Solo [The Switch] One Fine Autumn Morning

[Nythis Drawne]

Aislyn's Abode, Early Autumn 515 AV

PermissionI do have permission from the fabulous Fable for this thread.

About this threadPart one of a series of threads where Nythis and Aislyn switch bodies.

The sister thread, where Aislyn wakes up as Nythis.


Nythis blinked in the pale autumn light that shone through his window. He yawned and frowned at the ceiling as he woke slowly, feeling strangely comfortable in the small bed.

He threw open the covers and got up from the bed determinedly, only to end up on the floor in a tangle of limbs and bedclothes.

He wasn’t in his room, but that wasn’t all that seemed off.

The floor hadn’t been where it was supposed to be. Or something was wrong with him. He kicked out a leg from beneath a blanket and stared at it for some time. He wiggled his toes. The toes on the small, dark foot in front of him did the same.

He rose to his feet, feeling almost weightless. He stared at his hands, clever, long fingered, delicate. His eyes roamed the walls of the small apartment. Artists’ hands? He traced the scar on the palm before he raised them to his face, fingertips brushed over smooth, unmarred skin, started trembling. It was angular face, too fine boned to be his. He ran a finger down his nose, too soft, too straight. Over his lips, too full, the hard lines next to his mouth smoothed, over the twin shells of his ears, strangely rounded in the way humans’ were. Another scar, a small tear.

He looked down, feeling the hair slip over his shoulders before it spilled into his peripheral vision.

Ah. He was female. He ran a hand between his newly discovered breasts, disconcerted by the absence of his gnosis.

Ionu, he decided. It could only be Ionu. Who else could possibly have any motivation to do this? Who had the power to create such a flawless illusion, a body complete with a history written in scars and even a home rendered in incredible detail?

There was a chest in front of the bunk he had woken up in. He lifted the lid and withdrew some clothing and pulled it on. He enjoyed the way the fabric slid over his skin. He stretched, testing the limits of his new body and grinned, feeling like a man released from prison.

Nythis headed to the window, still smiling, hoping to catch his reflection in the glass.

He narrowed his eyes in the glare, and brought his face closer, curious.

Black eyes. Black eyes like blood in the moonlight. Zith eyes. The child, black eyes wild, wide with fear. Blood in the moonlight. He reached over his shoulder. More scars and a telltale bump.

He turned from the window abruptly, pushing the old, well worn memory away with a force not dissimilar to the way in which he banished Sithyn.

The inverted azure triangle on his neck had caught his attention, however. So that was where his mark had gone. It was on a annoying spot, out in the open for everyone to see. He frowned, covered the mark with a hand and willed an illusion to hide it. When he lifted it, his heart skipped a beat. The mark was still there. He closed his eyes, concentrated on imagining the azure blending to the warm tone of his skin. Still nothing. He attempted to change his eyes to a human brown. The black eyes continued to stare back at him.

In a last, desperate attempt he changed the colour of the shirt he wore to black. It worked. Relief flooded him, puzzlement following short on its heels. In all his years of bearing Ionu's mark it was the first time anything like this had ever happened to him.

And there he had accepted that the Trickster had forgotten about him long ago. The idea that the deity might have been paying attention when he would rather have been ignored made him slightly nervous and more than slightly suspicious. He was eternally grateful for Ionu’s gift, but he had no desire to become a pawn on the chessboard of the gods.

This is just a bit of mischief, he told himself. Looking at the city, the deity could do with a laugh.

He believed Ionu was more of a gambler than a chess player anyway.

He combed through his hair with his fingers, bringing some of it to the front in an effort to hide the glaringly obvious gnosis mark. He wandered through the apartment as he did it, wondering if there were any clues to the puzzle Ionu had set before him in the drawings. He marvelled at the incredible variety to them. Some were simple, a child’s drawings, yellowed things faded with time. Paintings. Cityscapes. A few of them were of Ionu’s temple. Others held a more sinister tone. Those drawings were what held his attention longest, his eyes lingering on the monsters.

His hands froze in his hair when he noticed a drawing that didn’t fit. Its style contrasted sharply against that of the others. It was his, he realized. The one he had gifted Ionu all those years ago when the Inverted had performed at Riverfall. The one from the day he had received his gnosis.

If there had been any doubts in Nythis’ mind about who was responsible for the strange turn of events, the drawing put them to rest.

He was looking up at the charcoal sketch, the silhouette of a woman with swirls of darkness invading her form like madness clawing at the edge of a mind when the door opened.

Nythis started, and found himself at the other side of the room quicker than he thought possible.

Her humming entered the room before she did. A middle aged woman with raindrops glittering in her wild hair and mud on her hands and knees.

“Morning, dearest. Sorry if I woke you this morning, but I had the strangest dream… and then I remembered I haven’t watered the flowers in weeks. I just gave them all the water they could want. Poor things.”

Nythis looked to the window. Rain splattered against the glass. How much stranger was this morning going to get?

“Morning,” he offered, startled by the sound of his voice. He clenched and relaxed his right hand, the familiar pull of the scars missing.

The woman cleaned her hands at the washbasin, her humming broken by the occasional line of a song.

“Be careful when you go out today. Yesterday a zith came into the shop. He was trying to be clever, mind you. His disguise was good. It was the hair on the back of his hands that gave it away. Ha! He was hairy as anything. And when I told him to take off his cape he refused. I chased him out of the shop with my broom and all the way down the street! You should have heard the language he used! He won’t be coming anywhere near us again!”

As she spoke, her faraway eyes focused on him fiercely, even as she sharted to tremble quite noticeably.

He shrank under that gaze, could feel the years peeling away like old paint, revealing another woman with the same fierce protectiveness in her eyes and the same fear. His heart pounded in his chest.

It was the sound of the bell that saved him. It sounded seven times. He needed to get to work and an unexpected change in gender and lodgings wasn’t about to stop him showing up at Impawsible Pets. Thuk already had more than enough reason to fire him.

“I need to go.” He said and ran to the door. The latched refused to open.

“Wait, you’re forgetting your key and your locket too.”

He turned around, hesitantly and took the items without really looking.

“Remember what I said. Be careful!” The woman called after him.

Author's NoteHeavily edited. Wow, this was a emotional roller coaster for Nythis, wasn't it? Confused to happy to triggered to confused to triggered again. I'll see if I'll manage to have some focus in the next post. Tried to juggle to much with this one.

[Nythis Drawne]

Aislyn's Abode, Early Autumn 515 AV

Vinric’s face was becoming a rather unflattering and slightly worrying shade of red. Nythis stood waiting for him to finish laughing, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

“When I told Ionu I was tired of your ugly mug… I didn’t think she’d take things so literally.” He said through a few gasps for air. “I’m sorry, you must be so pissed right now. It’s just for that,” He gestured to Nythis’ new body, “To happen to you.” His shoulders started shaking again and more laughter followed on its heels.

He considered Vinric’s statement. Was he pissed? At Vinric perhaps, but his reaction had been expected and he was getting used to the talkative clerk. No, what he felt was… Motivated. There was the mystery of the house and the crazy old woman waiting to be solved and this morning he had enjoyed the thrill of walking through a crowd unillusioned without the petching staring. The very way he experienced the world felt changed. Sounds were sharper and it easier to discern where they were coming from. His sight too, was improved. His sense of how far things were had gone to shyte again, but his field of vision was restored. At least things would stop appearing out of nowhere when he wasn’t paying attention.

“Alright, I’m done.” Vinric took a few deep breaths. He picked up his list from the counter. “Let’s see… There’s two deliveries today…”

The two deliveries ended up being bedding for the animals and sacks of feed for the exotic birds that needed to be gotten out of the rain as quickly as possible. By the time he was done his arms and back were aching. It was ridiculous, the speed at which the pitchfork grew heavy in his hands. The uncomfortable pull of the scars on his back was absent, however. He had decided it was a fair exchange.

Sithyn’s silence only added to his good mood. Nythis wondered if it was curiousity that had his brother content to sit back and watch or if it was for some other, more sinister reason. Whatever it was, it was a welcome reprieve.

By the end of the day he was pleasantly tired. He concentrated. West. His lakan was to the west and thus the Cubacious Inn was too. He had no desire to sleep in the same room as the madwoman from that morning, even as the key tugged him sweetly in the direction of the small house. He wanted to get to his money and backpack too. It wouldn’t do to let the room sit empty.

He walked the streets for hours ad passed the madwoman’s house three times. His lakan’s position kept changing suddenly. Too quickly for someone to be carrying it. The house and its sad, dead garden showed up again as he turned a corner. Nythis swore and continued on. Perhaps if he found the Sanity Center… He walked past the house again. This time it hadn’t even waited until he reached a new street.

He glared at the innocuous front door and swallowed, the taste of blood on his tongue. He had discovered that his teeth were rather sharp. Perhaps sharp enough to have him kick his habit of gnashing his teeth.

With a resigned sigh, he took the key from his pocket. The city wasn’t going to let him get to the inn anytime soon, that much was obvious. He turned the key carefully and opened the door to a crack, half-expecting the old woman to jump out at him.

When she didn’t scare him out of his wits, he entered. She was sitting at the window, humming the same song from that morning. Nythis went over to her and put a hesitant hand on her shoulder, wondering if she realized he was in the room. He withdrew it when the woman reached up to cover his hand with her own. He watched it rest on the thin shoulder, looking fragile and abandoned.

“What are you looking at?” He asked as she continued staring into the night. Nythis followed her gaze. Was that the silhouette of the Cubacious Inn in the distance? He narrowed his eyes, deciding the city was taunting him.

“I’m waiting for Aislyn to come home. There’s some soup on the table, dear. It’s gone cold I’m afraid.” The humming resumed. He tried to continue the conversation, but he received no response.

Nythis wondered who this Aislyn was and whether she was real or a figment of the woman’s imagination. He looked over to the table. At least the soup was real. It smelt good too. Suddenly he realized just how hungry he was.

It was unexpectedly bland, cold and congealed. He devoured it anyway, his eyes finding the art pasted on the walls again.

After finishing his meal and cleaning the dishes he headed towards the bunk he had woken up in and the chest in front of it. It was a good a place as any to start his search. There had been other things besides clothes in the chest. He took out a set of coloured charcoal and then, from the very bottom, an inconspicuous little book.

He opened it and read the first entry. A journal. Pretty recent, since the first entry was dated from 514 AV. He kicked off his boots and seated himself on the bunk and started to read. He looked at the woman sitting at the window and then back to the journal.

Had the woman created an imaginary daughter for herself to ease her loneliness? Perhaps Ionu had taken pity on her and made her dream a reality. He hardly seemed an appropriate choice for a daughter, however. Then again, he had very little to lose through the transformation... He took the hand mirror he had placed on the foot of the bed along with a few other items he had removed from the chest. He lifted it reluctantly and studied the face that was reflected back at him. There did seem to be a resemblance between the two.

Judging the age of a human was difficult, but he seemed young enough to be the madwoman’s daughter.

He traced the angular lines of the face thoughtfully, tilting the mirror to avoid the eyes. It wasn’t a face he’d describe as pretty. Pretty was for soft, harmless, fragile things. The face caught in the shiny metal circle was too hard, almost predatory with those eyes. There was just a hint of danger, just enough to make one curious enough to want to know for sure.

Sithyn would have loved the use of a face like this, Nythis thought. And yet, he hadn’t even stirred. He was there, like he alway was, a black pit at the back of his mind, but he was so quiet…

The woman had spoken of Zith with apparent loathing that morning and considering the stubs on his back she had likely suffered the fate that so many women did at the hands of the winged creatures. It might even be the reason for her madness.

Why make your daughter a half- zith then? Why add your nightmare to your dream? Nythis put the mirror down.

Or…

Perhaps there had been a daughter… that had died? He paged to the last entry of the journal. It was fairly recent. He remembered the scars he had felt on his back. Perhaps she had met a nasty end and Ionu had decided to find the woman a replacement, like a parent would replace a pet before their child could notice… Ionu’s replacement had been imperfect, however. The woman was waiting for someone after all. Aislyn, she’d said.

A hundred more questions sprang to mind and a dozen other possibilities. He took a piece of coloured charcoal from the set and began reading through the journal carefully, underlining everything that might provide a clue to whatever was going on, making the occasional note as he tried to organize his thoughts.

At the window, the madwoman sat staring at the Cubacious Inn.

Author's NoteNythis is going to be so embarrassed when he finds out just how wrong he is.