I sighed and pulled off my mask. Taking it off was never a pleasant thing, and I dreaded it every night. The smell of woodsmoke, sick flesh and death permeated everything those days, even the pleasant and medicinal herbs I put into the ‘beak’ of my mask didn’t conceal the smell anymore.
I carefully placed the mask carried by those of my profession on the table before starting the process of getting out of my black suit. It was sweltering inside it, and the mask did not make it easy to drink during the day. Even so, I did not dare take it off anywhere outside my home, for fear of catching it.
Today I only had to bring the bad news to five patients and their families. The pestilence was unrelenting in its ferocity, and none were spared but those who lived in complete isolation. There were those with an immunity to the disease ravaging the lands, but they were shunned.
“Witchcraft!” They said, and I could not deny the implications. So many had died, and so many would die in the days to come. It was inevitable, the end of man would be brought upon us by a sickness.
Those afflicted by it grew blackened boils upon their flesh, their digits became inflamed, a fever took, and then they died in pain. There was no cure. Not even we, the doctors, were spared, even if we covered our bodies completely and wore masks to combat the disease.
Though, I supposed that it was only natural that we who came so close to the sick and dying every day would catch it ourselves. Even with our precautions.
I sighed and scrubbed my hands in the wash basin. I noticed that I was down to my last piece of soap and sighed once more. It was impossible to get supplies, all the trade-routes were blocked, and more ships disappeared at sea than came back. Not even they were spared.
It was thought that this was God’s work, his punishment for the sins of mankind. That it was like the great flood, to purge the world once more of our stain upon its surface.
I was not one of them. I believed that no god would wish such suffering upon his subjects, that visiting such torment upon us must rather be the work of Lucifer himself. Those who survived were blessed by God, to prevail and bring us back from the brink of armageddon.
I carefully knocked the contents of my mask out into a wastebasket, and spent an hour grinding and placing new herbs inside it. I was running dangerously low on the ingredients. Even my medicine cabinet was nearly empty, not that it had any effect on those that suffered. All I could do was ease their pain slightly for a short time.
After cataloguing and re-filling my medicine-bag, eating a small dinner consisting of a few moldy potatoes and a cup of bitter wine, I went to my bed and undressed for the night.
It was then that I saw the mark upon my chest. It was a dark spot slightly above my lowest rib, slightly protruding from the flesh around it.
I did not feel fear, only resignation. It seemed that my time had finally come.
I rose from my bed once more, and picked up a small vial of clear fluid from my medicine cabinet. I pulled off the cork-stopper, and lifted it to my mouth.
It would kill me in an hour, spare me the pain I so often saw in the people I attempted to treat.
It would allow me to fall asleep, and my bodily functions would cease without pain.
With disgust I threw the vial into a corner of the room. It shattered noisily, and the contents spilled everywhere.
I would not be a coward. I would not betray those that believed in my ability to cure them, my ability to at least ease their passing into the Heavens.
I would die with honor. Face Lucifer’s curse and curse his name thrice-fold before I laid down to die.
With stiff legs I once more pulled my suit on and donned the mask once again. I hefted my bag on my shoulder and lit a lantern.
I pushed the fatigue into the back of my mind and strode once more into the fading day.
I would face my death with dignity and honor. I would stand, fight and do my best for the people under my care until my last breath. My suit would hide my illness from all but myself.
But eventually we must all face our sins, and burn.
---
I slept fitfully that night. My, well, everything felt tingly. Tingly and scratchy, as if I had fallen asleep in a patch of magical poison ivy.
When I woke up the day after the burial by fire, my head was pounding and I couldn’t stop scratching my skin. It was miserable, profoundly miserable.
The pain in my head felt like a mix of someone pounding inch-thick nails from every direction into my cranium, and feeling like it was crammed full of wool.
“Awake at last.” Chrysalis said with a hint of snark in her voice.
I groaned in response, unable to open my eyes to the blistering light of the sun. Something poked my midsection, and I cracked an eye open only to see Chrysalis readying another poke.
“Stop it...” I murmured weakly and tried to swat her hoof away. All I managed was to place a hand on her leg, not even able to push the raised appendage away.
“Are you not feeling well?” She asked, sounding more amused than concerned. Then the Changeling Queen decided that prodding me once more was in good order. All I could do in response was roll over and groan some more. “Oh don’t be a baby, it’s not that bad.”
I wanted to shout at her, but all I could do was scratch my arms furiously and cringe at the pain in my head.
“Gah, make it stop...” I whined. Not a very manly thing, sure, but I didn’t feel very manly at that moment.
As if by magic, the itching stopped, and the headache dulled. I almost cried in relief at the sensation of my skin not trying to tear itself off.
I rolled over on my back and stared into the cloudless sky. The lack of barbs trying to force themselves into my eyes felt heavenly.
A shadow fell over my face, and I found myself staring up into the smirking visage of Chrysalis. I noticed that her horn was glowing slightly before it faded away.
“Feeling better?” She said smugly and raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
“What did you do?” My brows were creasing into a frown. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach as I saw her smirk evolve into a full blown grin.
“Oh, nothing much. Just a soothing spell.” She backed away a bit as I started getting to my feet.
I wobbled precariously once I got up, and I had to steady myself with a hand on Chrysalis’ back. She just continued to look at me with a rather smug expression while I felt even sillier for having to steady myself on a crippled changeling that had better balance than I did at the moment.
“Well. That was embarrassing.” I muttered and clutched my head. The throbbing pain had all but ceased, and I managed to stand on my own. “I haven’t felt like that since... well. I can’t remember.”
“Maybe it’s just your years catching up to you.” Chrysalis said with a grin.
“Oh, haha, so funny. I could laugh.” I gave her a deadpan expression. “But I won’t. What did you do?”
Chrysalis raised a hoof to her chest in mock indignation, before she remembered her missing leg and ended up face first in the dirt.
I couldn’t help but laugh at her. Though my laughter died as a particularly vicious lance of pain shot through my head.
“Ow...” We said in union, one spitting dirt out of her mouth, the other clutching his head in agony.
When the pain faded, I offered Chrysalis a hand and hauled her to her hooves.
“So,” I said “what did you do?”
“I did nothing.” She grumbled. “You brought this on yourself.”
“Explain.” I sat down on one of the remaining branches of the fallen tree. “And while you’re at it, you can tell me how in the world you suddenly became a bloody lion!”
Chrysalis mulled it over for almost a minute. She looked conflicted, almost a bit scared. In the end she sighed and looked over at me. “Fine, but I thought you wanted to continue our journey?”
“I do, but I don’t think we’ll get far if these headaches continue.” I sighed. “And if my skin starts itching again I’ll probably go nuts anyhow.”
This brought a smile to Chrysalis’ face. “More nuts than you already are?”
“Don’t try to deflect this, get to talking.” I said with a weary sigh.
“Very well, if that’s what you want.” She settled down on the ground before me. “What do you already know about Changelings?”
“Nothing more than you’ve told me yourself Chrysalis.” I replied and leaned forward. “You don’t like being called insects.” She bristled a bit at that. “And I’ve had more direct experience with your kind’s ‘insides’ recently than I’d like.” I thought back to what I had seen in the tree, and my subsequent experience with the one impaled over me. “You’ve got an internal skeleton as well as exoskeleton, which is weird by the way.”
“Why is that weird? I thought we already established that we are not... ugh... Insects” She asked.
“Well, it seems a bit excessive. I mean, why both?”
“It’s necessary. It makes our bodies tougher, and able to withstand much more than those with only one of the two.” She stated and tapped her chest. It made a solid thump when her hoof hit. “We have seen more conflict throughout our history than most other races, besides the Gryphon kingdoms.”
“Gryphons? There are gryphons here as well?” I shook my head. “How in the world have I been able to walk this world for so long and not see a single living thing besides wild animals?” I was getting more confused by the minute.
“I think you might have seen more than you think, Walker.” Chrysalis said with a smile. “There are more sentient races on this world than even I know of. If what you’ve told me is right, you have wandered through at least a couple of kingdoms or empires.”
“And which could that be? All I’ve seen is ruins, plains, forests and mountains...” I grumbled, maybe the world was just avoiding my presence.
“Well. The Western Woods hold the Cervine Empire.”
“Cervine? Isn’t that something or other about deer?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. I did remember seeing deer on a couple occasions, mostly while walking through woodland.
“That would be right. The Deer are, well, a skittish sort. They don’t like strangers much.” She looked down and mumbled under her breath “May or may not have been my fault...”
“What was that last bit?” I Inquired.
“Nothing important. Let’s get back to us.” She coughed. “Well, changelings at least.”
I rubbed the back of my head. “Right. So, how is any of this related to my current... maladies?”
Chrysalis rolled her eyes and shifted a bit. “I’ll get to that soon. Now, I’m guessing that you’re curious about how I was able to change my form?”
I put my elbows on my knees and rested my chin in my hands. “Yes, do tell.”
“To put it simply, it’s magic.” She said with a grin.
“No, really? You don’t say?” I faked an astonished expression, which she rolled her eyes at and swatted at my knee.
“There’s more to it than that. A changeling can take the form of any creature that has at least the same amount of limbs and somewhat similar bone structure as ours.” She gestured to her body. “The transformation is a lot deeper than most would think. It actually changes just about everything about our bodies, even our bones. The target also needs to have a somewhat similar amount of mass as us.”
“Sounds reasonable, sort of?” I said. This was rather interesting.
“Yes. We are not able to change the mass of our bodies, just the shape. We can stretch it, but if I were to change into something smaller it would put a large strain on my body, and even if the transformation looks complete I would weigh more than anything that size should.” She saw my grin and added “No. I would not be a fat little filly.”
“Hey, I said nothing.” I said defensively. She just scowled at me. “How are you able to take another’s form though? If it goes deeper than just the surface, how does your body know what to change into?”
Chrysalis cringed and looked ready to run away before answering. “Blood.” She murmured.
“What was that?” I said, cupping my ear and leaning down. “I almost thought you said blood?”
She looked at me with a pained expression. “Yes. That is what I said.” The changeling sighed. “Blood contains the, well, building blocks of a body. At least that’s what we’re told.”
I felt a bit queasy. “Is that why you licked the blood off that branch? To get to my genes?” The queasiness was slowly changing into anger. “And you didn’t think of asking me if I thought taking my blood to... do whatever it is you do was okay?”
Chrysalis shrunk a bit under my glare, but another pang of pain made me sag back down on the branch. I hadn’t even realised that I was getting up.
“I... I didn’t think it was a problem...” She murmured.
“So, what now? Can you take my form or something?” I said, trying to push down the anger. All it did was making my head throb, and I really didn’t want to do more to upset her. Not right after finding two of her kin dead.
She looked up at me with a sort of sad smile. “No. I can’t.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “How come?” I didn’t really want to know, but my curiosity won out. “I mean, we have the same amount of limbs. Well...” I flushed a bit “Normally, I mean.”
Chrysalis looked down at her stump of a leg. For some reason it looked slightly different, I shrugged it away. “Yes, but that’s not it. Your blood is...” she paused “Different. It seems to resist being absorbed.”
“I feel that there’s a ‘but’ in there.” I raised an eyebrow.
“Yes. I am able to absorb some of its properties, but it’s incomplete.” She got to her hooves and started hobbling around a bit. “If I tried using it right now, I would end up looking like... I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? How bad could it be?” I asked.
“Well, for one I could end up without lungs.” She glanced over at me and smirked. “I do like to breathe.”
“Um, okay.” Well, that would be a problem. “So what will you do with it?”
“Oh, I’m not going to waste it. We’ll see in a few days if I can’t find some use of what I got.” She faced me and smirked.
“Right. So, what happens if your blood gets into someone else. Say, like me?” I wasn’t feeling very well, that was for sure. The tingling on my skin was slowly starting to come back, and I scratched my arm absentmindedly.
“That’s where it gets interesting, my dear Walker.” She moved closer, her horn glowing slightly, and a wicked smile on her face. “Assimilation happens.” Her horn flashed, and the world went dark.
Now read the authors note too