The villainess stared down her fate, head held high, lips pulled back into a sneer even as the king denounced her. She…

No. That wasn’t right… Amelia wouldn’t act like that in front of the king, would she? She’d be more interested in appearing calm, collected… but could she? In this state?

I sighed, shaking my head and erasing the word document. The truth was, I had writer’s block. Not because I didn’t know what I wanted to write, but because deep down I didn’t want to write it. 

The villainess was the most entertaining part of my stupid romance novel! I mean, the whole thing was basically just a heap of cliches to begin with - from the commoner protagonist who got accepted at a prestigious school for her light magic, to the engaged prince who’d taken an interest in her. Even Amelia had started life as a cliche - the villainess fiancee who existed only to get in the protagonist’s way.

It’s just… at some point, somewhere between spreading lies about the heroine’s promiscuity, and her actual attempts at assassinating poor Pauline, she’d gone and developed an actual personality! She had complexity, and a tragic backstory - born with the ability to tell when people were lying to her, she grew up distrustful of everyone around her. Her ability made no distinction between white lies made to cheer her up and those meant to hurt her, after all - even a maid saying that she was happy to see the young mistress well might trigger it, if she was honestly more interested in collecting her paycheck. 

Unfortunately, my audience didn’t seem to care. They hated her for getting in the way of Pauline’s happiness, and since Pauline was the protagonist, at the end of the day… Well, once things escalated to the point of assassination, there really wasn’t a happy ending left for Amelia, was there?

Last I’d written, the prince had already convinced the King to end the engagement, and arrest her. Even the duke - Amelia’s father - had been forced to agree that his line was better off without her dragging him down. All that was left for her was arrest, and a messy execution, and then… I guess the happy ending for the loving prince and heroine?

Except I didn’t want to write any of it. Least of all the part where Amelia died… but it was too late to change things, wasn’t it?

I sighed, cradling my head in my hands and closing my eyes. Maybe… Maybe I could at least delay the end? Write one more scene with my beloved villainess? An interim chapter. I could capture what was on her mind, the night before her arrest. 

She probably knew she was going to be captured. On top of her ability to tell truth from lies, I’d given her some light precognition - little visions, or even auditory hallucinations, about what the future might foretell. The worst of them were often self-driven prophecies, like someone turning on her because she turned on them first. They weren’t exactly reliable, but if one showed that she was going to die… she’d probably try and do something about it, right?

I could just imagine her desperately trying to come up with some sort of scheme to avoid capture. She might even turn to dark magic - that forbidden craft, which even she had been scared to touch. The summoning of demons, for deals…

I could see it, now, in my mind’s eye. The candles, lit and carefully placed upon a chalk pentagram. A circle drawn with ancient runes, meant to keep the fiend captured until the deal could be properly struck. The chanting - I could almost hear the chanting, a slow melodious string of nonsense words that probably meant something in some infernal tongue or another. 

Her magic would fill the room, the mana in the air growing denser and denser until she could hardly see, hardly breathe, and yet still the words would come from her mouth. The plea, to be saved from her fate. To be rescued, no matter the cost. She’d promise her soul, her life, if it meant living long enough to take revenge.

The air would ripple, the mana actually becoming briefly visible from its density, and a split would appear in the air, a crack in reality through which all that mana would pour until it was all gone, until Amelia felt like she little more than an empty husk… and then they would step out.

Tall, dark, with a face impossible to describe, and features that slipped from your mind just as soon as you registered them. They would stand there, and they would ask her for her will, and she would tell them her wants - survival. To survive, and be free from her wretched kingdom. To live on, away from everyone who had wronged her.

Then the demon would smile, and say - 

“Deal.”

The world lurched. One moment I was sitting in my chair, the next I was standing somewhere else entirely. Not in my own office, but in the cavernous basement I’d been imagining just moments ago.

“Well, well…” said the demon, its androgynous figure identical to that I’d been picturing. “You certainly do fit into that body nicely, now don’t you?”

“Wha…” I tried not to flinch. Tried not to think about what those words meant - whose body I was fitting into.

I failed on both accounts.

I couldn’t help but look down - look at my hands, so much smaller and more delicate than anything I was used to. It was disconcerting to think of them as my hands, when I was used to hands so much bigger - and harrier, for that matter, too. These hands were the delicate hands of a noble.

“It’s not the hands that bother you though, are they?” the demon teased, apparently having the ability to read my mind. I didn’t remember giving them that ability, but-

“Do you think you ‘gave’ me anything?” the demon asked, seeming amused. “No. You didn’t create me - or this world, no matter what you might think. You simply thought up a world that mirrored it. Which was why, when I reached across the Ocean Of Possibility, I was able to pluck you from your insignificant little world and drag you here, to the world you ‘created.’ A world you were already linked to - your soul was practically eager to make the jump out of your former meatsack.”

“My…” I paused, taking aback by just how much higher my voice was. Breathier, too. “What happened to me? To my body?”

The demon only smiled at me.

“...What’s going to happen to me now?” I asked. I wanted to say more. I wanted to scream, to throw something at the demon, to take it down and force it to put things back the way they were meant to be - but it was all I could do to wrap my mind around what had just happened. One minute I’d been at home, the next… this. 

Besides, how was I supposed to do anything in the frail body of a noblewoman? She’d never done a day’s physical labour in her life! There was no way those delicate hands could throw a punch with any power.

“Honestly? I don’t particularly care. You’re only here because I thought it amusingly fitting to give this body a new occupant.”

“You did this for fun?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.They were lying. I couldn’t tell how I knew - I just did. Amelia’s power at work? “You put me here for a reason, didn’t you?”

“Perhaps,” the demon confessed, shrugging. They didn’t seem particularly bothered by getting caught. “Regardless, I suggest you shift your focus to other matters - like how to escape the prince’s judgement. It would be a shame if your journey came to a close here, don’t you think?”

“You…” I took a step towards the demon, only to stop as I realized something. The summoning circle - I was still on the other side of it from the Demon. Obviously that circle hadn’t saved Amelia from… whatever the demon had done… but… something told me that crossing that circle remained a pretty terrible idea.

“A pity,” the demon murmured. “I’d hoped for you to be a bit stupider… Oh well. I suppose I’ll be seeing you in that case.”

“Wait-” I called out, desperate.

The demon didn’t even respond. They just turned around, and in the same instant… disappeared.

“Great… What am I supposed to do now?”

~~~

Author's Notes

What's this? Another work by Princess Kay? Despite her having so many projects? And it's not even a sexy story, this time.... (I mean, there might be some interlewds and the like, but I'm considering keeping them as side content/patreon material to keep the main thing more accessible. We'll see how that goes?)

Anyway, this is an idea that's been politely tugging at my attention ever since I first thought it up... or at least it started polite. At this point it's basically breaking down my door and dragging me out of bed (almost literally, it was nearly 1 AM when I finished this)

I've written 3 chapters of it, including this prologue, with the next two already being available on Patreon. Regardless of whether you read there or here, I hope you enjoy! (Maybe leave a comment if you like the concept? For all that it's been tugging at my attention, I have a lot of projects and part of me is still a bit reluctant to add more, so... I wanna see how popular this idea is, first and foremost... Though there's a good chance I continue either way at this point.)

PS: I have a chapter of Double Trouble and I think a couple chapters of Naughty Magic ready for posting. I've been falling behind, I'm afraid... I don't want to flood the site, though, so I'll be spreading the posts out as best I can.