Chapter Text
ACT 1
Some days I couldn’t recognize myself at all.
I swiped my hand on the mirror, removing a faint trail of dust coating the cool glass. Able to see into it again, the features of a young stranger reflected back at me with a furrowed brow. The resemblance was there, but something was always strange. I’d say it equated to wearing constant heavy make-up. My beauty wasn’t necessarily enhanced or reduced. I just looked... off.
Different.
Sometimes it was almost like an uncanny valley effect. Anytime I looked into my reflection it was an ongoing identity crisis.
The chin was still round, if slightly less short in shape. Cheekbones higher. The speckle of freckles were less prominent and spread more around my nose than my face in general. A short shaggy cut of light strawberry gold reached my shoulders, replacing frayed deep pink strands I’d dyed over and over again until it was dry and ruined. The eyes were the same. Grey, with blue around the outer edge. Tired. Narrowed and cynical. Fed up with this shit.
I died.
I died, and I didn’t remember how.
My death was a faraway nightmare, faint emotional imprints the only thing left lingering in my consciousness. Phantom sensations taunted me from the depths of my mind, closed off behind a large black door. My final moments were lost to me, as was my life. Yet, like a molten knife twisting into my chest, the wills of fate allowed me to remember other things. Allowed me to long for a life that wasn’t mine anymore. My family. My friends. My fucking pet goldfish. My-
Don’t think about them.
I tried not to focus on the way all their faces had blurred over the years. Trying to recall the details was trying to remember a distant dream, like peering into the water of a murky lake. The shape of my mother was there, I could see the colour of her hair, see the movements of her hands as she played soft chords on her guitar. I could almost smell her perfume, could almost feel the breeze and sunlight on my face. The silhouette was beneath the surface, just out of reach. If I tried to reach in to grab it, the image would ripple, and everything was lost again.
I closed my eyes and wiped my face, slowly drawing breath through gritting teeth. That knot of anguish tightened in my chest, greeting me like an old friend. After a long silent moment, there was muffled laughter from downstairs, reminding me of where I was. My eyes softly opened, returning to the reflection staring soberly back.
When I should have been finishing the last cramming of my essay at 3AM, I remembered reading studies that suggested brain activity may continue several minutes after a person is declared dead. Some suspect this is when ‘our life flashes before our eyes’ and others point out that it doesn’t mean consciousness is still ongoing. Within Christian faith, there’s the theory that everyone will be sent to heaven or hell, or there’s the guess that your spirit will be immediately sent to a temporary limbo to await final judgement. There’s animism, which perceives all things, objects included, to be alive with a distinct spiritual essence. The main principles of Buddhism are karma, rebirth, and impermanence.
Personally, I like to call this system bullshit.
I didn’t remember how I died. Maybe that was preferable.
The first day here was my most memorable.
It was sudden. Out of nowhere. Like abruptly waking up. A woman was looking down at me. Adoration shining through sharp grey eyes. She cooed before passing me around like a doll to other strangers' arms. Whilst everyone else was elated at my arrival I could do nothing but wail until my throat was raw. She shushed me soothingly when I was in her arms again.
She called me Mirrin, and Laila Jensen was officially forever dead, never to be named again.
My father had plain features, but the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. His hair was darker than my new mother, ears a bit bigger than average. When he leaned over her shoulder to appraise me, he gave a very soft smile and tucked a curl behind my small ear. “Little Miri,” he called me, and New Mother passed me into his arms.
This isn’t happening. I thought at the time. It was a nightmare. I’d wake up any moment.
But I didn’t. I still hadn’t.
They were both concerned when I didn’t stop crying. Not just that day, but for a good few months. A curse, New Mother accused, from a petty rival family dissatisfied with the rising competition. My father dismissed her claims, relenting when he saw the bit of blood from my throat from screaming my throat raw at the top of my lungs. He’d eventually agreed, leaving the room to grab a cleric from the local church but I was barely paying enough attention to register what he said. A cleric, instead of a doctor. Were I of any sound mind, I might’ve questioned that.
Imagine my surprise when a humanoid with the face of a dragon showed up.
The shock was enough to distract me, stun me, and silence me for the first time in days.
The dragon-man was a bright cyan with a blunt snout, a strong brow and reptilian frills protruding from his cheeks and ears. On the back of its head was a crest of hornlike scales, strange dreadlocks held back in a loose, leather tie. His eyes met mine, a bright fiery orange that reminded me of flames. “Hello, little one.” He’d spoken, voice deep and not gravelly like I was expecting. It was more smooth, more pleasant, I could imagine it narrating the greatest tales of old or reading me to sleep. My new, weak eyes flickered over him, seeing the blurred edges of a silver armour.
Only two words came to mind, interrupting my pity party.
Holy shit.
“What ails her? A disease? Is it a curse as I feared?” The woman masquerading as New Mother had frantically asked, a plea in her voice.
The dragon-man stepped toward me, a finger- no, a claw reaching over to me. He pressed the back of his gentle, scaled hand to my forehead, as if testing my temperature. I should’ve been freaking out, should’ve been disarmed and flailing to get away but for some reason- for some reason, his presence was… calming. Something strange washed over me, through me. For the first time in a while, there was a solace in my mind. The sorrow that gnawed deeply inside like the ravaging monster it was had been alleviated.
“She’s… she’s not crying.” The man that claimed to be my father sighed in relief.
“For now. The respite is but a temporary one.” The dragon said, taking his hand away. “Magic blessed upon me by the Moonmaiden. It keeps her calm.”
Magic.
It made me pay attention, swept me up from the harsh current of mourning. In my tranquil state, I was able to think. Able to listen. It did nothing to answer the confusion swirling inside but gave me something to cling to if nothing else. Considering my predicament, magic didn’t seem all that far fetched anymore. It could only be magic that forced me here. It would explain everything, in a way. A wrathful deity. A curse. An eternal nightmare. Divine intervention.
For once in those early days I spent here, I had hope.
If magic put me here, it could reverse it.
Right?
“A temporary spell is hardly a solution.” My mother snipped.
Father placed a hand on her shoulder, easing the tension in her shoulders. He cast the dragon an apologetic glance but he seemed to pay them no mind. “Dear, please, he’s trying to help.”
“We can scarcely bring him here every day to cast such a spell.” She muttered, the edge was not lost to her voice, but it was tempered.
“No,” the dragon agreed. “But it allows me to examine her more easily. Please, place her down in the cot and permit me to work.”
I felt the soft blankets beneath my head as they lowered me. His eyes were on me once more, a silver glow spreading through his amber gaze and enveloping it entirely, light peering out the corners of his sclera. He raised his hands and motioned with them in precise movements, chanting words I didn’t understand. Something unfathomable caressed around me like a soft breeze, tenderly brushing along the top of my head and spreading a small phantom chill through me.
It was oddly comforting. Like a refreshing sip of an iced drink on a scorching day.
The light faded from his eyes and he regarded me with a start.
“What? What is it?”
The alien draconic features were hard to read, but there was a twitch in his expression. He paused, then schooled any sign of his previous agitation off his face. "Nothing, your daughter is perfectly healthy."
A lie.
There was obviously something wrong with me.
I was screaming quietly within my own skin, struggling to understand what was happening, struggling to accept it. The change in reality was an adjustment that would still take me a long time to fully grasp. It still felt like a dream sometimes, like I wasn’t really here.
My new parents had paid the cleric after a hushed conversation and plenty of glances toward the cot of their new child. The dragon’s eyes peered over to me with a brief frown before he turned and walked out of the room. Of course, they didn’t take him at his word, and got other opinions, but the other clerics didn’t seem as versed in their craft or as connected to their God as they claimed. None of them had that look in their eye that the dragon did. They claimed I was fine, just down with a small cold that they could fix for a small fee.
Eventually, I managed to stop crying, though not without great difficulty. It was impossible being an infant again, unable to regulate my own emotions to the level I used to. Unable to do anything like how I used to.
The culture shock of living was a stark difference to my old life. I wasn’t exactly swimming in riches, but the level of technology was somewhere deep in a European fantasy novel. No electronics, which meant no heating beyond a fireplace and the insulation in the structures of buildings. You could argue that my new folks were technophobes, old fashioned, following a trend, or maybe they were part of a cult. A weird community brainwashed to only allow the use of middle age tech and relics. A hardcore renaissance re-enactment group.
However, I also could argue that the dragon’s appearance implied more than simple time travel. I could argue that I had the consciousness of an adult in a baby’s body. I could argue that the world around me was too different. His magic was too authentic to be a trick of the light. The lack of modern technology was far from unbelievable, and not exactly the most pressing issue but it didn’t stop me from becoming depressed. All modern pleasures I took for granted like the internet, plumbing, convenient hygiene, medical treatment, quick public transport and more were gone. Fallen through a trap door and locked behind it never to be seen by the light of day ever again.
You could argue it was an over-dramatization when I sunk further into melancholy at the revelation that I wouldn’t be able to watch the sequels to movies I was planning to see. Then it spiralled. All my distractions, comics, video games, tv shows. Entertainment and comforts were a lot more important than people could think, morale boosts and breaks from the daily routine that kept your sanity intact. Especially for someone with ADHD and hyperfixations. It mattered.
Now I truly had nothing.
Starting again, from scratch, having to re-learn how to live when I barely grasped it the first time.
A few weeks later, when New Mother had propped me onto her hip and brought me out for a walk amongst the town, I’d never forget the first time I laid my eyes on our house from the outside. One consolation was given, in this new life. I could barely afford my rent back home, scraped the back of my couch for change, but from what I could see here was that I lived in a mansion of sorts. A small manor. More extravagant than anything I'd ever owned.
The main building was a u-shaped, lavish looking three story structure that easily cost more than I could ever make in ten lifetimes combined back in my old life. It was almost as large as two, if not three council houses combined. A central structure which contained a foyer and the main staircase, plus two massive wings to its side. In the middle of that ‘u’ was a courtyard, with a statue of some knight, holding his sword up high. The grounds of the mansion was surrounded by a metal fence, covered in vines and shrubbery. An aesthetical choice I presumed, else the groundskeeper would’ve trimmed it otherwise. The garden around the mansion was… well it wasn’t exactly much of a garden per say, given its size and… lack of flora. A well maintained lawn, hedges to line the corners of the fences, and three small trees. I also noticed a shed, which was the size of my apartment unit, and it stood out like a blister on unblemished skin, because it was strangely ill maintained and rundown.
It wasn’t the smallest in the neighbourhood, but it certainly wasn’t the largest. Space, as it would seem, was a premium in the city, much like back home. And while my family was loaded, we weren’t that loaded. Still, it was a lot more than I was used to, compared to my shoebox of a flat. Maybe this was a retirement. A reward, instead of the curse I thought it might be. Was it my time to be spoiled? My time for an easy life?
I found I didn’t care.
The price of this. The price of riches. I wanted it all back. I regretted any begging I did when I was sitting alone in my shitty flat. I regretted wishing for something better, something more. I regretted offering to trade anything for this. It was a terrible mistake. An oversight. An ungrateful, stupid oversight.
She opened the carriage doors, passing me to New Father for a moment so she could climb in after him. It was a bumpy ride, one I spent the journey mostly shoving my face into my father’s shirt so I didn’t have to look at anything anymore. I must’ve fallen asleep, exhausted from my emotional energies being constantly drained, because my father was gently adjusting me on his chest and opening the carriage doors.
He glanced down at me, giving a soft smile at the wide eyed look on my face when sights were opened to me. Clusters of tall, narrow, Tudor-framed houses with multiple upper floors. They cantilevered out over the streets, which were laid partly with stone and dry dirt. Both trimmed and wild grown greenery were growing from the sides, decorating the sides of the path with flowers and controlled trees. Sun poured light down onto the heads of busy bodies walking down the markets, some of whom were wearing colourful headwear. Floppy hats with feathers sticking from the top, bold cloth wraps around their heads like scarves. Tight trousers, baggy tunics with frills, long elegant dresses, tightly fitted corsets with large skirts, puffy sleeves and long cloaks that dragged behind them on the ground. Garish, long, poor and bright. I barely saw anyone wearing peasant garb but when I did, it was a begging man kneeling in front of a tavern.
It was like I’d taken a step back in time, as well as found myself in a new world.
My mind raced when I saw a dwarf, and then a halfling running a fruit stall as we passed by. New Father picked up a fresh plum, passing the merchant a copper in return. When he leaned over, I stared up at the man holding me as he gave me a toothy grin and bit into it, juice ran down his chin and he quickly wiped it with the back of his hand before it could drip onto me. An elf was standing next to him. The classical fantasy race you’d seen in any fantasy game, movie or literature. Ears pointed out of their elaborate updo. They didn’t have an ethereal sense of beauty as expected, the symmetrical features were pleasing to the eye. They were a little more lithe than humans.
Their bright purple eyes fixed on me and I blinked at them. Pretty.
“How cute! How old?” The elf gently asked, giving me a bright smile as one would anything they found cute. Their voice was refined, disciplined and educated. An upperclassman, like my parents. My father chirped with her happily, adjusting me on his chest until I was sitting up straighter, proudly showing me off. I zoned out, until she projected a tone that was too forward. “What a precious little human, pretty like her father.”
New Mother crept quietly to his side, giving the elf a polite smile with an underlying passive aggressiveness to it, a clear threat. The elf slightly backed away, but matched the expression with one of her own. “O-oh- um,” New Father cleared his throat, looking eager to dip out as fast as possible. He put his hand on my back a little stiffly and nodded respectfully at the elf. “The compliment is appreciated, though I suspect my little darling has had enough excitement for one day, we should be getting back.”
“What a shame,” the elf looked at New Father with too much of a lingering eye from under sly lashes, and bid my parents a fair goodbye with a dainty wave.
“Churlish clapper-clawed cow.” New Mother spat with venom under her breath once the elf was out of earshot. New Father put his hand over one of my ears with a shot of disapproval, as I suppressed the urge to giggle at the creative insult.
“Mary, please,”
New Mother waved dismissively. “I didn’t exactly see you fighting off her advances.”
“I didn’t have to, not with how you swept in and gave her a petrifying glower to rival a beholder!”
She slapped his arm with a playful smirk, but I was stuck on what he said.
Beholder.
An off-handed comment. Harmless. Maybe even silly and nothing to do with what I was thinking. But the doubt lingered in my head for weeks, echoing into the far reaches of my mind. It was impossible to scour, a hard-left stain.
No. That’s impossible.
There were only two origins of the word ‘beholder’ that I knew of. The first one came from the phrase ‘beauty in the eye of the beholder ’ and the other…
The other made terrifying sense.
Immediately identifiable, a floating head with one single cyclops gaze, surrounded by ten smaller eye stalks. A gaping, massive maw. Also known as a sphere of many eyes, they were huge monstrosities. An aberration born of horror. More importantly, they were one of the main poster children for a fucking tabletop game called Dungeons and Dragons. A game with a setting that this world started to resemble more and more. The dragon folk. All the fantasy races. Magic. Mention of the Beholder. More and more things started to add up, and I suddenly wished I played the game a lot more. I desperately wished I spent time buying the base books instead of just messing around with a lot of homebrew campaigns which barely touched upon the rich life within the Forgotten Realms. I wished I could read Wikipedia's and discuss it all with my more enriched friends.
My knowledge was a droplet in the ocean, a single thread in a whole spool.
I wasn’t just fucked.
I was fucked.