examine the eye and tell me what you think?” I was hoping that this would convince him this was my actual eye while avoiding any sort of argument on whether or not that was physically possible. “Nothing is stuck so please don’t push anything too hard,” I added worriedly. “Please don’t worry, I’m a professional,” he grinned at me. He walked over to the other side of the room where his tools were kept and picked up his… eye examination device. I wish I was more sure of what he would do, but I still had the strange mental image of him discovering the truth and pushing a giant red button on his desk to call some sort of government agency team to capture and examine me. I think I watch far too much sci-fi. You really have no idea what either of you are doing, thought Chrysalis, making me jump a little in my seat. Stop surprising me like that! I thought back at her. What, would you prefer I give you warning next time? If you get surprised by whatever I say, what would be the point? She thought-snarked back at me. …Stop being right, please. And stop distracting me! I’m already worried about this enough that you aren’t helping. She thought-harrumphed at me – a very odd sensation – and began to grumble. She didn’t stop by the time the doctor walked over- wait. The doctor only just walked over? Does that mean we can effectively communicate at the speed of- This train of thought was interrupted by a light shined directly into my eye, and the obtrusive measuring tool following it. I know how obvious this would sound, but that light hurt. As in, staring into the sun for a few minutes kind of pain, if not more. I must have reacted to it because next thing I know I was on the ground, hand over my eye. “JESUS, ow, what the hell was that?!” I yelled out. “FOOLISH CREATURE, HOW DARE YOU ATTACK US WITH YOUR MAGIC LIKE THAT?!” Chrysalis screeched, pain blanking her mind of the idea of staying quiet. I froze, as did Mum. “I… what?” Doctor Andrews replied blankly. I snapped out of it and tried to react as calmly and logically as possible. Of course, having a new resident in my brain seemed to have scrambled me a bit, because next thing everyone knew, I had just slapped myself really damn hard across the face. “AH, you IMBECILE! How dare you both attack me!” “SHUT UP YOU STUPID BUG!” I yelled out. "BUG?! YOU DARE-" I interrupted Chrysalis by clamping down my mouth, nearly biting my tongue. Looking nervously at Doctor Andrews, I said, “I’m guessing there’s no way to pretend that didn’t happen?” “I… I don’t…” He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He looked back up at me. “So part of that could be easily explained as Dissociative Personality Disorder, more commonly known as Multiple Personalities.” “Um… and what isn’t explained by that exactly?” I asked. “The whole… part where your voice sounds like someone else’s…” He said, staring at me intently. “So this has to do with your new eye…? Because quite frankly the only explanation for such a dramatic change exists purely in science fiction.” “Yeah, see, about that-“ “You, human doctor! Free me from this idiot’s brain, restore my magic, and I will reward you!” Chrysalis yelled over me. “…Well, there’s her,” I finished my sentence lamely. “Her?” he asked. “Why does this… it sounds like something out of bad sci fi or fantasy… is this ‘she’ some kind of... demon? At this point, I have no idea what to believe about this...” “Daniel was somewhat able to explain it to me but I still don’t get it.” Yeah that’s… probably not going to happen anytime soon for him, I thought at Chrysalis. “Okay, so, Chrysalis here has come through from another dimension, right? One full of, um...” I was usually fine with mentioning I watched a show like My Little Pony, but for some reason I felt embarrassed now. “...colourful, talking, magic ponies.” Doctor Andrews looked at me like I was crazy. Probably for much better reason than normal, considering the talking pony-bug thing in my brain. He looked at Mum. “Yeah, just... go with it,” she said to him. “It’s not actually that bad, for a cartoon. Lots of pink and hearts though.” I jokingly shushed her, and felt Chrysalis becoming even more confused. I’m still going to explain later, don’t worry. The doctor sighed. “Well, I... You haven't lied to me before, but this is really hard to believe. I guess I need to technically put you on some regular checkups, until it's proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be true. And as in, more regular visits than normal; like after an operation.” I gave him a look telling him I wasn’t happy with that, which Chrysalis reinforced. “So... what does that mean for us now?” I asked, a bit wary. “I suppose you’re free to go? Doesn’t seem like anything is out of the ordinary.” I gave him another look. “Health wise, I mean,” he added quickly. “So now let your mother pay at the front desk for today and we’ll be square,” He said with a smile, as professionally fake as can be. “Thanks,” I said with an equally fake but less practiced smile. Mum had far less trouble paying than she did talking to the secretary before, and we quickly left. As we walked home, I had a thought. “Hey, can we go to the store now? I have an idea for keeping a promise, as well as the whole ‘waiting for weeks to go’ thing.” “For keeping a promise?” She looked at me, slightly confused “Alright, we definitely have enough time...” “Yay!” I yelled out. “You get to come shopping with us, Chrysalis! Isn’t that exciting?” I gave my best evil grin and felt her scream in annoyed frustration. JUST LET ME OUT OF HERE ALREADY!