I held my arms out as the guards unlocked my manacles, and took them off my wrists. I felt numb. Even as my freedom was being granted, I was struggling to process what had just happened.

I’d… pleaded for my life, and… Won? Or… not quite won, I suppose, but… I’d at least been given a stay of execution - literally, in fact. After coming so close to death, after seeing the axeman actually lift his axe and prepare to strike… it was hard to process the fact that I wasn’t going to die. Today, at least. 

Maybe not at all, even. It didn’t seem like the king really wanted me dead, after all - not when he was going out of his way to stay and make sure I got a fair trial. At the same time, though, I didn’t want to assume I knew what was going on in his head - not when my life was riding on it…

It wasn’t like I could claim to have any insight into the man’s mind, after all. He’d barely been a character in my story - more of a plot device, really, just there to keep the story moving. I’d never put any thought at all into who he was as a person… Something I regretted now that I needed to decipher his intentions.

Releasing me was one thing, but why the hell was he having me attend the academy?!

“Yo!” called a familiar voice, as an armored hand intruded upon my field of vision and began to wave wildly back and forth.

“Bridgette,” I replied, turning around in order to greet the knight who was… way too close to me. I hurriedly backed up a few steps. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to pick you up, of course!” Bridgette replied. “Or did you think the King was just going to let you wander around without supervision?”

“Like you supervised me last time?” I demanded, arching my eyebrow. “Draining half a bottle of alcohol and falling to the floor?”

“Okay, first of all, that was an act. Alcohol doesn’t hit the system that fast, you know?”

“So you weren’t drunk off your ass, then?” I asked, dubious.

“I mean, not at first, anyway… But that alcohol really was too strong! What the hell did you dose me with!?”

“Just some uber concentrated alcohol,” I replied. “But I’m not sure you can really refer to it as dosing you when you knew exactly what I was doing… If anything, I’d say you were hoisted by your own petard after being overconfident.”

“Yeah, well, look where that got you,” Bridgette replied. “Nearly dead! On my watch!”

“Is that last part the only bit you actually care about?” I demanded.

“Of course not!” Bridgette huffed. “Just because you’re infuriating doesn’t mean I want you to die. It’s not like you’re the actual Amelia or anything… Speaking of which, what am I supposed to call you, anyway?”

“Call me?” I asked, blinking at her blankly. “...Can’t you just stick to Amelia? It’s worked so far.”

“I mean, I guess,” Bridgette conceded, “but it might get kinda confusing, what with you trying to convince everyone you’re not Amelia and all.”

“That’s…” Okay, that was a fair point, actually… My original name wasn’t exactly unisex, though, let alone feminine, and as for picking a new one… Well, picking out a girl’s name would feel too much like giving up. Like I was just accepting this ‘girl’ label the demon had stuck on me. I was still a man on the inside, after all, and if possible I really wanted to get back to my original body…

…Or at least I felt like I should want that? Even though, to be honest, my current body felt way better than what I’d had before… I mean, it was younger for one thing. More fit. Prettier, too. Though that last part was kinda the problem? I mean, again, I was a guy. At the very least, I should probably try to masculinize myself a bit if I could… I mean, even if my body didn’t feel bad right now, I’d probably feel better as a guy, right? That was what I was used to after all…

“Just… Call me Amy,” I decided, in the end.

“That’s just Amelia shortened, though,” Bridgette pointed out.

“Yeah, but can you imagine the original Amelia letting anyone call her that?” I countered.

“Hmmm… Good point. Alright! Amy it is!” Bridgette nodded, as if satisfied, and then stepped closer to me again.

“H-hey!” I protested, as she leaned down and swept me off my feet, picking me up in a princess carry. “What’s the meaning of this!?”

“Well, I figured you’d want to get home first thing, your not-ladyship,” Bridgette replied. “And the fastest way I know to get you there is this!”

“…Fine,” I murmured, turning my head away from Bridgette in hopes of hiding my blush. “But does it have to be a princess carry?”

“It’s the easiest way to keep you protected from the winds!” Bridgette replied. “And it’s a better view.”

“A better view?” I asked. “At the speeds you run, I probably won’t be able to see anything!”

“A better view for me,” Bridgette clarified. “You’re kinda cute, in a mean sorta way.”

“What do you - I don’t even know what that means!” I protested. Which you’d think would keep me from feeling embarrassed about it, but for some reasons my cheeks were only getting warmer.

Bridgette just laughed - and then she ran. Except, contrary to my expectations, she wasn’t running at hyper speeds. Rather, she seemed to be moving perfectly normally - or so I thought at least, until I realized that everything around us had slowed to a standstill.

“What… is this how you perceive the world when you’re running?” I asked. I’d never really written any details on Bridgette’s powers, other than that she could move at the speed of the wind. I had no idea it was like time stopped for her.

“You can move during this!?” Bridgette demanded.

“…Should I not be able to?”

“I mean, nobody else can,” Bridgette replied. “Or nobody else has? I wonder why?”

“Maybe I’m special?” I suggested, uncertain. “Like… because I’m from another world?”

“I mean, I guess that could be it,” Bridgette replied, hesitantly. “But… I think it might be something worse.”

“What do you mean worse?” I asked, worried now.

Bridgette shrugged, maneuvering through the frozen crowd with practiced ease, even despite having me in her arms. “I mean, I could be wrong…”

“Could you just tell me? We both know you’re smart enough to figure out most anything if you really want to.”

“I am?” Bridgette asked, blinking. “Wait. How would you even know that?”

“Because I created… or at least wrote about this world.”

“And about me in particular?” Bridgette asked.

“A little? You were more of a side character than anything, but you did get a lot of screen time - so to speak…”

“Not sure what a screen is in this context, but I think I get your drift… So what? You had a view into this world or something? Because that’s kinda creepy.”

“No, I just… wrote what I thought was a fictional story? And it just happened to match an actual world out there? If what the demon said is true, anyway…”

“That sea of possibility thing?” Bridgette asked. “Because it seems more like they were saying that everything is happening somewhere.”

“Like I said, you’re better suited to figure it out than me,” I confessed, a little ruefully. I wasn’t sure whether to be proud of my creation, or jealous. Or neither, seeing as how she might not be my creation at all.

“Right… Well, about the whole bad news thing…”

“Go on?” I prodded, nervously.

“Well, you see, in order to shield you from the wind, I’m actually pushing a small amount of my own power into you. Just enough to have a surface level effect - or at least it’s only supposed to be enough to have a surface level effect…”

“But you think it’s doing something… deeper?”

“Something like that!” Bridgette agreed. “But the more important part is why - see, the whole reason it’s ‘surface level’ is because usually surface level is all it can be. Your own magic should be pushing back against it - keeping it from sinking any deeper than that. At least unless you’re specifically doing something to stop it?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” I replied, a little nervous as to where this was going.

“In that case, the most likely answer is that you just don’t have magic to push back - except that’s crazy, because everyone has magic to push back.”

“Unless it’s because I’m from another world…” I said, frowning. “Maybe… maybe it has something to do with my soul?”

“Well, your core is thought to exist on both a physical and metaphysical plane, sorta,” Bridgette replied. “A lot of people think that the unique gifts people are sometimes born with - like my wind powers - are the result of how a soul and body intermix…”

“Wait, really?” I asked. “The soul has an effect on your powers?” Was that why I hadn’t seen even a glimpse of Amelia’s future sight ability? But I could still tell if people were lying… Maybe… maybe my soul was more compatible with that trait, somehow? “...Wait. Before that… What’s a core?”

“We have to start with that?” Bridgette demanded. “Wait, does that mean you don’t even have cores where you’re from?”

“Considering I have no idea what you’re talking about… I wanna say no?”

“It’s where our mana is generated! Where it’s stored! In every sapient person, there’s a core.”

“A core…” I frowned. “Wait, do you mean like… a beast core?”

“That’s what they’re called when they’re found in monsters,” Bridgette replied.

“Yeah, but monsters are just animals that are able to cast magic, right? I wrote that they all develop a core near their hearts!”

“Pretty sure it’s the other way around, though?” Bridgette remarked. “In that they’re able to use magic because they form a core. Except most of them aren’t really good at using magic, so all that mana builds up inside them until they start mutating… kinda the opposite of what’s going on with you, miss no-magic.”

“Assuming you’re actually right about me not having magic…” I wasn’t so sure I bought that, though. My ability to tell when someone was lying was almost definitely fueled by magic, after all.

“Well, I guess you’ll be able to find out for sure during Core Carving class tomorrow,” Bridgette replied.

“Core Carving class?” I was starting to feel like a bit of a parrot, but I couldn’t help myself - I was learning so many new terms! 

“You know, where we learn how to most efficiently carve spells into our cores? I thought you said you wrote about this world - about us.”

“Well, yeah, but I didn’t exactly put a lot of thought into the magic system… or the classes…”

“Then what did you write about?” Bridgette asked.

“Mostly? Pauline’s struggles in a school where everyone was set against her, and her romance. And the occasional adventure where the prince had to save her from some dastardly plan.”

“So you stalked Pauline?” Bridgette asked. “Then how’d you end up stuffed into Amelia’s body?”

“You’d have to ask that demon… But what do you mean about the Core Carving class helping me?”

“Well, one of the tools we use for it is a Core Seer - an enchanted box of sorts that lets you see a representation of your core in physical space. That way, the teacher can help you figure out how to make the most efficient use of your space, and plan out what spells you want to have and where you want to fit them and all that… and more relevantly to you it also reads mana levels in the core.”

“So we’ll be able to see if I’m generating mana?”

“Yup!” Bridgette confirmed. “Now aren’t you glad the king’s sending you to school?”

~~~

Author'sNotes

Another chapter written on a sleepless night - hopefully it's good despite that? (Or maybe even because of it... sometimes it's easier to let the plot just flow when sleep deprived, after all. DX)

One more chapter and we'll be caught up with what's public (for this series.) Patreon has up to chapter 9 available for as little as $1 though!