changeling thing

The intrepid doctor knocked on the door to the small room, receiving no answer in return. She knew this one had been particularly unable to handle coming back, that's what the sister had said. She had fallen into a deep depression, and now didn't leave her bedroom whatsoever.

Not everyone could handle coming back, though. They came through the Hedge, they saw what they are, and they practically vanished. They stopped taking care of themselves, they stopped seeing people, they wasted away, and they eventually died. They lost their will to live. And then Zorana would have to perform the autopsy, as it had been for years.

She didn't necessarily know why she had been asked, instead of any of the volunteer therapists. She was a medical doctor, and that wasn't even her specialty. To the best of her understanding, it was to check in on her physical health. But she already knew what she would find.

If the door was locked tight from even her sister, who she was supposedly so close to, then it would already be too late. She would pick the lock and be greeted by the familiar stench of death and decay that she worked around every day. The smell would spread down the hall, as rot was not an easy smell to contain, and it would tell her sister that it was already done. That was how this always went. It was predictable, too predictable.

She knocked again. No answer.

From the inside of her coat, she pulled a hair pin. It was just a privacy lock, no big deal to break into, really. She had needed to do this before with the same sorts of cases. Again, it was all too routine. The sorrows of winter proved too much for the more unstable. But the fae didn't care about that. They only care for themselves. The only good thing they had ever done, Zorana thought begrudgingly to herself, was ensure that she was not the one who would perform her father's autopsy.

But there was nothing to be done about what happened in the past. Some had yet to learn it, but all anyone could really do is learn to move on. The communities those who were taken set up simply astounded her with their closeness and generosity. It wasn't something she often saw the results of in her line of work.

On the flip side, cases like this were all too common. As the lock clicked open, she braced herself for the odor of decomposition. What would it be this time? Had she locked herself inside so long that she could have died days ago? Did her intestines finally burst from her refusal to use the bathroom, causing early rotting? Or maybe it was simpler. She starved to death. Maybe she only passed within the hour.

The door creaked open, and though it was dark, Zorana was surprised to hear the sounds of gentle weeping.

“Get out.” The voice under the covers was tired, weak, and dejected.

“I'm sorry, I can't do that.” Zorana quietly approached. “I was asked to check in on you.”

“You can, and you will.” Something under the mound of blankets shifted away from her. “I can't be seen. By anyone.”

“Why not?” The mortician's tone did not change from its even, calm cadence as she sat at the side of the bed. “Surely you know that everyone here is here to support you.”

“They're not going to be here to support me when they look at me. I'm horrible. I'm a monster. I'm not meant to be anymore. The freaks should have just killed me when they had the chance. It'd be better than this.”

“You aren't a monster. This, I can guarantee you. No more than anyone else here.”

“No, you don't understand.”

“Yes, I do-”

“No you don't!” Just for a moment, the fabric mass's voice raised to a shout, before quieting again. “I've been- I've been fucked up. Badly...”

“How badly? Show me. You can trust me.”

“N-no... I can't. I just can't.”

“Yes, you can...” Slowly, Zorana reached down for the covers. But as she reached in to pull them off of the person beneath, she felt a sharp, stabbing pain suddenly radiate through the side of her hand.

“Ah-! Come on now, enough of that!” Her voice didn't rise in volume, but became assertive.

“S-sorry... I told you, I can't let anyone...”

“Shh... you need to trust me. Do you want to die like this?”

“...Yes.”

“Okay, let me rephrase that. Do you want to let your sister down?”

“I-” It was clear that that question quite strongly affected whoever was inside. “N-no. I guess I don't... But, I'm-”

“You're no more of a monster than any of us. You're even less than some of us. You can trust me, alright? But I need you to come out of there. Come out, and look at me.”

The pause between them was long and poignant, or at least it seemed that way. Slowly, a head began to poke its way out of the covers. Initially, the defining feature was the pair of long, black fox ears atop it, parting through the fluffy cinnabar hair atop it. As the girl, who looked rather small and petite, looked over to her, she saw bright violet eyes, clearly altered by her time across the veil, piercing her, judging her. She saw copper skin that faded into patchy black fur, and distinctly vulpine features.

The girl who poked her head out seemed surprised to see that whoever her sister summoned looked the same as her. Instead of a fox, though, this woman's ginger hair, long and straight, was parted by a wolf's ears in white. Her green eyes, like moss in a forest, were distinctly lupine as well, and that white fur seemed to blend with her deathly pale skin.

“You're...”

“Another Beast, yes.” Zorana nodded slowly. “They used us as animals. You don't remember anything from your stay, do you?”

“No, I don't... how did you know that?”

“Because I hardly do, either. It's a haze of color and instinct, isn't it?”

“Yeah...”

“And you have trouble collecting your thoughts.”

“It gets so hard, sometimes it's so blurry... I remember thinking clearly, but I can't do it anymore...”

“I know. It took me a long time to be able to do it again in any capacity. You can do it. It's going to be a long road, but you'll come back. You're not a monster, you're not a freak, you're just someone who got caught in an unfortunate circumstance. You can recover. But to do that, you need to trust me, and you need to let the rest of us help you. In return, I need you to promise you'll help the rest of us out too.”

“I... guess... but what can I even do..? It's not like I have anything anymore to contribute, I've been spat out in the middle of Corn Country. I don't even have my guitar.”

“Where did you come from before?”

“The northeast, I guess...”

“Mmm... so you're a long way from home, then. Well, welcome to St. Louis. Hope you like jazz.”

“Jazz is okay I guess... where did you get taken from?”

“Chicago, northern suburbs in particular. In retrospect I guess I'm lucky. Didn't get spat out all too far. It's a four-hour trip as opposed to a two-day one.”

“Oh... so... what happened then?”

“Decided I wanted to cut loose after my graduation ceremony. It was literally the day after I got my degree. So I decided I'd take a walk out to the convenience store for a few snacks and spend the day off on the far end of Gages Lake on the island that only had an old house for sale on it. Well unlucky for me, a Maneto decided to shack up in the lake. Didn't like me in its territory. Ended up getting dumped under the Arch five years in the future.”

“...What's a Maneto?”

“Oh, ah, the Manetowa are an old Illini legend. They're horned, armored snakes that live underwater and eat people. Or at least, I thought it was a legend. Turns out no. Also turns out it wanted a hunting hound instead of just straight eating me like it'd probably do to normal folk. Guess I'm just lucky.”

“But... why would it just randomly decide to steal you instead of eating you?”

“Well... let me put it this way. I've had supernatural experience before. I think that's the simplest way to cut it. But, well, I'll go into that sometime later, maybe. I think it'd be a bit much for now.” The light of the full moon shone through the curtains draping the window, striking Zorana. She could feel its call, beckoning her to have a romp through the woods, but not now. A patient needed her.

“If you say so, I guess.”

“Mmhm. Now then. Do you know what happened to you?”

“No. Just one day I got grabbed from my bed. I don't know why. I don't remember anything after that.”

“Intriguing. More intriguing that it took the both of you. But if you don't know, I won't press you.”

“I don't...”

“That's just fine. You don't have to know.”

There was another silence after that, though this time it was less long and poignant before the girl broke it.

“So... everyone here is like this?”

“Yeah. We all try to help each other out because the fae are shitbags and each other is all we got. It's... not as hard as you think it is when you're fresh out of the Hedge, least when you find the freehold as fast as I did. Or maybe we're all just lucky to be dropped here. It's been alright, I guess. Never know who's gonna find their way here, y'know. That's always interesting to see.”

“...Really?”

“Yeah. Found a cousin of mine just the other day. I guess some shitheel wanted a pet cat. Couldn't tell you how long she's been gone.”

“Huh.”

“Mmhm... so, are you feeling any better?”

“Wh- Oh... yeah, I guess...”

“That's good. Truth be told, I thought you were going to be dead when I broke in. It's happened too many times before. Color me pleasantly surprised.”

“I'm sorry you had to go through the trouble, you must be so busy-”

“Don't worry about it. Now, how about we get you out of bed and cleaned up so you can come get some food?”

“...That sounds really nice.”