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Chapter 1

He stretched his neck forward, wheezing through jaws that could not close. The larger of the two watching shapes drew back, before straightening itself. Father, that was Father, while Mother wasn't crouched down close, but she was watching.

Father reached into his clothing and then stretched out his hand, opening the fingers slowly. On the trembling palm were small stones coloured like sunset. Legless, the creation slumped forward to take the stones, teeth slashing Father's palm, and ate, and ate.

Then he slept, and when he awoke, there was no more smoky darkness, instead sunlight came through a window he'd never seen. He drew in a breath, finding that the air now reached his chest with ease. There was still that hunger, but it was...something he could deal with at the moment.

And there was something else, something that he just couldn't remember, but was inches away from doing so. It was very important, but he. Just. Couldn't.

He lifted his arm before him. The skin was a shredded mess, flaking away as he raised it. He screamed, but the arm was intact. Just a hallucination, but his skin really was icy white, a black fingerless glove covering the hand.

He touched his chest, finding a black garment that slid tightly over his skin, but was somehow comfortable. But for a round opening patch on his left thigh, revealing a red dragon tattoo, it covered everything below the neck except his arms; the shoes even seemed to be part of the pant legs. The glove-parts were on both hands.

Sitting up, he ran his tongue around in his mouth, thinking of what to do. It ran across something, and suddenly blood filled his mouth. It dribbled down his lip, staining his fingers as he tried to wipe it away. He felt his teeth more carefully, and understood that they were fangs.

His eyes widened. Who was he? Why did he look like this? He shouldn't, somehow he was completely sure of that. Where was a mirror?

He stood with a creak of the bedframe and then turned in a slow circle, examining the room. It was part of a plain wooden cottage, somewhere that he'd never been before, empty except for the bed.

Breathing hard, he ran towards the door. The knob rattled when he pulled, then the panelling shook as he pounded with his fist. "Who's out there? Mother! Father!"

The door wouldn't yield, even when he pushed. There had to be something against it, several things. Someone wanted to keep him in there; it must have to do with what he couldn't remember.

The world outside the window didn't give any answers. A deep forest was pressing close to the cottage, with no sign of any other buildings. The moon and stars that eventually appeared did nothing to improve the view.

Whatever his weird clothing was, the bloodstains soon disappeared on their own, though they remained on his bare skin. When he touched it, his face felt otherwise normal, though his hair, when he took a strand before his eyes, was black with a greenish tinge. He should have been blonde. And what had he been wearing before he died?

This time he only gasped, the small sound loud in the room's silence. He folded slowly to the floor, resting his back against a bedpost. There were still pieces missing, but this was what he'd been searching for. He had died, and was alive again.

These white hands...was he a walking corpse, then? The undead? With the sharp teeth, probably a vampire.

Thunder outside the door distracted him. He tensed, before realizing it was the sound of furniture and whatever else was blocking the door being shoved away. Rising slowly, he went to meet whatever was there.

Flinging open the door, he shouted, "Who are you?! I know that I've died, and I didn't look like this! Tell me what--!"

There was no confusion about the figures that sat at the table.

Mother looked at Father, who was staring, mouth hanging a bit open. Then she looked back at him. Being under her gaze was uncomfortable; he felt like a specimen in a jar.

Mother's expression softened. "You are alive. Please don't be sad; you can change your form to resemble your true body. It's an ability that all homunculi have."

Not a vampire, then. "I..."

Father looked between them. "Let's sit down, please. It's been a long day."

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The homunculus stared at his wine. He'd drank it, but that caused a sensation in his stomach that reminded him of water being poured on stone. Before he had sat down, a tremor had caressed his body, and he had indeed changed back to his full likeness: blonde hair, colour to his cheeks, a black vest over a white jacket, black pants and brown shoes (separate); even his teeth had returned to normal. With a few tries, he was able to control it, and was also allowed to see the stage he'd been in before, what he thought of as the "vampire" mode. Despite its strangeness, this form had been basically the mirror image of his true self, just different in the colouring and clothing, the teeth, and those purple cat's eyes that he'd seen in the mirror he'd been given when asked. His face was always the same, smooth and handsome with a hawk nose.

Mother had done most of the talking. She was gentle, but the homunculus still knew that he was being studied. Father was there, but also seemed not to be. His mouth was tightly set, and he barely drank anything.

Between them on the table was the book.

"You see that I had to be honest with you," Mother said. "But this is the only tome on the subject that I've found, and possibly it's the only one in the world. Parts are also missing, which makes it even more difficult."

The homunculus raised his head and grinned. "It doesn't matter. I'm going to be starting a new life."

"You're taking this very...well," Father said.

He leaned forward. "You made such a sacrifice for me, and I want to make sure that I make the most of the new life that I've been given. And I also want you to know that it's okay you never told me about who you really were."

Father: "It is?"

"Well, before I would have been devastated to know that my parents were witches. But now that I've got proof of how much power there is in it, now that I'm part of it, I don't have any objections."

"It will be difficult," Mother added. "We've already had to move several times to take the ingredients needed to bring you to life without bringing suspicion on ourselves. Eventually your father and I will have to switch bodies again, too."

"That doesn't matter. Whatever is done to the body, it's the soul that's the most important thing. If your soul exists, no matter what vessel it's in, then you're you."

Father frowned. "But you will always look the same. Your black and white body isn't going to satisfy as a new identity forever."

The homunculus smiled. "I'll think of something."

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With his mind was clear of anxiety, he thick forest was now beautiful as a painting. But it was just as silent.

"I don't hear any birds. Not even the insects are around." His hearing had sharpened since his rebirth.

"They're dead," Father answered.

"Dead." It was just a statement.

Neither of them stopped walking. After a while, Father said, "The vapour from making the red stones has killed most of the local wildlife. I didn't think it would have gone down to the insects, though."

"I see. So when do we move?" This area was isolated, he was feeling good, but that was no reason to ignore that other people would soon notice.

Father sighed, then looked down at the path. "Very soon. Have you thought about what your new career will be?"

The homunculus laughed. "Right now I just want to discover the special ability that Mother mentioned."

"You haven't looked at the book yourself?"

"She keeps it close to her. It doesn't seem like I could learn anything more from actually reading it, anyway." The homunculus tiled his head back. Everything was going so well, no need to muddy it up with minor details.

The bear crunched its way into view. Swaying on its paws, it reared and sniffed, as the two men stopped. A thick white mass ran from its jaws, spraying back as it dropped to its paws and thudded forward at an angle, grunting loudly.

The homunculus darted in between his father and the bear. He was planless, but with a spark the fingers of his right hand twisted together, merging with part of his upper arm to form a scythe-like blade.

This happened in the space of a second, and the maddened bear paused, frozen by the strange light of the transformation. The homunculus crouched and leapt, swinging his arm as he returned to earth. Blood spurted, then gushed, as the bear's upper body was split into perfect cross-section. The animal crushed its legs underneath itself as it fell.

Raising his wet red arm, the homunculus willed it to become his hand and sleeve again, and watched it happen with quick success. He barked out a nervous, incredulous laugh, before stumbling once and then went to his father. At some point the older man had fallen back, was now propped up by his hands. Staring again.

Changing his hand again, the homunculus chose a blade that resembled the end of a pike. "This must be it! Wow. Oh, wow. Look at it! I can protect you! They'll never expect it!" He repeated the change with his left, then offered this clean hand to his father.

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Mother's eyes followed the curve of the blade. This time it resembled a sickle, and its owner watched blade and mother equally closely, the candlelight flickering on both.

She raised a finger and ran it over the blade's surface. "It does feel like real metal, too. Incredible," she breathed.

"Isn't it?" The homunculus changed his hand back. "And it feels great! I swear, sometimes I think it's a surprise that most people aren't killing themselves just to come back like this."

Mother blinked, but seemed to recover quickly. "What else do you think you can do?"

"Huh?"

"Do you remember the stories I used to tell you?"

"...No. I'm sorry." Not everything was clear inside his head yet. Maybe it would never be, but better to live in the moment.

"They included shapeshifters, beings who could become animals, other people, material objects, with just a spell. Why should you be limited to blades?"

He looked over to Father, who stood in one corner of the room. There had been no conscious choice in making the first blade, but now he could control that. It should be easy to find the next level of metamorphosis, if there was one.

He tried to think of something simple, and closed his eyes. The feel of change was a wonderful spasm, and when he opened his eyes, his hands were completely new, too slender, a woman's. He chuckled again like he couldn't believe it, almost a giggle this time.

Mother left, coming back with a hand mirror. She turned it to him, holding it lengthwise for the best view. It only confirmed what he already knew.

He had turned into Mother.

"My voice?" It was hers, too.

He changed back with another pleasing shiver, becoming the vampire again and then back to his golden form. There was a coldness in the sensation, too, at the thought of changing his gender, but really, it hadn't felt too different, not bad.

To his mind he called the people he'd known before: his few friends, old schoolmates, ignorant acquaintances of his parents. He took their shapes one by one and at the end of the cycle there was no exhaustion and he was comfortable with the idea of being at least temporarily female.

Again restored, he took Mother's waist in his hands and spun her round once, whooping.

He set her down with the gentle click of her shoes on the floorboards. "This is the solution to all our problems. I can pick up the likeness of some drifter and get a new body, just like you. We're going to be able to live forever."

He paused, then laughed full this time, before whipping round to hug Father. It took several seconds to feel those hands lift to touch his back.