She awoke with a start, as if waking from a horribly bad dream.  Except, of course, that dreaming was said to be impossible for Changelings.  No one really knew why, exactly – in fact, one could even argue that as they had never actually confirmed this supposed fact with every single known Changeling, their dreamless sleep could very well be a myth, perhaps even perpetrated by those same humans that spread similar rumors about Changelings being nigh immortal, or about dwarves living for over two hundred years, or about elves being able to bring forests back to life by bleeding on them.    In the end, only the Changelings really knew the truth, and as they weren’t saying any different, it was accepted as truth, and thus, her seemingly rude awakening could not be the result of a bad dream.

What had so disturbed and destroyed her slumber was far simpler, and yet far more sinister – she had had her first Vision.

A human’s dreams are more like a daily series of auto-generated, pseudorandom responses from their brain, working through various emotions, events, characters and choices, and which hopefully ends up in a refreshing view on the state of their life.  Or, as is more often the case, it ends up as a confusing, humorous, or inane mess, and they quickly forget it ever happened.  Or, when the human is particularly unlucky, they have a nightmare, where instead of merriness or murkiness, the dream turns macabre.

But a Changeling’s Vision is almost exactly the opposite of a dream, and arguably more horrifying than a nightmare.  For starters, Changelings very rarely have visions (some blessed few never do!).  When they do, the Visions are never expected, never random, and are absolutely never refreshing.  They are a violation to a Changeling’s mind, their duration at once mercifully short and infinitely long.  Unlike the way a human’s dream may dry up with the morning dew, a Vision is a permanent, unyielding thing, and no Changeling is ever the same afterwards.

Some Changelings, rather than face the truth of their first Vision, simply exiled themselves in humankind, slowly and carefully aging themselves so that those humans they interacted with would believe that they, too, have but a limited lifespan, and that the passage of time would take them.  Humans were remarkably easy to fool that way.  But inevitably, inexorably, the Vision would stalk them, would eventually find them, and that which they spent dozens (if not hundreds) of years avoiding would still come to pass in the end.

Her father had been one such coward. Or at least, that was how she viewed his actions.  He disappeared suddenly, and while the rest of her family assured themselves that he was forcibly kidnapped and that once the humans that had done so were found and punished, he would return, but she knew from the start.  She had seen the deadened look in his eyes, and knew.

So it was with a forced, almost palpable calm that she  asked for a pen and paper, and wrote down her Vision.  Unavoidable it might be, but that did not make it unshareable.  And perhaps, in sharing, the pain and fear might be lessened.  But who to share it with?  That was the question.