The child is cold. Shivering in the darkness of an empty room, crusted with blood and stinking of all that is disgusting about the human condition. They have forgotten her, their former master's favourite pet. His death has opened their bonds, given them their freedom. Yet she is forgotten, left to rot in the prison that he made her home.
She has not seen the sky in so long, nor felt the coolness of fresh air upon her skin. She doesn't know how long it has been. She remembers the day of the riot, when men and women argued over her head, demanding to know from one another if magic should be regulated or allowed its freedom. She remembers running through them, being caught, being made to prove a point. She remembers him, taking her away, unchallenged despite the many eyes all around them.
She remembers the pain. Whips and knives, potions that burned, all administered under his watchful, covetous gaze. She remembers that he wanted to know how she grew, how she changed; that he wanted the power for himself, to be able to change his skin, his shape, to become a face no one knew. She remembers, too, that no matter how cruelly she was treated, she could not show him how to become as she was.
How many faces has she worn, down here in the darkness, hidden away from the world? She cannot recall. When the light was taken away from her, she was small, brown-haired, brown-eyed, too trusting in the use of her gifts. He had presented her with dying men and women; she had laid her hands upon them without a thought for the consequences, taking into herself every symptom and cause of their illness and injury, bringing them back to full health.
The cost is always an ordeal of fire she knows intimately. The burning of her own dying flesh, suffocation as her immature body struggled to heal everything she had taken from those who had once been dying from his cruelty. Then the darkness, the swirling of her mind as new thoughts, new knowledge came to her. She always had to break out of that darkness herself - there was no one there to help her, as there had been in her infancy. And when she emerged, she wore a new face, with new knowledge, a greater understanding of herself.
But now ....there are no more dying people. There is no more pain. For weeks, she has been alone down here, eating the decaying scraps of food left behind by other prisoners, other experiments. She does not know what has happened, why she is forgotten and unchained. It does not seem to matter now.
The child is dying. She knows it at her very core. No physical form can live for so long without sunlight, without air, without food and heat and water. All these things have been denied her, and the shivering sickness that envelops her is proof that she is, at last, succumbing to the natural way of things.
She curls into a corner, dragging the last filthy scraps of cloth from her body to hug her bare legs to her skinny body tightly. She doesn't know why, but she must hug herself this way. Something drives her to lower her face to the crook of knees and shoulders, to close her eyes and think of the friends who by now must surely have forgotten her.
Manya ....Missy ....Dar-see ....the kindness in their smiles, the gentleness in their hands, the insistence that she was safe with them ...
The darkness hides much, yet this is something unseen by common eyes. As the child stills, drawing her last breath, something moves. Weeping from scarred and dirtied skin comes the slow creep of viscous strands, organic in nature, encompassing the frozen body in wrapping that seems almost to have come from her.
In moments, where once there was a child, there now stands in that forgotten corner a perfectly formed chysalys. What may emerge from within is anyone's guess, yet one thing is certain. Death, while the bane of many, is not a fate to be suffered by this child, no matter her longing for it.
She has not seen the sky in so long, nor felt the coolness of fresh air upon her skin. She doesn't know how long it has been. She remembers the day of the riot, when men and women argued over her head, demanding to know from one another if magic should be regulated or allowed its freedom. She remembers running through them, being caught, being made to prove a point. She remembers him, taking her away, unchallenged despite the many eyes all around them.
She remembers the pain. Whips and knives, potions that burned, all administered under his watchful, covetous gaze. She remembers that he wanted to know how she grew, how she changed; that he wanted the power for himself, to be able to change his skin, his shape, to become a face no one knew. She remembers, too, that no matter how cruelly she was treated, she could not show him how to become as she was.
How many faces has she worn, down here in the darkness, hidden away from the world? She cannot recall. When the light was taken away from her, she was small, brown-haired, brown-eyed, too trusting in the use of her gifts. He had presented her with dying men and women; she had laid her hands upon them without a thought for the consequences, taking into herself every symptom and cause of their illness and injury, bringing them back to full health.
The cost is always an ordeal of fire she knows intimately. The burning of her own dying flesh, suffocation as her immature body struggled to heal everything she had taken from those who had once been dying from his cruelty. Then the darkness, the swirling of her mind as new thoughts, new knowledge came to her. She always had to break out of that darkness herself - there was no one there to help her, as there had been in her infancy. And when she emerged, she wore a new face, with new knowledge, a greater understanding of herself.
But now ....there are no more dying people. There is no more pain. For weeks, she has been alone down here, eating the decaying scraps of food left behind by other prisoners, other experiments. She does not know what has happened, why she is forgotten and unchained. It does not seem to matter now.
The child is dying. She knows it at her very core. No physical form can live for so long without sunlight, without air, without food and heat and water. All these things have been denied her, and the shivering sickness that envelops her is proof that she is, at last, succumbing to the natural way of things.
She curls into a corner, dragging the last filthy scraps of cloth from her body to hug her bare legs to her skinny body tightly. She doesn't know why, but she must hug herself this way. Something drives her to lower her face to the crook of knees and shoulders, to close her eyes and think of the friends who by now must surely have forgotten her.
Manya ....Missy ....Dar-see ....the kindness in their smiles, the gentleness in their hands, the insistence that she was safe with them ...
The darkness hides much, yet this is something unseen by common eyes. As the child stills, drawing her last breath, something moves. Weeping from scarred and dirtied skin comes the slow creep of viscous strands, organic in nature, encompassing the frozen body in wrapping that seems almost to have come from her.
In moments, where once there was a child, there now stands in that forgotten corner a perfectly formed chysalys. What may emerge from within is anyone's guess, yet one thing is certain. Death, while the bane of many, is not a fate to be suffered by this child, no matter her longing for it.