KillerKeyChange

I know tricks that you can only dream of
It looks like it's your lucky day
A killer key change
Is all you'll ever need...

Grim Healer's Reference

Apparel

A collection of medicine recipes and medical diagrams.

1150

There's a story, an old story. It's about the Spirit of Spring, and how she fell in love with a mortal dragon. About how she grew flowers all around him and sent messages of affection on the wind. About how at first he was afraid, and storms raged at her distress.

It's about how he came to understand what she was saying to him. How he travelled far and wide, searching for a way to give her a physical form, so that they could truly be together. How he slowly went mad as he delved into branches of magic no dragon should ever attempt.

It's about how he used his terrible magics to steal the body of a beautiful young female dragon, suppressing her own spirit in order to make way for his love. How, as they aged and sickened together, he found them both new bodies, so that they could live on together. How both of them have lived so many lives, stealing new bodies for themselves each time the old ones gave way.

It's just a story...

Bite found her wandering in her sleep again. Lost, sobbing, calling out the names of dragons no-one had heard of. Leaving a trail of tiny, white, star-shaped flowers in her wake that seemed to glow in the cold light of the gibbous moon.

She didn't raise a fuss, just came to find him. “At least she's easy to track,” the Snapper observed with a slight shrug.

It had been different the first time. She'd disturbed half the camp, screaming and panicking. She didn't know where she was, didn't know who she was, and their new clanmates had, naturally, been somewhat concerned.

He put her to sleep with a gentle spell. Carried her back to the warmth of their tent, several dragons trailing behind him.

The tent was in two parts. He carried May into their private chamber and tucked her carefully into their bed, then returned through to the other chamber, past his cases of surgical equipment, his vials of healing potions, his rows of books. Big, heavy books, bound in leather, with disturbing things embossed into the covers. He faced the dragons who had followed him: the “prophetess” Space, who had been suspicious of him from day one; Dixie, the hunter, who always slept lightly; Bite, the Snapper who guarded the camp at night; and two other Imperials, Blue and Moon – Gods only knew what they were doing up at this hour.

“What do you have all these for, anyway?” Dixie, had pointed to a row of books on necromancy, his stiff crests pulled down towards his skull in suspicion. “Why does a healer need to know about poisons and curses and stuff?” Moon had rolled his eyes, but the dragons all looked to him for an answer anyway.

KeyChange smiled. “The answer is in the question! The best way to treat a sickness is to understand the cause – is it bacteria, is it a virus, is it the body's own defences working against itself? Then you can treat the cause, not just the symptoms. In the same way, the best way to treat someone who is cursed is to understand how the curse works – to understand how the magics used in its creation bind together and interact to affect the victim.” He picked up a knitted blanket from an old chair and stretched it out, tracing individual loops of yarn with one clawtip. “It's like trying to unpick one of Coffee's very fine scarves – If you understand how something is constructed, you can work out how to take it apart again.”

Dixie's crests were still lowered and Space watched him with narrow eyes, but the two Imperials were nodding wisely. KeyChange stretched his long body towards the farthest bookshelf, and removed the very last book from the case. It was somewhat different to most of the others: the old, cracked leather showed a faded image of a group of hatchlings sitting around a campfire, with SC RY TA LS FO OUNG RAG NS embossed in gold leaf across the top. He handed it to Space and she peered at the cover, making out the shapes of the missing letters.

“Kids' stories?” She looked up at him and waggled her crest, head tilted sideways, one eye-ridge raised.

“Yes. This was her favourite book as a child. Turn to the third tale, page ninety-four, I think.”

Space read a few paragraphs out loud before she stopped. “I know this story. I think we all do.” She pulled in her own crest and stared hard at him.

“Yeah, we do, so what's your point?” Dixie was not as subtle as his clanmate.

He sighed and shook his head slowly, chin lowered, eyes downcast, then looked back up at them, almost pleading with them to understand. “Her charge is the season of Spring. How do you protect a season? I think the sheer impossibility of the task broke her. I think that, somewhere in her subconscious, she remembered this tale, and she concluded that the only way to protect her charge was to become her charge.”

“And the weird petal-laden breeze that follows her around? The plants that spring up everywhere she walks?” Space looked at him, head still tilted, eyes still narrow, but her crest was beginning to straighten.

“She's a Primal,” he replied, referring to the flowers that grew around May's eyes and the inner power that their presence suggested. “Her psychoses lead her to lose control of her magic sometimes.” He indicated a few branches growing from the end of a bookshelf, then gave a little half-smile. “She once grew an entire orchard during a particularly bad episode!”

Blue and Moon shared a glance, as if they had made a decision. “Thanks for explaining,” said Blue, the stockier, darker-hued dragon. “We'll leave you both to it, I'm sure you must be exhausted. If there's anything we can do to help, let us know!”

“Yes, let us know,” echoed Moon, and with that they shepherded the two Wildclaws out of the tent.

Now, as then, he recited a few spells over his sleeping wife, anointed her forehead with a few drops of rare, sharp-scented, blood-red oils, planted a kiss on the back of her head and then climbed in next to her. As he settled down, he spotted a small sapling at the foot of the bed that hadn't been there earlier, and little, pale green leaves sprouting from the carvings on the wooden headboard.

He made a mental note to remove them in the morning, and went to sleep.

Scary Storybook

Trinkets

The foreword indicates that these are best told in the dark. The black and white illustrations throughout are crude, sketchy, and haunting. Don't read the one about the neck ribbon.

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