Changling

A short story of a changling and her nature.

Donia glanced down at the pocket watch, and then away, blinking her eye in reflex, but the tears were long gone. Her body had given up. “It’s no use,” it said, “there’s no satisfying you.” And so it no longer cared about her emotion, leaving only her mind watery.

Her body was irritated, didn’t listen, didn’t like her. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t...

She glanced down at the pocket watch again, rubbing a finger along its brass outer shell, remembering how Da had turned it every night. A flash took her mind: striking, zipping, zigzagging blue light coming from her. She had wanted the angry, terrified faces elsewhere… away. She remembered waking up on the floor, on her side, the pocket watch resting in front of her. She remembered blearily grabbing it and bringing it closer, leaving herself faced with a head. Hair surrounded its sides, but the back was bare, a smooth expanse that had never known hair. She had squinted her eyes in confusion, a horrified realization slowly dawning on her, because there was the chin facing her, and there was the front of her father’s clothes.

But there was no face. She staggered up and stumbled back. Her mother lying farther away, faced down. With shaking hands, she approached, curiosity and horror consuming her insides. She bent over her mother and turned her over, only to stumble back before seeing the nonface she could only imagine. And her imagination brought disgust. Disgust for something she had wrought.

She left, then, the whole world rocking and tilting beneath her feet. Her body did not feel her own. It wasn’t her own. It had a mind of its own. It was a changling’s body.

No one knew anything about them except that they were evil and malicious, marked by scales or some other deformity. She had first noticed them a month ago on her forehead… and tried to hide them. But that day, her mother had brushed away Donia’s hair in a loving gesture that went cold. Her parents had demanded their daughter back, and in her own mind, she had screamed and wailed that it was she they had known as a daughter for years and years, even if she was a changeling … even if she was.

In her heart she felt a deep betrayal from them, and a spite for them, yet another part cringed from those emotions, trying to languish in its grief for what she had done… what she had done.

She looked at the pocket watch and then up at the steep slope that she was set to climb. She made poor work of it, constantly slipping and falling, the dirt and rock beneath her feet anything but solid, she grasped at the tufts of grass, and many times her fingers dug into the ground for the roots of a bush or tree.

She peeked her head over the lip of the great mountain as the sun was setting, and there far below was a roiling and churning molten red, like a sea of embers. The heat was intense, yet she ignored it,taking a final look at the pocket watch.

It was said that if an object was thrown into the volcano, its hold on the outside world would cease. She could only hope it was true.

She braced herself and then jumped into the pit.

Or at least her mind did, her body refused. And with a growing awareness, she realized that her arm was pulling back, and then in a whiplash motion threw the pocket watch away. She watched in shock as it flew through the air, flying and flying and falling and falling, so far away that she lost sight of it even before it was consumed by the churning sea.

Her mind let out a whimper, but her mouth let out no sound, her arms simply hugged her, telling her that it was there, that it cared. She realized then that her body was the one and only thing left in the world that truly cared for her, and it was also the one and only thing that caused everyone who loved her to turn on her.

The body was a malicious beast that didn’t care about anything else. Her body was not her, and she did not throw that watch, and she did not strike her parents, and she did not wrong do wrong.

But somewhere in her mind there was a shaking of a head, telling her that she thought lies. There was a condemning, yet she resisted, yet slowly, ever so slowly she realized that she had never been able to speak an untruth aloud. It was one of the reasons she had not gotten along well with the village children, it was one of the reasons why only her parents had been left endearing towards her. She realized that her body could not tell a lie, and so it could not whimper for her parents’ fates. They deserved their fate.

And still, some human raised part of her mind whimpered, because it knew it should.

Author's Note

If anyone could give me a second pair of eyes for editing, that would be awesome.

Also, if someone can give me a better teaser summery, that would also be awesome.