Aetherius

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

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.

History

Early Life

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?

Was 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. But almost nothing but old wives tales and rumors came but, so 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 a blessing. 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 theirs, 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 an ethereal elven woman 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 got.

Rolling up his pant leg, a nasty gash looked no more than a few hours old up his thigh, 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, Scarlia— or Sara, or Carlia, 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.

Sara 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. Carlia 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.

Scarlia 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 Sara '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, they were much more dainty and slender than that of Lindor Avist’s. Muscle memory was going to screw them over if they tried to go through the motions.

So, Sara 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'.

Carlia smiled, nodding, letting the warm fill in the gapping hole that laid beneath their surface-deep facade of a beautiful 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. Sara, Carlia, Scalia, 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, peacefully instead of studying their bodies to memorize and recreate later.

Instead, that night they slept in a man’s arms as Doc, a lovely elven 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 weeks, 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 elven woman.

When they gave his leg one last examination before declaring Aiden perfectly fit to take back over his duties, there was an unspoken pain in the air.

The 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, even though things were still early, he insisted that he saw Doc for who she was, and proposed.

Doc said yes faster than they even had time to process the question.

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 have to never 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.

That 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 can reveal themself and still be his Aetherius Sky, they thought they were finally complete.

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

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, 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, 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 they were with child, 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 months was a blur, like a fever dream that they kept fading in and out of. Pure, unbridled instincts took over. They couldn’t control themselves, they couldn’t rationalize when they broke into a family’s home in the middle of the night, couldn’t recognize what they were doing until their firstborn child laid in another infant’s bed, and they had escaped with some kind of elven infant in their arms.

The shame was unbearable, and in the woods as they fled the home of the family they’ve just ruined, the infant began to cry in their arms. The noise was so shrill, so painful, and Aetherius squeezed them to try and quiet the wails. Harder, and harder, until finally the babe quieted.

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.

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 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 obvious 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 speciality in midwifery.