Flesh and Bone

The Wintrin Princess breathed in quickly before turning to face the Gun. Her face warped between her original form and the new body, it flickered between anger and terror.

Suddenly, her one body split in two bodies, one a man, disoriented and blinded, one a young woman. The Gun paused and raised his weapon, fingering the trigger. He took aim at the Wintrin Princess and shot. The princess grabbed onto the disoriented man next to her and pushed him in front of her. The bullet penetrated the leather and just scraped the skin. Nowhere near fatal. The man screamed. The princess closed her eyes and focused on the Gun. Her mind vibrated with power, she tried focussing it, pushing it out of her eyes. The Gun reloaded and took aim again. The princess opened her eyes and a flurry of energy hit the Gun like a ton of bricks. The Gun was sent flying backwards into the crowd. The princess grabbed the man and simply said,

"Run!"

The man did as he was told and sprinted across the paths in front. The princess was beside him. Her hood fell down, revealing her white-blonde hair that fell almost to her feet. Her eyes were a great green, glowing just at the rim between pupil and iris. For such a beauty her clothes were a mess. A torn up dress that looked just like rags, shoes broken at the sole, gloves tattered and frayed.

"Who is this woman?" the man thought. He looked behind him, the Gun was in pursuit. The man looked at the princess, and the princess looked at him. The man grabbed Anna and threw her into a dark alley way before shoving her through a door.

"What the HELL?" shouted Anna. The man shushed her and brought the girl into a dark room. He lit a candle and held it up.

"I brought you to some place where that man won't find us." the man began "You owe an explanation! One minute I'm walking, the next I'm- freezing!" the man whispered pointedly, tripping over his words.

"Oh that! Um..." Anna hemmed and hawed over whether to tell the man about her magic.

"Obviously it's magic!" the man exclaimed suddenly.

"What- how did you know I was..." the princess was too stunned to speak.

"You were talking about whether to tell me about your magic?"

"No, I wasn't. I thought that," Anna's mind was turning. Never had anyone been able to read her thoughts. Her mother had taught her guards against that kind of black magic. Was this man a powerful seer? Was he a black magician? Her mind was turning.

"I am not any of those things! And I don't know how I can hear your thoughts," the man paced back and forth. The candle blew out. He cursed and relit the flame.

"Who are you?" the man turned and questioned, a look of worry on his face. The Wintrin Princess sighed and offered a vague answer,

"A traveller,"

The man harrumphed and retorted,

"My arse you're just a bloody traveller!" Anna lifted her clock back over her head and went to leave.

"Where are you going?" the man asked, fed up with the back and forth of questions between this 'traveller' and himself. The princess offered no reply and walked out. The man didn't bother to follow her.

Outside, the rain fell hard onto the cobblestone streets. Anna could see not a citizen for as far as she could see. Maybe her confrontation with the Gun had scared everyone off, maybe the deadness of the air had motivated people to stay outside. Nevertheless, none of this deterred Anna from her mission: get to the Carriageway. She stepped through a giant puddle and cursed, looking around for signs that pointed her in the right direction. Earlier it seemed that the city was littered with signs, but the princess could see no sign of any signs. Anna looked around and picked a random direction to walk in. What earlier felt like a minute or so seemed to stretch into ten minutes, and ten minutes stretched into an hour. The Wintrin Princess was getting colder and colder by the second. The freezing droplets of water soaking her from head to toe. She had to keep her hood up though. Who knows who could have been watching?

The princess had always had the ability to 'switch'. She found out about her powers one day by switching into one of her maids and nearly killing herself. The Queen soon explained the bloodline and the prophecy. The prophecy that would shape Anna's future.

'By the eve of the Great War's end,

A Goddess born of great power shall send,

A girl, brave and mighty with a heart that's true,

To end all and to all undo,

The treachery and treason her closest shall betray

All will be razed on this fateful day.'

The prophecy was nearly five centuries old, the story of the blind seer that told the prophecy had been passed down the generations until it reached Anna. The Wintrin Princess.

That title given to her meant almost nothing as she walked cold and alone through the streets of Aubrey. The King, while exiling her, had stripped her of her name, her title, her claim to the throne. In one fell swoop her father had taken everything from Anna, and her mother just sat and watched. The young girl who had once loved her pretty pink dresses and her royal lifestyle had come to learn the ways of a peasant. Anna Wintrin, the banished princess, had been left behind a long time ago. Literally. Her original body had been left behind in Citadel Alvania, the princess's old home. To get away from her old life Anna had switched into a corpse's body, giving the poor soul's old form new life. It had served her well, but the Gun somehow had found out who and where the princess was. Perhaps Mylinn had sold her out, or Gwynith, but Anna would never know. They were both dead. From all of this contemplating in the rain, Anna knew one thing: she had to switch again. And quickly.

The princess walked along roads, occasionally nodding to the odd traveller who wandered alone. She walked until she saw a small Plyth (a building dedicated to praying to the Being). Anna walked in, a preacher greeting her at the door.

"I'm here to mourn," Anna whispered, falsifying upset.

"Of course, Miss-sit" the preacher replied, leading Anna to the Plyth's hall of the dead. The preacher soon left Anna alone, closing the door to the hall as he left. Anna walked along the side of the female graves. Inspecting each fresh body like it was her dinner. The princess hated all of this. The picking of a corpse to inhabit. Anna soon found her chosen body and went to put her hand to the dead's breast. That's when the door opened. Anna recoiled quickly and made it look like she had been crying over the body. A man walked down the steps. The man that had saved her earlier. Anna grunted as the man called out,

"Traveller? I know you're here somewhere!" the man walked up to the princess slowly and asked,

"Who are you grieving?"

"My great-aunt Imyldin," Anna replied. She guessed the name of the person lying in the grave.

"That's funny," exclaimed the man, "The name reads 'Alyce Carpiter' so... Do you want to tell me what you're really doing here?"

"Just leave me be," Anna went to walk away but the man grabbed onto her wrist.

"Tell me, or I'll call for the preacher to fetch the guards!"

"You wouldn't believe me!" Anna laughed.

"Try me, clearly I could see your thoughts earlier, so there's something afoot here," Anna realised the man had a point. After today there wasn't a lot the man wouldn't believe, so a lie could work.

"Lies won't work," the man chuckled. Anna stomped her foot. Why did his mind-reading always come at the worst time? Anna told the man to prepare himself before reaching down to the corpse. Anna's real body melted away into the air, dust gathering around the corpse. The corpse opened its gaunt eyes, then its mouth, and then its nostrils. The dead body started to breathe. It sat up as flesh began to gather around the bone that was peaking through old, rotted skin. The man's jaw widened, and he went to scream.

"Quiet!" the body hissed in Anna's voice before getting up. More flesh gathered around empty bones, forming a naked woman, small and malnourished that stood in front of the man.

"It's me, the traveller," said the new Anna while clothing herself, "I told you to prepare!"

"I- I- didn't quite expect..." the man tried to speak, "Is that what you did to me earlier?"

"Essentially, yes." the princess replied. Her old clothes just about fit, Anna had become a good judge on whether her body selection would fit her old sizes. The new body was a bit too short for her liking, but Anna would have to make do.

The man looked around him for any sight of the girl's old body, but no evidence was to be found that her old body had ever existed. Anna clicked at him suddenly, and the man jumped. The preacher had walked in, and had witnessed everything...