There was darkness, there was light, and there was - on occasion - sound.

“What’s…”

The world faded in and out for me, which was rather strange, considering I’d been just about ready to bid adieu to the world once and for all… And yet, somehow, eventually, the world continued to show up in bits and pieces, in and out

“...kidding me…”

“Hold on…”

More light, then. More sound, too, but it faded too quickly for me to latch onto anything. When I finally awoke again, it was to find myself in manacles, chained to the hard bed on which I resided.

It wasn’t all bad. My hands were at least manacled in front of me, rather than behind, and there was enough give on the chain to access almost every part of the small room, though it brought me short about a foot from the door. There was a table in front of me, with a glass of water and a bowl of porridge. Both lukewarm.

I didn’t care. I devoured the porridge, abandoning whatever manners or bodily instincts had been baked into Amelia’s bones in favor of simply guzzling porridge straight from the bowl. After I helped myself to the water, of course - I was parched.

It was only after, when I was wiping away the mess with the tablecloth, that I realized something strange - my neck didn’t seem to have a mark on it. Not even a ridge of scar tissue. Not that I was surprised to find that the wound had been healed. I would have been dead if it hadn’t been. But for my neck to feel so smooth, they’d either used a high quality potion, or…

“The light,” I murmured to myself, touching my neck. I could still vaguely remember the light. That, and a gentle voice telling me to hold on. Could it have been Pauline? Had the heroine of the story actually healed her worst enemy? Well enough that I didn’t even seem to have a scar… or at least not one I could feel.

There was a knocking at the door.

“Hello?” I called out, a little nervously. “Who’s there?”

“Bridgette, of course! Who else would bother to visit you in prison?” came a cheery voice back.

“My maid, for one… though I’m not sure she’d be allowed…”

“Probably not,” Bridgette agreed, from beyond the door. “But I could try to arrange for something? If you wanna give me permission to come in, that is.”

“Why ask permission?” I asked, trying not to scoff. “As you said, I am in prison. I can’t even reach the door, let alone open it for you.”

“Well, excuse me for caring about a little thing called manners!” Bridgette replied, opening the door and waltzing in even as she spoke.

“That might hold a bit more weight if you didn’t say it while barging in,” I remarked, scowling at Bridgette. I didn’t recall writing her to be so annoying, so why was she so good at getting under my skin?

“Well, it’s not like you were going to give me permission anyway, right?” She blithely declared, before dropping a package onto the table in front of me. “Besides, I brought a cell-warming gift.”

“A cell-warming gift?” I demanded, glaring at her. “Is this some joke to you? I’ve been arrested, to be executed, and you just…” I grit my teeth and turned my head away. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter anyway…”

“Because you’re going to die anyway?” Bridgette asked. “That was true when you got stabbed, too, but you still said my name in the end, didn’t you?”

“That’s… I didn’t expect you to actually come…”

“But you still wanted to live, didn’t you?” Bridgette pressed. “So why don’t you try saying it now?”

“Saying what?” I asked, incredulous. “Your name?”

“Why not? Call for me like your knight in shining armor, and who knows? Maybe I’ll even appear to block the executioner’s blade.”

“As if you would do that for someone like me,” I scoffed.

“You mean someone who’d waste her final breath trying to save some kid she’d just met, instead of calling for aid? Though I guess it wasn’t actually your final breath, was it? Not entirely sure how you pulled that off - by all rights, you should have been dead before Pauline could even see you, but something kept you going…”

“Is that it, then?” I asked. “Are you here to interrogate me about what strange substance allowed me to escape death?”

“Nooope,” Bridgette replied, making a point of popping her ‘p.’ “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there’s plenty of people who’d love to know the recipe of whatever kept you going… depending on how it works, you might even be able to negotiate your way off the chopping block! You’d probably still face life in prison, though…”

“Sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t know what was in it. Not that I’m much in the mood to tell you about it, anyway…”

“Then why don’t you tell me something else?” Bridgette asked. “Like, say… What happened to the real Amelia?”

I froze for a moment, then forced out a laugh. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that the real Amelia would have leaped on the chance to make a deal for herself.”

“I already told you I don’t know what’s in the potion,” I reminded her.

“And the real Amelia would never admit to that either,” Bridgette said. “And she wouldn’t have frozen in place when accused, either - unless this is all some sort of elaborate trap to make think you’ve swapped places with someone? In which case, bravo, you’re doing a great job, because honestly I haven’t even gotten to the biggest evidence there is yet…”

“And that evidence is?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.

“You actually ate the prison slop.”

“…That’s it?” I demanded. “That’s what your great theory hinges upon?”

“Uh-huh,” Bridgette confirmed. “I mean, there’s also the way you handled things with that kid…”

“Her name is Bean. And she was supposed to ask you for help rescuing her sister…”

“More stuff the real Amelia would never bother with,” Bridgette replied. “And don’t worry - the kid’s a better negotiator than you. Refused to give me all the juicy details about your interactions until after I’d secured her sister’s freedom.”

“How long was I out for that to all be taken care of?” I asked, blinking in surprise.

“Not long. I work fast when I wanna. And that’s another tick against you - the real Amelia had ways of tracking time, even when unconscious.”

A lie. Not that I needed Amelia’s powers to tell me that - I’d certainly never given her such an ability.

Yet even as my eyes narrowed, Bridgette’s smile was growing. “Interesting! You know, Amelia always seemed to know when I was lying to her, too - though she was way better at hiding her reactions to it… I used to think maybe she carried a truth stone on her, but now I’m wondering if it was something a bit more intrinsic?”

“A truth stone?” I asked, dodging the question. “What’s that?”

“It’s… a stone that lets you know when people are lying? Which should be pretty obvious, I’d think.”

“That’s…” I blushed. “I didn’t know they existed…”

“The real Amelia did,” Bridgette replied. “Bet if I could get my hands on one of those, it would out you real quick, too…”

“Do you think it would be enough to prove I’m not her?”

“So you’re admitting it?” Bridgette asked, grinning.

“Maybe… I mean… I suppose?”

“Why are you even pretending to be her in the first place?” Bridgette asked.

“I mean… Look at me,” I muttered, gesturing to my form. I had been changed, at some point, into a simple shift that covered me, but did little to truly conceal me. It had a wide open neck that did little to hide my cleavage, and a short skirt that forced me to keep my legs together if I didn’t want to expose myself - something that only made me more aware of the thing missing between my thighs. “Who would believe me if I said I wasn’t her?”

“I mean, you do look just like her,” Bridgette admitted. “Like, absolutely identical, even.”

“That’s because it’s her body,” I confessed, sighing. “She made a deal with a demon to try and escape her fate, and it responded by making me take her place.”

“An interesting story,” Bridgette said. “It raises questions about where Lady Amelia might have gotten information on demon summoning, but it exonerates you in particular of any wrong doing… If it’s true.”

“Can’t you just use one of those truth stones to find out?” I asked.

“Maybe,” Bridgette replied, frowning. “But they’re really rare. We’d need to get the king involved.”

“I’m the duke’s daughter, aren’t I? Doesn’t that make this case important enough?”

“You’re in the body of the duke’s daughter,” Bridgette corrected me. “Which might be problematic for entirely different reasons if not for the fact that the Duke disowned her prior to sentencing. Even the real Amelia is a commoner right now… though I guess that does raise the question of who you were before all this?”

“Me? I was nobody,” I replied, not quite able to meet Bridgette’s eyes.

“Uh-huh. A random nobody who just happened to get involved in a demon summoning ritual?” Bridgette asked. “What, did Amelia drag you in as a sacrifice or something? Is she wearing your body now?”

“I… I don’t actually know what happened to my body,” I admitted. “But it’s not… I’m not… from around here.”

“Not from around here?” Bridgette asked.

“I’m…” I hesitated a moment, before deciding to take the plunge. What point was there in holding back now? “I’m from another world. The demon pulled me here, across something they called the Sea of Possibility or some such.”

“The Ocean of Possibility, actually,” a familiar voice remarked, as the speaker somehow seemed to turning their way into reality, as if the difference between them being there or not was a simple matter of rotation. “Not that the particulars matter much. I more or less stole the term from System Lost, anyway. Excellent series, by the way - ever read it?”

“Wha-” I began, only to pause as Bridgette pulled out her rapier, and lunged at the demon.

The demon merely laughed, even as the rapier pierced through them - followed by Bridgette’s arm, up to the elbow, passing through them. “A good try, my dear, but I’m afraid I’m not actually here this time.”

“This time?” Bridgette asked. “So you were here for real before?”

“When I put that one in her current predicament, yes,” the demon confirmed.

“Why?” Bridgette asked.

“For funsies, of course.” A lie. There was definitely more to it than that. Unfortunately, Amelia’s powers didn’t come with anything as convenient as details on the matter. Hell, there wasn’t even a gradient to it - something was either a lie or it wasn’t, with no distinction made for half-truths.

“No,” Bridgette pressed, “why her in particular?”

“Because she met the requirements, of course,” the demon replied. “A writer, in her own world - or should I say his?”

Bridgette glanced at me. “I… Yeah,” I confirmed. It felt like there was a lump in my throat. For a moment, I was sure Bridgette was going to glare at me in disgust, or maybe even spit, or laugh at the guy in a dress, but she just shrugged and turned her attention back to the demon. “So? She was a writer before?”

“And still is, I imagine,” the demon replied. “That sort of thing doesn’t change just because your body did, now does it…? But yes. She was a writer. One who wrote about a world rather similar to this one. Close enough, in fact, to trigger a sympathetic link between him, the author, and her, the character. Such things are important when navigating the Ocean of Possibility - or Sea of Possibilities, or whatever else you want to call it.”

“So that part was real, then?” I asked. “I thought you said you took the term from some book?”

“System Lost, yes - by DarkTechnomancer. It really is a good read - shame that you’re no longer on Earth to try it… But regardless, I said I stole the term, not the concept. That predates us all.”

“And that concept is…?” Bridgette pressed.

“Exactly what it says on the tin,” the demon replied. “A sea of all that was, is, and could be. A raw ocean of possibility. Navigating it is what we demons are known for - and what makes our services so valuable to mortals such as yourself.”

“And you’re telling us this for what reason, exactly?” I asked.

“Because I want to make a deal, of course,” the demon replied, smiling. “For your life. All you have to do is give up Bridgette.”

I glanced at Bridgette - frozen, again. Just like the last time the demon had appeared. Did that mean she was defenseless? That the demon really could kill her, despite supposedly not being here? All I had to do was give the word…

“Hell no,” I replied, instead. “Even if I was stupid enough to deal with a demon, I wouldn’t throw someone else to the wolves just to save my sorry ass.”

“And there you have it,” the demon declared, clapping, as Bridgette’s body suddenly sprang back to life. “I trust you heard all that, Bridgette? I assure you that she had no idea you could hear us - she had every chance and reason to betray you, and yet didn’t.”

“Your point being?” Bridgette asked, frowning.

“That her only crime in this world is being too much of an idiot to consider just telling the truth,” the demon replied. “And yet, by your laws, she’s to be executed tomorrow morning… How sad. I wonder, though - can you, as a knight, really allow such a thing to occur? An innocent’s blood spilled, while the naughty noble herself lives?”

“And what are you suggesting?” I asked, before Bridgette could. “That she take me and run away or something?”

“That would be interesting,” the demon remarked. “Certainly fun. But have you considered… simply telling the truth? To the king, this time. He might grant you clemency.”

“There’s no time for that,” Bridgette interrupted. “There’s no way to get an audience with him before the execution.”

“Indeed,” the demon confirmed. “But there’s one thing you’re forgetting…”

“And what’s that, oh great and weirdly helpful demon?” Bridgette asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, it’s obvious isn’t it?” the demon laughed. “If you can’t meet with the king before your execution, then you’ll simply have to plead your case during it instead!”

~~~

Author's Notes

Wrote chapter 6 for Patreon on another insomnia-fueled binge of writing.... (Though in this case it was less insomnia, and more "I had to stay up all night for an EEG that I ended up missing anyway"). Still, the bright side of it all is that I now get to share this chapter with all of you! *Giggles wickedly.*

On a side note, it's maybe worth mentioning that I'm having a bit of a health issue? Thyroid issues, to be precise - which probably explains why my depression has been getting even worse over the last few months... I'm hoping to get this sorted soon? And I'm also hoping that getting it sorted will help me with getting more done in general... We'll see, I suppose?

Next up is probably some Double Trouble? I found myself almost writing Charlotte's name on more than one occasion, and it's making me realize I miss the girls... (After that? Who knows. Maybe more of this? Maybe Naughty Magic? Maybe even some Hatching the Heroine... we'll see.)