Imagine a kingdom, its truthful foundation now built on lies. Imagine a ruling class, suspicious of all who are different. Imagine a race of beautiful beings, despised and persecuted just because they can change their face and form.

Now take the picture that paints in your mind, and add to it blood and death and the murder of thousands of innocents.

You forgot to add screams and fire and smoke.

Shut up, Fal! You wanted me to tell this story; now let me tell it!

I was just saying you forgot…

Fine. Now be quiet and let me write.

Imagine dark night sky lit by the glow of hundreds of homes burning. Imagine the screams of those torn from their loved ones, tortured and killed for the simple fact that they were ‘not of this world’.

Grim enough for you?

Yeah. That… that stirs some unpleasant memories.

Well, you’re the one who wanted our story written down for the generations who come after us. This isn’t anymore pleasant for me than it is for you.

Yeah, I know. Just… just get it over with.

Be quiet and stop interrupting, and I will!

Now imagine a couple, husband and wife, two of these despised, ‘suspicious’ characters. They flee, from the fire and the smoke and the screams and the blood and the deaths of their people.

Oh, good. You got the gruesome bits this time.

Falkirk!

Sorry. I’ll be quiet now.

You had better be, or I’m leaving you to write this yourself.

*Falkirk manages a look of innocence. Ava shakes her head and bends back over her parchment*

This couple flee from the kingdom, from the persecution. They run far and fast, and don’t stop for anything but each other’s exhaustion.

Finally they come upon a secluded village deep in a forest. A village of half-elvish folk who know nothing of the hate that the couple had fled. These half-elves don’t judge a person on their natural abilities. They judge a person on their actions.

So here the couple found acceptance and a home. They adopted the forms and faces of half-elves and built a life there in that peaceful village.

And in time, the wife gave birth to two little babes. Twins.

A boy and a girl, two minutes apart and as alike in form and appearance as could possibly be.

That’s us!

I know, Fal!

I was just saying—.

Thats it! You can finish writing this yourself!

Ava—.

Nope! Here’s the quill. Write!

Fine.

*Falkirk sighs*

Here we go.

Why do you suppose that changelings were hated? Sure, we can shift face and form, and sure, some of us use our ability for devious reasons, but most of us are good, law-abiding people.

Or we were.

Now we have to live in hiding, often outside the law. Or we make our own way in the world, becoming too powerful to persecute.

Anyway, back to the narrative.

The changeling family, for changelings they were, lived in peace for many years.

Why did you just say ‘changeling’ twice?

For clarification. You didn’t say they were changelings, and you can’t just assume future readers are going to know what you’re implying.

They would have figured it out.

Now look who’s interrupting!

Fine, fine. I did give you the quill. I’ll be quiet now.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Probably.

*laughter from Ava and eye rolling from Falkirk*

Like I said, for many years they lived in peace. When the two children were old enough to control their abilities, they too adopted the likenesses of half-elvish younglings.

The twins were inseparable, always exploring, adventuring in the woods around their home, always looking out for each other. They made good friends among the children in the village, but neither twin had any better friend than the other.

Aw, you’re sweet, Fal.

They loved the villagers, and the villagers loved them, and no one had any regret whatsoever that changelings were living among them. Indeed, it almost seemed like the half-elves had forgotten that the changeling family was anything but their own.

And all was warmth and happiness and prosperity until the day that the hateful scum from the changelings’ native kingdom tracked them down and brought savage hell upon them.

Almost literally.

Aren’t you going to tell us what all races were among those ‘scum’?

I—.

You’re the one who wanted clarification. And you left even less hints than I did.

Well—.

They deserve to know, Fal.

Very well.

They were an assortment of races, mainly Elves, Men, and Drow. The odd Kenku or kobold.

They swept down on the defenseless half-elvish village without warning, slaughtering men, women, and children alike.

Some made it out, including the twin changeling children.

But their parents were captured, along with a large percentage of the villagers.

We were only in our ninth year.

Avalon, I don’t know if I can go on. These memories… no child should ever have to go through what we did that day.

I’ll finish it then.

No… no. I can do this.

*Falkirk starts hyperventilating. Ava rubs his back sympathetically*

Deep breath, Fal. There you go. Breathe, brother.

I’ve got this. I can do this.

The band of mercenaries and killers set fire to every building and burned the village to the ground. They dragged the captured villagers, changelings included, to the center of the village and demanded that the changelings be given up.

For the changelings were still in disguise. Had worn their half-elvish personas for so long, they were indistinguishable from the real half-elves.

But the poor villagers would not betray their friends.

And so—.

Breathe, Fal.

And so, the murdering scum brutally tortured the villagers, knowing that the changelings would shift back into their true forms when sufficient injuries had been inflicted.

And the changeling children, who foolishly could not bear to leave their parents, hid at the edge of the forest and heard every piercing scream, every tortured cry.

And the brother covered his sister’s eyes so that she could not see the horrors that unfolded, even as he himself watched.

Oh, Falkirk. I never knew…

I— it’s— Protecting you was all I cared about. Saving you from— that. I— *paper blurred from falling tears*

Fal, I’m so sorry.

It is not, and never was, your fault. I made my choice, and I’ll live with the scars. They help me remember exactly why I do what I do.

What we do. My scars go no less deeper than yours.

Well, the changeling couple could not allow their friends to suffer for them, and they did not hold out for long. They revealed themselves— and paid the price. They hoped that if they gave themselves up, the rest of the village might be saved.

But the raiders were merciless.

They burned the captured villagers alive in their own village, and beheaded the changeling couple. The heads were staked at the entrance of the village, and their bodies were hung from the burned-down husks of the walls.

Then they swept the forest for survivors. The twins barely escaped.

The changeling children left the remaining villagers, even though the sorrowing half-elves would have given them a home. The twins vowed that no one else would ever suffer for their sake again, and so they struck out alone, but together, and soon found themselves in large city.

It was there that they survived for the next year.

It was nine months.

Apologies. I had kind of lost track of time during— then.

So the changeling twins survived for the next nine months in the maze-like part of the city that housed the murderers, the thieves, the cutthroats, and the pickpockets.

The slums.

The slums, yes.

The two children stole and lied to feed themselves, sometimes killing when they were threatened and had no other choice.

They clung to nothing but each other all through the long, cold bitter months of that winter.

And they nearly didn’t survive.

They were saved by the assassins’ guild of that city. The assassins took the twins in. Fed and clothed them.

And taught them the skills of death.

It was in that guild that the changeling children knew a new kind of struggle. They learned the pain of growing muscles and burning lungs. Earned bruises and cuts from the weapons of their masters until the twins learned to be faster, stronger, more ruthless than anyone else.

Those were actually fun times.

Most of them, yeah. They certainly made us what we needed to be.

And for years, all during their rigorous training, the twins planned and plotted, vowing to take down the raiders and make sure that what had happened to the twins never happened again.

You plotted. I was busy keeping you alive and sane.

We plotted. Some of the best plans came from you.

Fair point. I am a genuis.

Very funny, Ava.

*eye rolls from Falkirk*

It was the twins’ eighteenth year when they broke from the assassins’ guild and struck out on their own. They traveled the land, gathering to them all the poor souls who had a tragic tale to tell.

Their army grew. Swelled quickly, because news travels fast and there will always be those seeking revenge for their hurts.

And that is what the twins promised them.

At first, for a month or so, the twins ruled together, but in time the siblings decided that they were better off leaving the ruling to the brother and the assassinations to his sister.

So it was.

And both were content with the arrangement.

A year later, the boy decided that the ranks of his army were sufficiently grown. He began his conquest, and marched into the kingdom from which his parents had fled.

That war was brief, brutal, and bloody. The leaders of the kingdom, and the leaders of that long-ago raiding party, fled.

The twins tracked them down alone and slaughtered them to the last man.

The siblings were far more merciful than the raiders had been.

And, to be fair, when we cornered them, we did wait for them to strike first.

Lot of good it did them.

True.

So somewhere in the middle of a tangled, overgrown forest someplace in the North, there sits in a clearing a huge cairn of stones. Built over the tyrants’ bodies with the hands of the girl and the mage-craft of the boy.

The boy quickly established his iron rule in the land.

Then he turned his gaze to the kingdoms around him.

He looked at their poverty and the cruelty of their kings and queens, and his ire grew.

So he mustered his army and gave missions to his assassin sister, and now he sits, on the eve of the first battle, writing the story of his family so that if he and his twin die tomorrow, and their names are reviled by the victors, maybe someday these papers will be found and the truth of the twins’ choices and motives will be known.

Very touching. I couldn’t have written it better myself.

*a snort from Falkirk*

True. Which is why I’m writing it.

Why, you—!

*brief scuffle ensues with much whacking of heads with pillows*

So know, future reader, why we do what we do. Hate us if you must. We made our choices, and we will live, or die, by them.