I darted forward in a flash, swinging my sword widely in an unimpressive arc full of countless openings, completely defenseless against any incoming counterattacks. The unfamiliar weight of the blade threw me off and made my sword swing madly, and the royal guard facing me easily sidestepped the sweeping blow. His hand had yet to leave the tip of his scabbard, and his smirk had yet to leave his face as he watched my futile attempts to wield a sword properly against him.
“Pathetic.”
The voice spoke aloud the same thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Behind me the soft whispering from the small crowd of onlookers who had gathered silenced, and all movement seemed to creak to a halt.
“Don’t think someone so new to this world could ever hope to accomplish anything so quickly. There’s a hierarchy to this world, and you’re not even on the lowest rung yet.”
I couldn’t move or speak; I could only stare forward at the guard’s taunting smirk frozen on his face.
“You aspire to be a hero, don’t you? A noble goal for a peasant with no prospects. But you’ll never become what you dream of by your own strength. But there are other ways.”
Her laughter filled my ears, and I could see the taunting smile on her face without having to turn around. The sound grew louder and louder until it blotted out everything else and the frozen scenery around me finally began to crumble apart and grow indistinct.
Aine.
I opened my eyes and for a minute the world remained indistinct, as if it was only still a dream. But I forced the notion away, sitting up slowly and blinking several times before details began to slowly swim back into my line of sight.
“…more fun that I expected. It never occurred to me before that it might be entertaining to see someone else kill you. If anything it makes me want to try it firsthand even more. But still-”
“Aine, you’re really messed up, you know that?” My voice was hoarse and scratchy, and deeper than I remembered.
Aine laughed and I finally managed to pinpoint her location. Although her voice sounded as clear as if she were sitting right next to me, she actually sat at the opposite side of the cavern, combing through her long hair with her fingers and beaming as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
“I was hoping you’d wake up again. So, is your memory still intact?”
I nodded, though in truth bits and pieces were still coming back to me. But of course she knew that.
“I’m honestly surprised it worked myself. Even I don’t know the limits of my powers, and switching souls is vastly different from stitching wounds. Of course your victory wasn’t without its defeats, either.”
Aine’s words brought reality back to the fore, and I looked down at my hands unconsciously, noting the differences immediately.
Of course, they weren’t really hands at all. The Shapeshifter had left them morphed into claws, most likely from some species of wild dragon, though which I didn’t have the knowledge to identify. Dark stains where my blood had dried still coated most of what normally would be my right hand, as if a layer of dark paint had been haphazardly applied to the deadly talons.
Following the path of dried blood, my eyes found their way to my real body, or corpse as it was now. A shadowy hole where my heart had used to rest spelled the cause of my demise, though it didn’t tell the pain that had gone with it. Yet despite seeing my own body lying dead and torn apart at my feet, I couldn’t feel anything.
I felt disconnected from myself; as if losing the body I had always lived in had caused me to lose more than just my life. From the lore I had read I knew Shapeshifters didn’t feel emotions, but I never expected that possessing another body would alter who I was fundamentally as a person.
I may well have lost myself. Without a doubt, I knew this meant there was no going back.
Looking away from my corpse, I found Aine again, her grin a hint more sinister than before.
“So what now?” I asked, but didn’t wait for an answer before following with another question that I felt was more important. “Are you still under contract?”
“I’m still here, aren’t I?” Aine answered simply, standing up and walking over to me. “As to your former query, that’s up to you. Though traveling the same path of a hero as before seems out of the question now.”
That had been my goal since as long as I could recall, as cliché as becoming a hero sounded. It wasn’t until recently that it had become possible, though.
Just as Aine said, I knew the body at my feet spoke the same truth. I knew I should feel crushed, but I could only feel the slightest disappointment at the news. Still, I wanted to remain true to myself, even if I had been killed once already for it.
“Can’t I-” I began but Aine quickly cut me off.
“Too late,” she said, bending down next to me and running her hand across the dried blood on the floor. Lifting her hand back up, she showed me the dark residue, long since dried. “If you had acted earlier, maybe it could have worked, but now this body is past the point of retrieval. It’s past even a Shapeshifter’s ability to revive as one of their forms.”
“So in other words…?” I left the question open so Aine could fill in the answer I didn’t want to admit myself.
“You’re one of the monsters now.”
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