A Tale of the Shapeshifters

𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑽𝑰 - 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓-𝑯𝒐𝒂𝒓𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑫𝒓𝒂𝒈𝒐𝒏

As Sir Claudius opened the letters, dusty windstorms hurled into his face and blew up into his nostrils. He coughed and hacked until reaching the one he wanted. It was the final letter in his treasure chest full of them—he had packed it so low so that he might never read it again, unless absolutely necessary.

He moved his eyes straight to the date, not daring to read the letter's contents.

"The Seventh of June, 1885," he muttered. His breath created a warm path that broke through the dusty air.

Sir Claudius tossed the letter back into the chest, slammed down the top, and locked it in one deft motion. He tried to slow his breathing, but even after hundreds of years, he still had not mastered the art of human respiration. If only he had some flames to help him breathe. Ah, yes, nice hot flames. Flames. Fire!

"Ay, old fool!" He smacked himself upon the forehead. "She'll be here any minute... That is, if she comes at all." His boots squeaked across the floor and his black locks trailed behind him until he reached the living area's grand fireplace. After grabbing the old logs and launching them into the furnace, Sir Claudius inhaled through his nose. Nothing came out, except human air. "Come on, just a wee bit of flame today? I haven't the time to make it 'man's way'," he complained. "Come on, old friend!" He scratched his nose, stimulating the smoke.

Little trickles of smoke began to spiral out of his nostrils, and soon enough, out of his mouth, too. "Ah, there we go!" His eyes turned blue and yellow and red while his stomach filled, the familiar feel of flames burning his ribcage. Sparks shot all about his insides, bouncing off the walls and ready to be released. One final gasp, then the flames spewed out of his mouth, lighting the firewood. "See, it was not that bad, now was it?" He tapped his nose. "It is nearly 9 a.m., isn't it?" he asked the dead, thin air. Sir Claudius shrugged then glanced at the Grandfather clock next to the fireplace. It read: 11 p.m. "Oh, but you haven't cooed in years. I'd forgotten." With that, the man dismissed the clock and headed toward the main entryway.

It was utterly dark save for the slivers of light coming from under the large doors as well as what little flare could be seen from the far-away fireplace. How the girl ever managed to get in the main doors without screaming and running off baffled him. Were the doors even locked? he pondered. The previous housekeepers always locked the doors, but Sir Claudius had done it not even once.

He laughed at his own foolishness. The sound echoed for a while, then a dear and intimate silence swaddled him up like a newborn baby. It was a silence that had been at his side, unbeknownst, for twenty years.

The silence soon passed, and Sir Claudius thought he heard footsteps falling on pebbles. He grasped onto the door handles and reared back, the muscles on his arms protruding. Light tore into his pale eyes, and not light from fireplace flames—not safe warm reds tinged with blues. It was a light he had not seen in some odd year.

Athena Everleigh sang to herself, a song about early morning dew, as she trotted down the walkway. When her eyes caught him, the song ended abruptly upon her tongue. "Good morning, Sir Claudius."

"Good morning, Miss Everleigh."

Without even summoning them, Sir Claudius felt flames licking his ribcage when he looked at her. He doused the flames, though. She was not pale, as he was. She had freckles circling her scarlet apples and they spilled down from there and made a home on her neck and chest.

Athena had only seen flashes of him, bathed in red and black—black cloak and black hair and black boots, and red torch and red undershirt and red... eyes. But here, he was not red and black. In the sun, his skin was almost the color of her eyes. She looked closer, scouring over his form until reaching his eyes which she expected to be balls of flame but instead matched hers of silvery-blue. In the dark, Sir Claudius was a flame, but in the sun, he was a snowflake.