"Would you mind if I played a song, Luddy?" Feliciano asked. The two of them were situated around a small campfire that Ludwig had built. The moon was rising, and the sky was changing rapidly from a multitude of colors to a tranquil blue. The evening star appeared not too long after the fire was crackling, signalling to Ludwig to put on his night cloak and remove his shirt and belt. The thick folds of fabric completely buried him as a human. It would keep the starlight off until he decided to reveal to Feliciano the terms of his curse. The fairy was still shaken when changelings were mentioned, and Ludwig was not entirely sure if Feliciano would trust him further if he allowed himself to become the dog-man in front of him.

"Ja," he said. "It would pass the time."

Feliciano's smile grew even wider. He took the lute and slung the strap so that it hung down in front of him. Ludwig watched as the fairy took a deep breath and began to sing while strumming. He quickly found that Feliciano's voice in song was much less irritable to listen to. The song was in the language of Allegria, so he could not understand its meaning. Even so, in some oddly comforting way, he knew the song was about the bliss of being wrapped in a blanket or curled up next to a fireplace with a book. With each new chord progression, Feliciano weaved a melody with his voice to complement the instrument's pleasant timbre. There was movement in the piece, and a sense of longing for a simpler way to spend the evening. Ludwig felt drawn into the music, the more the fairy sang. He could not help but feel emotions flowing straight from the heart: feelings of warmth, coziness and contentment. By the time Feliciano finished the song, Ludwig's eyelids were fluttering, and he felt as if he could let go of everything that had stressed him that day.

"Do you like it?" The question brought his consciousness out of the trance.

"It was very good," Ludwig yawned. "I enjoyed it greatly."

"Did you feel relaxed?" The fairy leaned closer to the fire and laced his hands together in anticipation for an answer.

"I did," Ludwig said after a bit. "You have an apt voice for singing."

"Grazie. It was a song for comfort. Singing and playing my lute is how I can do magic!"

"It was magical?"

"Sì, I can play and sing songs that make different things happen. It makes me feel really good inside, and that's how I know it's fairy magic." Feliciano put a fist over his heart.

Like Gilbert and his flute, Ludwig thought.

"What other songs can you play?" Ludwig asked out of pure curiosity.

"I know so many, it would take a long time to count. I never went to a school and learned how most fairies use magic, so I just figured out little melodies over time that would change things around me. It's a special gift I was born with. I really like that comfort song. I can play songs for good rest, songs for a good time, songs to help water boil faster… I even know a song to keep changelings away, but I panicked earlier and couldn't remember how it goes. I don't know why they wouldn't like that song. It's the most beautiful song I know. Sometimes I hum it to myself to go to sleep at night."

"Why don't you play that song now? I'd like to hear it."

"Sure, why not? If that changeling's still around, I don't want him to think that I'm weak."

"You did run away from him earlier."

"Well, I never saw him in the first place, but he just sounded so scary! The entire tavern ran out into the street yelling about him!"

Ludwig recoiled at yet another bad connotation behind changelings. He wasn't fazed by it, but there was something truly odd about his loving brother's kind being portrayed in such a way. Then again, Gilbert was an older fairy who had the wisdom and composure to take care of himself. Ludwig had never met a young and ambitious changeling. The prospect of a power that enabled one to transform into another could have limitless possibilities. He could only suspect that Gilbert, in his experience as a sibling with responsibilities, had lost some of his wild touch.

Feliciano noticed Ludwig lost in thought and started strumming the requested song. It was intricate in nature and alternated between major and minor keys. Feliciano would play a slow, sad phrase in a minor key, and then pick it up and play quickly in the major to balance it out. Each part was equally lovely, but Ludwig was indifferent to this song. He liked the other one better. Unlike the comfort song, he could feel nothing magical stemming from this one. It was simply music. It was satisfying, but not extraordinary.

When the fairy had finished the second song, Ludwig began speaking in a very serious manner. "I wanted you to play that song for a reason, Feliciano. Its purpose is to keep changelings away, correct?"

"Yes," Feliciano said.

"You played it, and I am still here. I just wanted to prove to you further that I am not a changeling. I stayed during the whole song."

"I already trust you, Luddy. You don't have to prove anything. You showed me the wand, so I know you're the person I'm supposed to be talking to."

"Listen, Feliciano, and do not call me "Luddy," I—"

"I'm sorry. It's just that I find your name a bit hard to remember and pronounce correctly, and—"

"Quiet, Feliciano. I'm being serious. You know that I'm not a changeling now, so I want to show you something, and I want you to keep that in mind while you see it. If you want to travel with me to find this amulet, you must understand this."

"What?"

A few faint stars were twinkling above. Ludwig only saw them leering at him coldly. He looked at the fairy from under the folds of his hood. Feliciano's expression gave genuine confusion as to what Ludwig could possibly mean. Sighing, the human took off his hood and looked into the sky. His eyes met the lights fiercely, yet he knew his strength would never match that of stars following orders from a wizard.

Instantly, his body tingled and pressure of an extraordinary caliber built in his bones. Ludwig's muscles swelled. His skin grew painfully tight around them before stretching to contain the new mass. His cloak shrank around him until it was seemingly just the right size. A writhing itch spread as fur sprouted on his face, chest and back. It traveled down his arms to his fingernails, which were lengthening into claws. There was a shooting pain when Ludwig's tail grew into place as an extension of his spine. It too, sprouted fur until it was thick and fluffy.

The pressure grew in Ludwig's feet. His heels lifted off the ground and the bones stretched and changed shape to leave his ankles springy and agile. Sickening cracks and crunches emitted from the sudden alterations. At the last moment, he managed to kick his boots off before his feet swelled enough to be too big for them. His toes grew slightly longer, and claws grew out of the ends to dig into the cold earth.

Finally, there was a tugging sensation in his jaw. Ludwig faked a yawn to relieve some of the pain in his mouth. A great pressure built, and his nose and jaw pushed forward. His tongue grew flat in his mouth and he felt his teeth sharpen into canine fangs. One more uncomfortable stretch moved Ludwig's ears to the top of his head. The muscles comprising them were suddenly moveable, and he swiveled them to make sure they had transformed completely. All of the strain on his body now subsided, and Ludwig snuffled to catch his breath.

Feliciano was nowhere to be seen. The dog-man searched all around, but only saw his lute sitting where he had been. It was only the fairy's frightened rambling that led Ludwig to find him hovering about fifty feet in the air. His tannish-gold wings fluttered frantically in the moonlight.

"Come down! I'm not a changeling!"

"What are you, then!?" The fairy questioned loudly.

"I'm cursed! In the starlight I become this! Now get down here! I'm not going to hurt you!"

Like lightning, the winged one shot down and threw himself on the ground with his hands over his head. His wings folded reflexively, and he muttered scared fragments about changelings and creatures of darkness hunting for him.

"Feliciano!" Ludwig barked, (quite literally,) "Get up! I'm not scary-looking!"

"D-doggie?" Feliciano whimpered. He popped his head up for a second and peered at the blue-eyed monster his friend had become.

"I'm a dog-man," Ludwig explained. "I'm not a wolf-man. I don't lose control of my mind and go about attacking people, though I can get angry very easily. Do not cross me when I'm in this state."

Slowly but surely, the shaking fairy picked himself up and cautiously walked around the fire with his wings trembling. He reached out a hand and began to stroke Ludwig between the ears where he sat. A nervous smile grew on his face. "You're a cute doggie, aren't you? Yes, cute doggie. Cucciolo carino." His attempts were blatantly to convince himself that the creature was harmless. To Ludwig, it was humiliating to be petted like the animal that he was. He allowed the fairy to continue only on the terms that antagonizing him could lead to the loss of his trust. The damned animalistic part of his transformed mind even enjoyed the soft touch of a hand rubbing against his fur.

"You can see now the reason why I didn't want to go into town in the evening," Ludwig said in an attempt to abate the awkward tension.

Feliciano jumped again in trepidation. He brought his hand away from Ludwig swiftly to avoid a paranoid sense of danger from the dog-man's maw. "I-I understand," he stammered. "I really wasn't expecting you to turn into a dog-man. I thought you were going to tell me you had a weird scar or something you didn't want to talk about if I ever saw it accidentally. I've never met anyone cursed like this before. N-now that I think about it, you really aren't that scary-looking. You're just super intimidating, but I don't mean that in a bad way! I think you're very cute as a doggie! Yeah, that's what I think."

"Feliciano, stop rambling. You can think of it as a 'weird scar' if you want to. It's something I live with, and I wanted to show it to you to get it out of the way before our quest gets too complicated. This does not in any way affect my desire to travel with you and help you find your inheritance. It only happens when I allow starlight to touch me. During the daytime, I'm perfectly human. "

"How did you get cursed?" Feliciano sat back down on the other side of the fire and gave a deeply concerned look. It was surprising for someone Ludwig had only met in the recent afternoon.

"I trespassed onto a reclusive wizard's land. He cursed me as punishment."

"Oh, that's terrible! How could anyone do something like that? All you did was trespass? I've trespassed onto other people's land before, and I've been yelled at, but never cursed! That's so crazy. I don't understand any of it."

"I don't understand it either, but that's what happened."

"Doesn't it hurt you? You looked like you were in so much pain."

"Ja, it's very painful, but I can deal with the transformation. It's the form itself I'm not fond of. I don't just look like a dog. I become one mentally, too. My very instincts can dictate my actions."

"I don't know any songs that can undo curses," Feliciano said sadly. "It's not a skill most fairies have. Winged fairies can't use dark magic at all, so undoing it would be impossible."

That's why I need this amulet, Ludwig thought to himself. Its power can change anything, or so Gilbert says. Ludwig lay down on his blanket and pulled his hood up over his ears. Wanting to change the subject, he brought up the objective of their quest. "Where do you think we will find the sogno?"

Feliciano lay on his stomach on a borrowed blanket. His wings folded up in relaxation. "Grandpa Roma made it like a riddle. He said that when I find his treasure, I'll be doing something I really love, and it's in a place that's very special to me."

"What do you love to do?"

"I love to paint, and that's why I like coming to Amotoile. I love singing and magic, and I learned those in Volkerburg. Oh, I really like pasta, but I can make that anywhere if I have the right ingredients. I guess Grandpa wanted to make it difficult for me. I love to do so many different things."

"Let's go into town in the morning. We can talk more then. I'm always tired after I transform," Ludwig said. He rolled over on his side and attempted to get comfortable. He was so close to the town. He'd found the one he'd been looking for without ever having been in the town, and yet his curse prevented him from being in it no matter whether he had found Feliciano or not. They would think he was a changeling using the form of a monster to scare them. They would be so far from the truth.

He heard rustling coming from the other side of the flickering, dying fire. Then Feliciano began to strum his lute again. He did not sing with it this time. He only played a nonchalant, downtempo piece that seemed to epitomize the world of the tranquil night. The melody reflected the stars, the chords carried the liveliness of the embers, and the resolutions of the minor key loneliness brought about a sense of peace with nature and the impending end of the summer moons. Ludwig felt a bit of magic in this one, and it was similar to the comfort song. This song was full of restfulness. In the strumming and plucking of strings, no matter how much the fairy was focusing on accuracy, the music was intrinsically laced with a pleasant, sylvan calm. The dog-man's breathing calmed, and the stillness and wonder of the forest lulled him to sleep.


In the morning, Feliciano was much closer to Ludwig than he remembered. He definitely recalled the fairy being on the other side of the fire pit. Ludwig had only awoken now because a delicate wing was brushing against his leg. He blinked in the sudden sunlight. Normally he would never sleep this late in the form of the dog-man. His instincts would always wake him up very early and tell him to scrounge around for food. He found now in the light of the sun that he'd slept through the second transformation. He didn't find it too farfetched. The reversion to human shape was always less painful.

Here the fairy lay right next to him with his back facing. His wings hung relaxed and downward to come into contact with Ludwig's sleeping area. If Ludwig were still the dog-man, such a violation of territory would be strictly unacceptable. He simply pushed the wings onto the blanket Feliciano was using and tried to sleep for another few minutes.

WAP. WAP. The two longer wings flicked up and came into contact with his stomach. They were chilled by the night's air and made his bare skin crawl with the coldness. Ludwig wrapped his massive cloak around his middle and pushed them away again. Feliciano apparently felt this because he let out a whine of awakening and stretched his wings to their full height. Ludwig had to roll over to prevent them from slapping him in the face.

"Buongiorno, Doggie," Feliciano mumbled. He clutched a corner of the blanket to his chest endearingly and let out a soft sigh with no intention of rising. His wings folded nicely back down to their resting place.

Ludwig, always one for efficiency, stood up and made sure the two of them had not been plundered during the night. He was relieved to find that all of his things were still in their place, and Feliciano's lute was hanging by its strap over a low-hanging branch. The remains of the fire smoldered in piles of smokey ash.

"Get up, Feliciano. Let's go into town and find some breakfast."

"No," the fairy whined. "Sleep is… molto bene."

"I do not speak Allegrian. Get up. Don't you want to find the amulet?"

"I don't have to get up right now. Can't a fellow relax and admire the morning sleep for a little while?"

"I am perfectly rested," Ludwig argued. "How did you get all the way over here, anyway?"

Feliciano sluggishly sat up and rubbed his eyes. He looked at where his blankets now were and his countenance turned puzzled. "I don't know how I got over here."

"Are you a sleep-walker?"

"I don't think so. I must have just wanted to sleep on smoother ground during the night or something."

"Well, it doesn't matter now. You're already sitting up, so take your lute and direct us to the town."

The fairy flopped over again. "Why?" He yawned. "What if the changeling is still there?"

"You said the changeling was in the tavern, but you never were, so chances are the changeling never saw you. You can wear my night cloak to conceal your wings, so no one knows you're a fairy."

"People know me in Lafée."

"Yes, but the changeling won't if he's never seen you."

"I suppose you have a point. But, Doggie, I'm so tired."

"I'm not a dog-man anymore. The sun is up and I'm human. Don't call me that."

The fairy soon acquiesced and allowed Ludwig to pack up the blanket. He brushed his auburn hair with his fingers and repositioned the golden laurel hair clip. Even in the depths of sleep, the one rogue curl had never settled. Feliciano only ignored it and retrieved his lute from the tree.

Without the assistance of flight, the short trip into Lafée was still only about a mile's hike from their camp. It was refreshing to walk in the morning. The sun's heat had not yet graced the forest. Cold dew and mist still trickled over their shoes as they walked. Feliciano wore only sandals, so he occasionally lifted his wings and fluttered a few feet above the ground next to Ludwig to avoid getting his feet wet.

They passed by the clearing Ludwig had heard about. Its center was decorated with what looked to be a communal fire pit and a shed for storing wood. The grass was clipped and a path of colorful stones led to the pit. There was no sign of a fire in it recently. The ash was dead and cold.

When the town was in sight, Feliciano donned Ludwig's night cloak. It was many sizes too big and dragged on the ground behind, but it worked to cover up any bulges a normal cloak would have shown from his wings. A great deal of intrigue and commotion made itself apparent as they approached. In the town square, the looks of a forum were being held. At the center of it all was an attractive man called Sir Francis Bonnefoy, who was a knight of Amotoile. His blue cape swished behind him as he paced back and forth in front of the squabbling.

"Quiet! Quiet all of you!" Sir Francis shouted. He brushed a long strand of platinum hair out of indigo eyes and scowled at the restlessness of the townsfolk.

"I saw the changeling!" A man yelled.

"I saw him, too! He was definitely an old man with a mustache!"

"What are you talking about? He was a she, and she was so ugly I nearly soiled myself when I saw her!"

"You were drunk, Jean, and that was your wife!"

"Would you please all stop yelling?" Sir Francis pleaded with the crowd. "I can understand that there was a changeling, but with all of the noise, we can't work together to figure out what it looked like or where it went or came from. Now, I want to go down a line and hear all of the stories individually. If you saw the changeling, raise your hand."

To this, a great many hands rose into the air. Ludwig and Feliciano preferred to sit a little farther away to watch the action unfold.

"All right, then," Sir Francis continued. He pointed to the man who had mentioned a mustache. "What did you see? How did you know it was a changeling?"

"He transformed right in front of all of us! He was Louis, the bar keep's son, and all at once he was an old man with an unkempt mustache! His hair was silvery and his eyes were malicious and terrible to look at. He came right at me and I threw all my money at him, but he wouldn't leave me alone!"

"That's not what he looked like, Sir Francis!" Another man blurted. "He was Louis, and he changed into a young blond fellow right before my eyes. He just grew right into him, and his shirt ripped from his chest. Then he looked at all of us and said he was looking for someone, and if we didn't tell him where that person was, he would find the happiest one of us and use his form to kiss his wife!"

"Who was he looking for?" Francis asked.

"I don't remember," the man replied sadly.

"I remember him asking for a whole group of people, and he wasn't blond. He went from a young blond man and changed into the bar keep. Then he stood on the table at the center of the room and got mud all over it. He never gave names, though. He just said there was a special group in Lafée and he had to find them, whatever the cost."

"That didn't happen, either!" A woman interrupted. "I tell you, Sir Francis, he was neither blond nor Louis, but a merchant who stumbled into the tavern and simply shouted to all of us that he was a changeling. The man must have been drunk. The people he was looking for were probably his friends still at the other tavern in town. I didn't see him turn into anyone."

"You weren't looking. Louis was acting strangely all night long, and he never said the things he normally said. It was only a matter of time before someone asked him if he was a changeling, and the fellow panicked and revealed himself in front of all of us. He was old and horribly homely. His mustache looked like it hadn't been groomed in weeks."

"The changeling was young, blond, and handsome. It was the hair on his head that wasn't groomed. He was clean-shaven."

"That's the way he looked before his face mangled itself and he became the bar keep."

"That's enough," Sir Francis sighed. "So it seems you all saw the changeling in different forms. Do any of you recall seeing him in his true form? Changelings by themselves are like pale demons. The fairies of the Isle of Rain would be considered gods to them."

A low rumble of laughter roiled through the crowd at the mention of the Isle's fairies. No one recalled seeing any creature of the sort.

"Aside from what he looked like, what did you do when you learned he was among you?" Sir Francis stroked his stubble with his knuckles thoughtfully.

"We chased 'im out," the man with the mustache story said. "The others did, anyway. I was too frightened to move."

"I tried to push him off the table so he would stop getting mud from his boots on it, but he only leered at me and asked if I knew anything about the people he was looking for. I told him I didn't, and he laughed this horrible laugh and jumped off the table. That's when we chased him out. We made sure he was gone."

"Which direction did he go in?"

"He went on the path toward the other towns to the west," the woman said. "He left without protest, but that was only his drunkenness playing with his mind. He never said he was going to harm anyone."

"What about that line about kissing wives?"

"Oh, I'm sure it was you who said that, Camille. You were the one who ordered the spirits from the Isle. Who knows what kind of potent shit the fairies put into that," the woman retorted.

"You were all drunk," Sir Francis remarked. "I don't know what happened last night, but you were all drunk. You were lucky I was on my way here. I'm not sure what to report, but I'll record it as a changeling sighting in eastern Amotoile and request a squadron of night guards. Has anyone checked to make sure Louis is okay?"

"We found Louis sleeping in his bed this morning. I rubbed a pair of scissors on his cheek, and he didn't scream. The changeling never harmed him."

"That is good," Sir Francis said. "There are always problems with babies being switched with changelings, but it is a habit of the older changelings to target young people. They think that being children will allow them to be coddled while they plot to steal money or marketable wealth. They can be greedy monsters, and most of them never learned of love or affection. I would recommend that you guard your town profusely over the next few nights, and protect all of your children. It may return, and you'll want to have more sober individuals to prevent another discrepancy in stories. I must leave you now. I myself am expecting a group that is meeting in town, though I can assure you, I am not a changeling. Au revoir." The knight pulled out a pair of scissors from his own pocket and rubbed them against his cheek. He bowed his head and turned to return to an inn he'd been staying in within the town.

"It appears the changeling has left," Ludwig said.

"I hope he has," Feliciano replied.

"We don't have to worry. You have your song, and I have a pair of scissors. If we meet a changeling, we'll know what to do."