Mae stood over me, a blood-chilling scowl plastered across her shrivelled old features. She plonked her two pastry-laden bags down on the remains of a box, which promptly collapsed into itself in a cloud of dust and splinters, scattering the sweet rolls within the bags across the floor.

“It was them.” I managed to croak out, my battered lungs complaining more with each word. I raised a shaky hand to point at Martin and Silvia, who were doing their best to look both as innocent and apologetic as humanly possible. It wasn’t enough.

Mae turned to them, stalking closer with a fury that seemed to build with every step. She squinted up at them, and the two adventurers seemed to wither under her gaze, a thousand times more afraid then than they had been while facing the Changeling. They clearly knew her, but her expression remained unchanged as she got a good look at them. Then she started hitting them with her cane.

“Martindale,” thwack, “Silvania,” thwack “I suppose this is ma thanks then,” thwack “you’ve come back ta destroy ma shop,” thwack-thwack “and nearly beat poor Corin ta death,” thwack ta repay me for raisin’ ya?” thwack “Is that it!” thwack

The pair responded at the same time, both somehow finding the same whining tone that reminded me of chastised children. “It wasn’t us!” cried Martin, fending off another blow, “It was the Changeling!” protested Silvia, dodging a cane strike aimed at her shins. Both went to say more, but cut themselves off sharply when Mae held up a finger to silence them, ceasing her thwacking for the moment.

To my complete surprise, she turned back to me, knelt down on creaky knees to where I was slumped, and asked me, “What happened?”

I was still rather stunned and to be honest I hadn’t expected to be a part of any further conversing, so I had picked up a slightly dusty pastry from where it had rolled against my leg and started eating.

So, after a few painful moments of silence as I attempted to chew and swallow as fast as (in)humanly possible, I tried to explain the events of the last ten minutes. I meant to start from the beginning, about how Martin and Silvia had come around asking after her, but all I managed to do was weakly mumble, “They threw it at me,” as I gestured vaguely at the still-slightly-twitching corpse of the Changeling. Then the words that Mae had said before she asked me what happened found their way through to my thoroughly bruised brain, and I sputtered, “Wait, raising them? You mean…” I trailed off, not sure how to phrase the question in a way that wasn’t insulting to any of them.

Mae sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose with one hand as she swept the other in a mockingly grand gesture towards the two adventurers. “Corin, meet ma kids, Martin and Silvia, hame ta visit their dear ol’ ma by destroying ‘er livelihood!” She snapped her fingers and pointed lazily at me, “Kids, you’ve met Corin. He’s tha help.”

They both muttered uncomfortable hellos and hi’s, while I stared stupidly at the three of them. “They’re your kids?” I asked, incredulously. It wasn’t that I couldn’t imagine Mae being a mother, it was more that I couldn’t imagine Mae being able to stand someone long enough to be able to have a kid with them. In six months, I don’t think I ever saw her speak more than a sentence to someone that wasn’t screamed in anger.

“Adopted kids.” She added, shooting me a scowl that told me to watch myself.

“Ah.” I nodded slightly, deciding against asking any further questions.

“Adopted kids who I haven’t seen in damn near’ ten years now, I might add!” She roared, once more turning to the pair with fire in her eyes and her cane raised above her head. “Not since ye went off to that damned magic school.”

“It wasn’t magic school, it was Lord Baldwin’s Academy in the capital, Ma!” Martin protested, though he stopped when Mae brandished the stick in his direction.

“We wrote you letters Mum,” Silvia added, “We didn’t know you moved until they all got sent back to us last month!”

“Bah!” Mae spat, “You’d ‘ave known sooner if ya ever visited! I moved eight years ago!”

The conversation descended into familial bickering, punctuated by the odd thwack from Mae’s cane, and I soon found myself utterly lost in a flood of backstory that I could barely keep track of.

It seemed that having been taken in by Mae as kids, the two siblings had left suddenly to pursue their dreams of becoming professional adventurers, first as amateurs, later as students at one of the massive adventurer colleges in Skarburn, the sprawling metropolis-capital of the Human Princedoms. I’d been there once, it was loud, crowded, and brimming with my two least favourite types of people, adventurers, and nobles. Needless to say, I didn’t stay there long.

Anyway, they ended up going to Lord Baldwin’s, the famous university that was attended by prodigies and the sons and daughters of high nobility. That meant that they were either insanely good at monster-hunting, or they had robbed Mae of every penny she had before they left home to pay their tuition. I was betting it was the former.

Suddenly I got the terrible sense that I needed to be somewhere else. Specifically, anywhere that didn’t have two muscle-bound professionals who had been trained by the best teachers around to find and kill things like me. I pulled myself to my feet and tried to make my escape as they bickered.

I shuffled past the three of them, intent on leaving them to their unhappy reunion. I made for the rickety set of stairs that led to the second floor and started to mutter something about going for a lie down when I stepped into one of the little pools of blood the Changeling had dripped across the floor. My foot slid out from under me, and I would have bashed my head in for the second time that day if not for Silvia, who grabbed my arm to steady me. She also nearly ripped it out of its socket yanking me back to my feet, so I’d say she still owed me for chucking a Changeling at me.

“Woah! Careful there kid.” She dusted me off, no doubt feeling guilty about my injuries. “Jeez, you sure got a lot of that things blood on you, huh?” She looked down at my tunic, which was stained black all down my right side. I touched a hand to the fabric, which came away sticky with blood. I blanched. It was monster blood alright, but it wasn’t the Changeling’s.

“Oh, yeah it must have bled on me when it attacked me,” I mumbled, forcing a thin smile. “I’d better go wash it off!” I probably sounded a little strained, but then they likely just assumed I was traumatized, so I think I got away with it. Never underestimate trauma as a good excuse, it’s gotten me out of more than a few close calls. With that I turned and disappeared upstairs, moving as quickly as my still-trembling legs could carry me.

-

The upstairs of the shop was a newer wooden addition, added some years ago when Mae bought the place. The small staircase led up to a narrow hallway, with two doors on either side of it leading away to different rooms. The doors on the larger side, the ones that faced the street, were Mae’s section, which I had never seen the inside of. The other two rooms, crammed in between the corridor and the wall that faced the alley behind the store, were my room and the lavatory.

I slammed the door to my room closed behind me, sliding the little bolt-lock across to make sure no one disturbed me. It was a cramped, claustrophobic space with a low, sloping ceiling. One tiny window looked out into the alley, the only source of light except for a couple of lanterns ensconced into the wall that I’d never actually used. Heavy curtains hung above the window, keeping all but the slightest trickle of daylight in, making it even gloomier than downstairs.

A thin sliver of a mattress was pushed against the narrow wall furthest from the door, its length just enough to take up the whole width of the room. It sat atop a battered wooden frame I’d found abandoned in the alleyway when I’d first moved in, which sagged in the middle and creaked incessantly. It was the only furniture unless you counted the stack of books that served both as entertainment and a makeshift nightstand. They weren’t from downstairs, rather they were my own that I’d found or stolen over the years. A small mirror sat facedown atop the pile. The rest of my belongings, -extra clothes and a few keepsakes-, were stuffed into a rucksack under the bed, packed and ready to go in case I had to skip town.

It wasn’t much, but it was as good a home as I’d ever had. The bed groaned as I sat down on it, the sharp-edged wooden frame prominent through the thin mattress and second-hand sheets. I pulled my shirt up, wincing as a stab of pain ran up my side from hip to head, and did my best to get the buttons undone with only one hand.

As I’d feared, the blood was mostly, if not entirely, my own. At some point the Changeling had caught me just at my lowest rib, opening a pair of ragged wounds that curved parallel to one another, like two leering eyes weeping black tears down my side. I shoved the wadded-up fabric of my shirt onto the wounds, cursing under my breath.

I cursed myself mostly, -for not being able to run sooner- but Martin and Silvia got their fair share of harsh words in my head as well. Stupid adventurers, ruining my peace and quiet, dragging a Changeling in after them.

My vision became dark and fuzzy-edged, and I slumped over onto my good side, still muttering profanities at whoever I could think of. What a ridiculous way to die. I’ve had a lot of close calls with death. Like the time I got caught stealing from a hermitage and fell down a mountain trying to escape. Or when that mercenary came home unexpectantly while I was burglarizing his house, and I had to spend two days hiding in his broom closet. But those were all either my own damn fault or the fault of humans, I hadn’t been nearly killed by another monster since I was still a brainless little Shadeling kit way back in the day. It hadn’t even really been my fault; I’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. With the wrong people. That annoyed me. I can handle it when it's my fault, but when I do everything right and still almost die, that just reminds me how unfair life can be.

I snapped out of my little moment of self-pity, suddenly uncomfortably aware of just how much blood I had lost. Blood that, if any of the people downstairs had even suspected was mine, would have gotten me killed in a way that was much more akin to my usual brushes with death.

I pulled the wadded-up shirt away from my side, forcing myself to look at the wound. It would be easier to fix if I knew what was wrong. Thankfully the bleeding seemed to be slowing, but I wasn’t sure if it was because the pressure I’d applied had helped, or if I was just running out of blood. Once I got a good look, I closed my eyes and imagined, much in the same way I do when I shapeshift, the change I wanted my body to undertake. It was a rather simple sort of magical healing, and it would depend on my magical reserves to remain closed until it healed for real, but it wasn’t like I had any other options. Not a lot of monster-friendly apothecaries around Garrowgreim. Or anywhere, really.

Slowly, the skin began to move, closing the wound ever so slowly as I willed my body to fix itself a thousand times before. Of course, most of those times had just been scrapes and bruises, but the concept was the same. I had the first gash closed and was working on the second when I ran out of magic.

For the second time that day, I was suddenly and unwillingly returned to my monstrous form. I picked up the mirror beside me and cursed when I saw two coal-black eyes looking back at me, like inkwells sunk into my face. Worse still, both the cuts on my side snapped back open with a painful jolt and started bleeding again.

I sat up with a groan, mind racing. If I couldn’t heal myself, I’d have to bandage the wounds and hope for the best. Even then, I’d still be a Shadeling until I got enough magic saved up to change again, and with my injuries, I had no idea when that would be. I only had one other choice.

I reached out mentally to the thick haze of energy that still hung like an invisible fog downstairs. Some of it had dissipated since the fight, but for the most part, it was still present, tugging at the greedy part of my brain like a fishhook with bait attached. If I took too much, it would raise suspicions, if I didn’t take enough, I would be right back where I’d started, undisguised and bleeding heavily, trapped in my room until I either bled to death or starved.

I pulled at the magic, not bothering to store it away. Instead, I had to play a mental balancing act, focusing both on the magic I was pulling in, and on the way I wanted it to change my body, using it as soon as I got a hold of it. I didn’t bother altering my appearance just yet, keeping that up while healing myself would just be one more thing to concentrate on. Once more the cuts began to creep close, though this time they glowed that same gentle red way that Martin’s magic had.

I had to work slowly, drawing in the magic at a pace that would at the very least be disguised by its natural dissipation. When I opened my eyes, the weak light that had slipped through my drawn curtains was waning, and I could tell that it was past sundown. My injuries were closed, replaced by my usual pallid grey flesh. I could still feel them, like an un-scratchable itch just below the surface of my skin, but it was better than having an open chest wound.

I sighed with relief and slumped down onto my bed. I’m normally not much of a sleeper at night, but I was exhausted and didn’t especially feel like doing anything other than passing out and putting the day's events behind me. Of course, that was the moment someone knocked on my door, and I decided that the gods must take some sort of grim pleasure in kicking me while I’m down.