Handle with Care

Missi has a good life. She has her witch, her brother, her spot on the back of the chair, and a demanding opinion about when pets should happen. She survived kittenhood in dangerous places, lost siblings, got passed over by another witch who didn't want her. But she found home. She's content.

Then her face starts to hurt.

At first it's small-a sore spot she keeps licking, a scab that won't heal. Her witch notices. There are trips to the healer, potions that taste terrible, words Missi doesn't understand spoken in worried tones over her head. She doesn't know what's wrong. She only knows that something has changed, and the pets she used to demand now make her flinch.

Her magic has turned traitor. A flaw she was born with, dormant until now, has woken. Her own power treats her skin as the enemy-attacking, blistering, refusing to let her heal. It's not a curse anyone cast. It's just what her body does now.

What follows isn't a battle. There's no villain to defeat, no cure to quest for. There's only the long, unglamorous work of figuring out how to live. Treatments that don't work. Treatments that work for a while and then stop. Good days that feel like gifts. Bad days that feel like betrayal. A witch who absorbs the fear and the research and the financial strain so Missi doesn't have to carry it alone-even though Missi doesn't fully understand what her human is doing or why.

Through it all, Missi stays herself. Opinionated. Dignified. Frustrated when her body won't cooperate. Confused when routines keep changing. Still demanding affection, even when she has to be careful about how she receives it. Her brother stays close-a warm presence when everything else feels wrong.

The resolution isn't triumphant. It's quieter than that. A medication that finally seems to hold. A stretch of days where nothing gets worse. The slow realization that this is life now-different, careful, requiring adjustments-and life can still be good.