Chrysalis: My Soul Grew Fangs

Though I distrust your runes,
  their guidance slithers 'neath my ears.
Though I disclaim your vision,
  the promise lines my core with cinders.
Though I disdain your violent gift,
  the timeless choice bedevils me.

Horror demands my leap from ivory
as honor bleeds from burning eyes.

No less the healer bound to cure,
I accept these keys of murder.
Equals, now! -in might, and shame;
The time has come: we end this game.







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Author's notes: ▼

I wrote this, as a prewriting exercise so that I could grasp the feeling of an important emotional crisis.

Imagine yourself, a naive young healer. You are isolated by a wall of secrecy, as nobody quite lives up to your standards, though you love and forgive them all. Your sole duty is to pray for the health of your family, friends, and your husband's subjects. You do this with miraculous success, until one day, things that should heal, begin to die. It starts with crops...

You accept the new order of things with grace until your son takes ill with the strange 'crop disease' that troubles the dukedom. The strangers on the hill kidnap your son, and extort your husband. Suddenly nobody will help you, or allow you to get help.

You escape, intending to plead with his captors. Instead, they intend to make you one of the cult. They imprison you in a room with strange, glowing letters on the wall, that 'speak' to you, of the power to harvest another's soul, as they do.

To your horror, almost against your will, you find yourself listening to the dark voice within, reading the writing on the wall...

Having made this decision, almost against your will, you realize that they are wrong about you and about themselves.

"Shadow of the Black Dragon King"