Aetherius

Aetherius is a changeling raised by a prominent elven family in the field of medicine, the Avist family.

They started the small movement Aetherism, of which they are the head of, and promote the idea of unity via the dissolution of racial and gender identity. Their movement is very niche, so in the meantime they leverage their upbringing in medicine in order to make a name for themselves and show others the benevolence of their philosophy.

Aetherius strives to one day lead the world into a utopia where changelings can live openly as themselves, and are seen as beacons of interracial and inter-gender unity. Before they can take any grandiose steps towards the spread of their movement, they are first working on introducing it to others. Because of this, they currently work as a doctor that specializes in midwifery, but is also open to opportunities that will help bring them, and eventually their movement, prestige.

Appearance

In their natural form, they have stark white hair and skin, and pitch black pupilless eyes. Like every changeling, they have no genitalia in their natural form and their body appears genderless. When they shapeshift, they prefer androgynous forms, and generally pick which genitalia they have randomly.

Their face is androgynous, but distinct; they have an aquiline nose, prominent smile lines, and sharp cheekbones and jawline. It is noticeable they are older, and they like to keep the appearance of an older adult in most forms they take, as they enjoy their mature features and believe it makes them appear experienced and wise.

Across their chest, they have the symbol of their religion tattooed across, and will keep the symbol on their chest no matter what form they shapeshift into. In most forms, regardless of their genital choice, they tend to choose to masculinize their chest in order for it to be socially appropriate to show; they often let their robes ‘accidentally’ slip off their shoulders to show off their symbol, and enjoy having it visible to people to subtly normalize their religion’s icon.

They have long hair they usually keep tied back in a partial bun, just enough to stay out of their face when they work. Usually, they are dressed in healer’s robes with a corset waist cincher, and often wear a warm smile on their face. They paint their nails dark, and wear fingerless gloves that help steady their wrists when they treat people.

History

Early Life

They were raised under the name Lindor, youngest born son to the family, outshone by his older siblings whom all always seemed to have something he didn’t: an intangible and deeply-rooted talent in the medicinal arts that left Lindor feeling like the dud most of his childhood, seemingly skipped in the genetic lottery whilst his other siblings easily lived up to the Avist name.

His eldest sister Chaurae, eighty years his senior, was renowned for steady surgical hands that could thread a strand of hair through the eye of the needle first try if required. Second was Si’ora, only a dozen years younger than Chaurae, yet seemingly a lifetime of skill ahead of Lindor regardless, a dentist known to pull teeth without their patients even shedding a tear.

And then there was Lindor, their younger brother who couldn’t memorize the bones in the body first try like his sisters, whose hands shook when he practiced stitching fruit, who lacked the surgical mind that the Avist family all seemed to have.

It wasn’t until he hit puberty did the truth become apparent: they were a changeling, not an elf.

They were never an Avist, not truly.

It was no wonder they were amounting to so little in their life, and it felt like the cruelest cosmic joke to be raised in such a wonderful supportive family with all the resources at their disposal to flourish, only for a sudden rug to be pulled out from under them as they felt abruptly alienated from their life.

At first, was rage. Sheer anger at fate, anger at their abandonment, anger at themself for who they are.

By their twenties, Lindor struggled with their mental health, their sense of identity in fractures and their self confidence in ever being a good doctor destroyed.

They never met their changeling parent, and that emptiness made them ache with questions. What if their parent was an artist, and creativity was the true talent that ran through their veins? Or what if they were a phenomenal singer, and Lindor was supposed to be destined for the stage instead of surgical theatre? Were they generous and kind, or selfish and cruel? Were they smart and introspective, or dull as a butter knife?

Were all changelings meant to feel like this?

Mere simulacrums of those around them, husks emptied and devoid of their own identity and culture?

Lindor thought they loved their parents, their siblings, their friends. But it felt like every interaction was through a sheer veil, and behind it was a monster they didn’t know they were interacting with. And one inevitable day when the veil dropped, it would not matter who Lindor Avist was to them. Because the real Lindor Avist was dead, and this changeling monster was living in his skin.

The paranoia drew them to distance themself from their family, afraid that the more they spent time around them, the more they were at risk of being exposed.

They took a break from medicine, and began to obsessively research all there was to know about changelings. Unfortunately, almost nothing but old wives tales and rumors came up, with little science, and virtually no culture.

It didn’t seem fair. It didn’t seem right.

Lindor wanted to make it right.

Aetherius

At first, Lindor told themself this must be an opportunity. Perhaps being a changeling was the ultimate gift, a chance to be unshackled from any expectation or identity.

Throughout their twenties and into their thirties, they would travel anywhere they could, and bed anyone of any gender or race. In the bedroom, they would pretend to worship their partners’ bodies, taking time to trace their lips and tongue as slowly as possible over every inch. Most lovers thought they were just obsessed, but no, they were memorizing.

Because those lovers became their new skin after they traveled far enough away, they donned the name and face like it was their own, they’d speak with the same cadence and lilt.

One day they’ll find the perfect person, in the perfect body, and they can finally live the perfect life they were meant to.

But the years passed, and every single body felt like nothing more than a costume. Like a shiny red apple with nothing but rot underneath.

A charming male Dragonborn named Dar’een one month, a beautiful stout dwarfish lady named Cillia the next, but nothing felt right. No race, no gender, no name seemed to click and satisfy that ache inside of them.

In a cheap tavern in one nameless small town when they were in their early thirties, whilst they were currently appearing as a beautiful half-elf woman they met last month that they couldn’t quite remember the name of, a troubled man caught their attention.

He had come up to the bar with a limp, clothes dusty and worn, with the distinct smell of blood. One hand gripping the ailed leg, he ordered a bottle’s worth of the strongest liquor they had.

Rolling up his pant leg, there were several nasty gashes looking no more than a few hours old up his shin, and he seethed in pain as he poured half the bottle onto his wound, and then proceeded to down the remaining half.

Curious despite themself, Sherri— or Sara, or Carrie, or whatever this woman’s name was— came up to him and told him he needed stitches, not to be sitting at the bar drinking.

The man laughed at them, said she must be new, because this town didn’t have a doctor, and anyone wanting treatment had to be able to afford traveling half a day to their neighboring town.

Sherri wasn’t sure why they remembered they had thread and needle upstairs in the room they were staying in, it’s not like they’ve done anything with it other than alter their clothes since they’ve left medicine. Sara couldn’t help themself, and decided to tell him they were once a medic of some kind, and that they could at least stitch him up.

Carrie led him up to their room, ordering another bottle at the bar to take with them. Their hands were shaking worse than the man’s, they haven’t practiced medicine in years, what was Sherri thinking?

The man collapsed onto their bed, rolling up his pant leg and cocking up an eyebrow when he saw the woman’s hands tremble as she fumbled through her sewing kit.

He chuckled, and told her to take a swig to "steady her hands".

They assured him they were a doctor once, they swear— but so long ago, and it just was getting to them.

They didn’t say that they never stitched with these hands before, that Sara's hands were much more dainty than that of Lindor Avist’s. Muscle memory was going to screw them over if they tried to go through the motions.

So, Carrie agreed to take the bottle they had intended on just sterilizing their tools with, and threw back several hard gulps. The man told them, "attagirl".

Sherri smiled, nodding, letting the warm fill in the gaping hole that laid beneath their surface-deep facade of a beautiful half-elf girl.

And then they stitched the man’s gash closed, perhaps not as cleanly as they would’ve liked, but enough so that the man whistled in astonishment, joking that he thought for a moment they were perhaps lying about being a medic once.

He introduced himself as Aiden, and asked for their name back.

Their mind went blank. Sherri, Sara, Carrie, something like that?

So with an awkward laugh, they brushed it off. Said they’re working on changing their name at the moment. Could’ve lied and given him any one of those possible names, but instead they felt loosened up from the drink, and were honest.

They don’t have a name right now, and they’re still looking for one that fit.

Rather than question them, or find them suspicious, Aiden instead just laughed, and told them they’d think of something, surely. And in the meantime, he’ll call them Doc.

So Doc agreed, and wrapped the man’s leg as best they could, advising that he stay off of it tonight and just crash in their bed. For the first time, Doc slept with someone with all clothes on, with their eyes actually closed instead of studying their bodies to memorize and recreate later.

Instead, that night they slept in a man’s arms as Doc, a lovely half-elf woman who used to be a medic once. The next day, Doc helped him back to his farmhouse, shocked to find he ran it all alone. Surely, he could use the help.

At least until his leg was healed and he could walk better.

So for several months, they found themself in an identity that oddly began to feel like it was filling that aching hole. Perhaps this was who they were meant to be, Doc the half-elf woman. A full-figured girl with warm umber skin and short wavy dark hair, who now only ever existed as Doc, and nobody else before.

When they gave his leg one last examination before declaring Aiden perfectly fit to take back over his duties, there was an unspoken mourning in the air to deem him capable of running his farmhouse solo once again.

The space between them ached with expectations that Doc’s help wasn’t needed anymore, that it was time for them to pack up and roll into the next town.

But instead, Aiden asked them to stay. More so than that, he insisted that he saw Doc for who she was, and dropped down on his freshly healed leg to propose.

Doc said yes faster than they even had time to process the question of whether this was a good idea.

Stability and identity was a beckoning call that ensnared them without a second thought.

They celebrated that night, got drinks at the tavern inn they first met at, and it felt like perhaps this was finally the life that Doc was meant to stay in. When Aiden took them to bed that night, he undressed them slowly, waxing poetry with every article of clothing removed.

He called them the ‘Azure’ of the clear sky after a storm had passed.

The ‘Dew’ of a crisp morning that the dawning sun refracts through.

The ‘Aetherius’ Sky that in which the gods watch down on them from.

This love felt real, more real than that they had stolen from Lindor Avist. This love was seemingly earned.

And with the aid of drink in their system, they told their fiance there was something that they had to show him.

In a flash, Doc was gone, replaced by the pale featureless body of a changeling.

Aiden’s jaw locked up, and he scrambled to rise from the bed, taking a staggering breath as his eyes soaking in their form— eyes cimmerian black, hair ghastly pale.

Swallowing, his eyes turned away from them, and he calmly told them to leave. Told them that he will be kind and not reveal them for what they are, but they have to leave now, and they must never return or speak to him again.

They were speechless. They reached for their clothes, then awkwardly realized they needed to change their skin, before realizing they didn’t have the heart to look like the beautiful woman named Doc he had just proposed to.

So, in a panic they shifted into their most familiar body, leaving the farmhouse as Lindor Avist instead of Doc.

Or Sara, or whatever her name was. The person who this really was, the face that Lindor stole.

Doc was never really them. It was never meant to be them. But in that beautiful moment when they were undressed before their new fiancé and thought for a second that this was finally what they were meant to be, that they could reveal themself and still be his Aetherius Sky, they thought they were finally complete.

Only to fall back-first through that gaping hole hidden beneath every skin they wear.

They felt like a hollow papier-mâché, no matter who they were.

The more they thought about it, the more that feeling that used to be anger at themselves began to turn outward.

They were Azure, they were Dew, they were Aetherius, as well as every other beautiful thing Aiden called them.

In fact, they were more than that.

And for the first time, the foundation of their beliefs changed. Their mindset inverted— they weren’t the problem, the world was.

Changelings shouldn’t hide in the shadows like some stain on society. They were the epitome of all, and they should be celebrated for being the one creature that transcended racial and gender boundaries by sheer existence.

Those categories only ever boxed people in, cutting off their opportunities and ambitions by giving them expectations. Those categories created bigotry, racism, and sexism.

Blights on the world that they had the power to eradicate.

They took the name Aetherius, the name of something beautiful and whole, and began to travel with purpose now, spreading their beliefs. Not an aimless feather adrift in the wind, but someone with purpose and conviction.

Firstborn

When Aetherius realized shortly afterwards that they were with child— likely Aiden’s child, no less— they felt like this was their chance to finally change history for their kind. They were going to raise this child as their own, a follower of Aetherius spreading the movement and message, and be the first changeling to actually pass down culture from one generation to another.

But then, the child was born. And the next several weeks were a blur, like a fever dream that they kept fading in and out of. Pure, all-consuming, unbridled instincts took over.

In a fugue state, barely coherent, they wandered the streets aimlessly at night, unable to even sleep. Every time they closed their eyes, a burning sensation ached under their skin, the urge to relocate and move their child wearing at their psyche at all hours of the day.

They couldn’t control themselves, they couldn’t rationalize when they broke into a random elven family’s home in the middle of the night, couldn’t recognize what they were doing until their firstborn laid in another infant’s bed, and they had escaped with a different infant in their arms.

The shame was unbearable.

Simultaneously both victim and perpetrator to the very sin that stained their kind’s reputation past the point of redemption. Aetherius couldn’t think straight, the elven infant in their arms kept wailing as they fled the home, the neighborhood, the whole town. Deep into the forest, as if they could outrun the shame itself, outrun what they had just done.

And the baby, it just wouldn’t stop crying.

The noise was so shrill, shredding the inside of their ears, reverberating off the inside of their skull into a dissonant din. Aetherius squeezed them to try and quiet the wails, to try and think clearly for just a moment. Harder, and harder, until finally the babe quieted.

But, not because it had calmed.

Aetherius smothered the child.

When they checked the pulse and found it gone, their heart dropped. With no other clue what to do, they left the corpse in the woods for the animals to scavenge, whilst they struggled to come to terms with what they had become.

The very nightmarish monster people feared their kind for.

No, they were supposed to be better than this. Different. More.

The very first person they had ever killed, and it was an innocent baby.

Aetherius finally decided to return to home, back to the Avist family, back to where their hands healed instead of harmed. To the Avists’, it seemed their fifty-year-old wayward son— still a child in their eyes— was finally coming to his senses, ready to stop his rebellious streak and become a doctor.

Lindor came back from their travels with a weird new religion and some strange convictions, but their painfully oblivious adoptive family was none the wiser to the heinous deeds they had committed.

Although, the experience of giving birth on their own did motivate them to learn more about obstetrics, leading them to finish their doctoring education with a specialty in midwifery.

It was like the guilt inside them had curled in on itself and was trying to prove they weren’t the person that night, that they saved and brought babies into the world, not doomed and took them out.

Doctor

Studying twice as hard as their older sisters and trying not to let their family’s criticism of their wacky new religion deter them, Lindor entered the family practice alongside their adoptive parents and siblings as soon as they had finished learning all that they could in medicine.

Very quickly, their family noticed they gravitated towards needy patients, usually the lower class or other folk who wouldn’t typically have the means to pay for the medical attention that they needed. Yet, Lindor treated them anyways, and once they had the patient’s eternal gratitude for the free medical care, that’s when they would push their ideas. Aetherius became a symbol of benevolence; just like race and gender, what was class and wealth but more division that hindered people’s empathy with one another?

And much to Lindor’s delight, their beliefs began to resonate with those they had helped throughout the decades, especially among the poor and misfortunate.

The Avist family weren’t as much of a fan, and tried to get Lindor to focus on medicine more than spreading their ideas in bizarre clandestine gatherings and meetings. Especially since Lindor hardly seemed to even try and make a profit, and mostly coast off their family’s money to do their preachy charity work.

So, to try and get them back on track, their parents began to organize paying clients, pregnant women of higher class families that Lindor could treat. Anything to actually bring reputation to their name, and not just scandalous rumors of their misfit youngest child getting involved with strange cults.

But, while they agreed to begin seeing patients who actually paid, Lindor was not letting go of the newfound growth their movement had been having.

The decades of Aetherism flourishing had bolstered their confidence so much that by the time they were celebrating their hundredth birthday, they had the plan to become pregnant again. This time, they would surely have better control of themself, and wouldn’t make such disastrous mistakes again.

They’ll raise a child that will know culture from its own kind, and will help them lead a world enveloped by their beliefs. And at the head of that world will be Aetherius, not Lindor.

Secondborn

After it became abundantly clear that getting pregnant again au naturel wasn’t as easy at it seemed the first time, Lindor began experimenting with their blossoming magical abilities to find a way to artificially increase their fertility.

After a few years of work, they managed to refine a fertility ritual that surely enough got them to conceive within a week of doing, yet with the downside of exhausting their magic reserves.

Usually getting a good night of sleep refreshed them, but after the successful ritual, no amount of sleep got them to bounce back. Unfortunately, it was a much more resource draining process than they had anticipated.

It felt like losing decades worth of magic all at once, like amputating an arm from themselves, but having it grow back painstakingly slow.

But the results were worth it in the end, and their work as a doctor became more and more spotty the closer to their due date they got, becoming increasingly more invested in their religious movement.

They even tattooed the symbol of Aetherism across their chest: two lines approaching each other, curving away, before arching back as if they yearned to touch.

When the child was born, Aetherius got the rug pulled out from under them when, yet again, they burned with the urge to get the child away from them.

At least this time they didn’t have a complete psychotic break again, but they felt absolutely gutted when they struggled to even be in the same room with their child without that itchy, sinister urge waxing inside of them. Aetherius was crushed, confused, and once again didn’t know what to do. For months, they began fighting the same biological drive as before, but kept willing themselves to stay grounded.

When their parents wrote to them in disapproval that they hadn’t been seeing patients again, they actually took up the work again as a blessing to get their mind off their new dilemma.

Their parents even had already lined them up a daughter of a wealthy merchant who had been struggling with a difficult pregnancy. Upon seeing their patient in person, Lindor immediately identified there was significant fetal distress. The poor women kept having breakthrough bleeding and cramps, and whenever Lindor managed to identify a fetal heartbeat, it was sparse and irregular.

At first, they wanted to be honest with the woman about her expectations, and explain that even if the child survived birth, its prospects weren’t great to make it much longer after that.

But rather than break the painful news to the poor first time mom who already was dealing with the grief of an out of wedlock pregnancy that didn’t even have the decency to be an easy one, Lindor saw an opportunity.

That night, they tattooed the symbol of Aetherius onto their second born. A parting gift, now that Lindor knew where this child was going.

They told her a private birth was necessary due to the risk of complications, and convinced the woman and her family that Lindor’s home had all the necessary equipment and medicine to take care of a high risk pregnancy.

Under a twilight sleep birth using morphine and nightshade-derived scopolamine— a technique for managing childbirth pain that conveniently impaired the woman’s mental facilities— Lindor managed to deliver her child.

It was breathing, but barely. Skin thin and translucent, and couldn’t even make a single reedy cry.

Lindor said they were going to take the baby into the other room for resuscitation efforts, and entered the nursery where they kept their own second born child.

The next part felt too easy, too natural; disgustingly so, like a feral animalistic part of them reveled in the act of switching the infants out.

A brief brush between the two, and their secondborn was no longer pale white. Now, they had the same thin and translucent skin as the sickly infant, but instead of shallow strained breaths, their baby broke the air with a robust cry.

They exited with a seemingly healthy and living child now, physically indistinguishable from the one the woman birthed, and she wept in relief to hear her child cry.

Because it was hers now. Not Aetherius’s second born any longer.

They situated the new mother and child, before giving them time alone together.

Said they’d just be in the other room cleaning up from the resuscitation efforts.

And Lindor held the stolen child against their chest as nature took its course, and its breathing grew slower and slower, until it was still and blue.

Part of them wondered if under aggressive medical intervention could’ve actually saved the child, and a tiny bit of guilt flourished at the thought that they didn’t even try.

Couldn’t. Not if their own child were to survive.

But that woman’s baby was never meant to make it, right?

Lindor kept telling themself so. It was the only reality they could accept, the only world that existed in which they didn't let that guilt fester.

New Ways

It took them fifty years before they had the heart to do it again. But they did, and they replaced another one of their marked children with a sickly infant. By advocating for twilight sleep births for their high-risk pregnant patients, it allowed Lindor the opportunity to switch the children without the mother remembering much.

Aetherism already began to preach to its followers that those born with the mark are destined to lead in the movement. It was the only hope Aetherius would see their children again, and finally they could pass down their culture and bolster pride in their kind.

When they were just over two centuries old, they managed to conceive their fourth pregnancy, once again sapping all their magic through fertility rituals. Although this time, the exhaustion was wearing at their resolve, and Lindor felt they couldn’t bear through the rituals again.

There had to be other ways to induce fertility, like some herbs or potions that could yield them the same results without the magical drain. Their efforts diverted more into finding a potential recipe or ingredient that could do the trick, abandoning the prospect of ever doing a fertility ritual again.

But, that wasn’t the only major change they were embracing.

Their religion’s growth was turning stagnant. New blood in the movement was nonexistent, and it was making them antsy.

So, as soon as their fourth child was born, they decided to pick up their travels once again. It didn’t matter that the town they were in had plenty of people who supported their movement if that support wasn’t expanding much outside the town’s perimeters.

They can garner the same support in any town with enough good deeds and doctoring, surely.

Which, freshly postpartum from their fourth child, brought them to Drakeguard.

Eager for new people to introduce to Aetherism, and looking for anything they can do to garner people’s trust and support.

Personality

Outwardly, Aetherius often presents as the excessively compassionate doctor Lindor, and prioritizes helping others even at risk to themself. When given the opportunity, they will talk to others about their religion, claiming to only be a fervent follower of Aetherism. They allow the persona of Aetherius to remain elusive and faceless to their following, and as with most members of the religion, Lindor will say they do not have a gender or racial identity if asked.

They believe firmly in empathy and unity that transcends social boundaries, and personally believes that, while anyone is entitled to their own racial and gender identity, they are limiting themselves and hindering their growth by having one. Although, due to how radical their beliefs are, they learned to keep it to themselves as much as possible, unless they are bringing up their religion to someone.

After growing such strong convictions in changeling pride and their movement’s purpose, they are determined to eventually change the whole world’s perception of their kind. Aetherius first dealt with a lot of shame early in life about their species, but now has grown to be proud of who they are and what they’re doing.

The only shame they have is their slavery to their biological compulsions; they believe their race deserves to live in the world and wish to make more changelings, but hate that they are reduced to baby-swapping. Their dream is to be able to pass down their philosophy and culture from parent to child, and marking their children is their only hope of reconnecting with them one day.

At their core, Aetherius is very driven by their own survival, in addition to the survival of their kind. In their mind, their religion is the only way to make the world safer for themself and their kind. If their life or their movement is threatened, they will prioritize self-preservation.

Trivia

• Aetherius is used to going by different names, but is most familiar with Lindor. They are very bad at coming up with original names themself, and most of their aliases are ones they stole from others.
• None of their children ever received a formal name. Partially due to Aetherius being bad at naming, and partially because they are resigned to the idea that the child will receive a different name eventually anyways once they're in another family.
• Due to them previously revealing their true form to their former fiancé when drunk, they are afraid of alcohol or any other substances that could loosen them up. They are aware they are a very sloppy drunk, and alcohol makes them feel way too open and bubbly with others.
• The Avist family still refers to them as their son, and disregards their gender identity and religious ideology. Their family is otherwise supportive of them outside of that, and just wants them to focus on doctoring, and finding another doctor to marry into the Avist family. The two most important things that would make their adoptive parents proud is becoming a renowned doctor in their field, and marrying another medical professional who will take their last name.
• The Avist family is unaware of any of Aetherius's children. If they were to have a child that their family knew about, it would be expected for the child to be raise in the field of doctoring.
• Even though the Avist family loves them deeply, Aetherius has never told them they are a changeling, fearing rejection.
• Aetherius wears fingerless compression gloves to deal with arthritis-like pain they get in their hands from doctoring and potion-making.
• Aetherius is unsure of who is the father of the majority of their children, besides their firstborn, which could've only been Aiden's. When they finish a fertility ritual, they usually try to orchestrate orgies around that time to maximize their chances of conception.