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Scarlet

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Laying on the soft bed, buried in a mountain of pillows, I try to smother my embarrassment. Did I always have a dick? Thinking back to when I woke up, I nod. Yeah, I for sure did, why didn’t I think anything of it? As I sit in silence, I start to calm. Well, why would I think about it, it's just how it was… Then why did I just get embarrassed?

It’s probably a reaction from before we lost our memories.

That makes sense, thanks. I pause, then sit up to check no one is in my room. After assuring myself there are no intruders, I call out, “Who said that?” Silence fills the large space.

It was me, moron.

I cover my face as I realize the voice is in my head. Who the hell are you?

My name is Coil, who the hell are you?

I’m Scarlet, why are you in my head, Coil?

Don’t you mean our head, princess?

Realization dawns on me. You’re the guy I turned into!

Well, one of them.

Whaaaaaaat. What do you mean, one of them? There’s more? I hear a chuckle reverb through my head, loudly.

Yeah, there’s a little twerp too. You exploded the clothes he liked.

Blush returning to my face, I try to not let him get to me. Those were children’s clothes?

Yep, although he’s barely a child. He seems like twelve or something.

A kid too, so I’m sharing my body with a man, and a little boy. I groan. Couldn’t I have just lost my memories in a strange place? Did I also have to be some kind of mix and match toy, too?

Our body, bub.

I grimace at the grating voice’s moronic comment. Since you know so much, Mr. Coil, where am I? Why am I in the house of a fat Count? Oh god, are we a concubine? Is he a pedophile? He took us in because we were a little boy, so he could do debaucherous things to the kid, didn’t he? God, I have to find a way out, that window looks like it’ll open.

As I’m attempting to shimmy the window open, Coil stops me.

Dude, he picked me and Zenith up in the woods and gave us a ride to town. Halfway here I suddenly became a child, so Zenith fessed up to the guy. He took a liking to us and brought us to his house to help us out. Chill, lady.

Pulling my leg back inside the window, I calm down. That’s good, this is the third floor anyways. The pillows bounce in the air as I hop back onto the bed. Well, I’m exhausted, after only an hour or two of being awake. Sleep time for this Miss Scarlet. Snuggling into the mound of puffy cloth, I drift off to sleep.

【〓〓〓〓】

The sunlight streaming through the window covers my face with warmth and stirs me from my dream. I sit up and brace for the usual pain, but none comes. Is it because it's still me? Basking in the warm sun, I let myself relax a bit. I haven't had a chance to really relax until now. For some reason the light filtering through the curtains energizes me. I stand up and take a look around the unfamiliar room. Before I get anywhere, though, I hear a knock on the door.

“Miss, there are clothes in the dresser. Please wear whatever you want, a maid can help you if you need it," a maid calls from outside the door.

Nah, I don’t want a repeat of yesterday, I can dress myself. I walk over to the door before replying, “Thanks, but I don’t need any help."

“Of course, miss, please call a maid when you’re ready for breakfast." Her footsteps echo down the hall away from my door. I turn to the dresser. Upon being opened, the dresser reveals to me its many secrets, which are mostly dresses. Perusing the choices, I notice most of the options are bright with flowery embroidery on them. I curl my face in disgust and move all of those out of the way. Remaining are a few dresses of mostly solid colors, with flowy designs. I toss most of them aside before I find a nice light green one that’s long enough to cover my tall frame. I’m shocked there’s even a dress in amazon size. Giggling, I attempt to put the dress on. I reach behind me and desperately try to tie the back up. My efforts are in vain and I groan in frustration. Suddenly, I feel a small feathery touch on my back. I freeze, freaked out by the sudden sensation. The light brushing continues, until I feel the back of my dress fasten. Spinning around, I see the culprit… no one. The only object behind me is the large wooden dresser. I stare, confused about what just happened, and notice small branches growing out of the door of the dresser. What the hell, man, ghost hands and growing dressers. I rush to the door, wanting out of the haunted room as quickly as possible.

Following the maid in front of me, I reach the doors to the dining hall I woke up in yesterday. Before I even open the doors, I clearly hear a man’s laugh. I push through into the room, bracing myself for stares. Zenith flicks her eyes to look at me, before returning to looking at the Count. The Count himself looks up from his conversation with Zenith.

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“Ah! Miss Scarlet! Come, sit, eat." He motions to the space to his left, where a plate of food is already set. I thank him and sit, mouth watering at the food in front of me. Precariously fit onto a plate much too small for it is a mound of some kind of reddish meat. Sharing the lacking space is a dark loaf of bread. The smell coming off the strained porcelain is almost divine. Glancing up at my two breakfast companions, I make sure they are distracted by their conversation. Satisfied they are, I shovel the food into my mouth, greedily gulping it down.

【〓〓〓〓】

Stomach full, I grin widely and look at the Count, who’s still talking with Zenith. I try to catch his attention. “Sir?”

Turning his gaze towards me, the Count gives me a warm look. “Miss Scarlet! I’m glad I can finally speak to you!” He reaches his hand over and pats the top of mine like an elderly relative. “I’ve spoken with your brothers, but haven’t gotten to speak to you yet, yes?” I nod in confirmation before he continues, “I am Count Cleave Holdings, my domain is the county we’re currently in. My home here is in the capital of Wornsbirth. Does that answer your immediate questions?” He gives me a smile accompanied by a sharp gaze. Stunned by his barrage of information, I somehow manage to nod.

He claps his hands, then speaks in a serious tone. “Now, down to brass tacks, kiddos. What are your plans from here?” He looks between me and Zenith, who I lock eyes with. We both shrug at the Count. The Count furrows his brows and grunts. “Well, I’m not sure what to do either, you all can’t do much without some sort of scan freaking out. My influence isn’t enough to get around the scans anymore. I could hire you but you’d still need to be registered." He rubs his chin as he looks between me and Zenith. “Hey… you kids look a bit similar, yeah?” His frustrated face starts to twist into a sneaky grin. “Almost like siblings, you two." Zenith and I share a puzzled look. What is he on about? Zenith looks nothing like me.

I have to agree with you there.

Coil’s words make me jump a bit in my seat, which has been pruned. Luckily no one noticed my little dance of fear… probably. My attention is yanked back to the Count when he loudly snaps his fingers.

“I got it!” His face is practically glowing. “Kids, I may be a Count, but I used to be a Duke. Messy things happened, and as punishment I got lowered to Count. One of the reasons I was punished was because I refused to have any kids. So why don’t you both be my kids?” Holding out his arms, almost as if he was saying ta-da, the Count looks overjoyed.

My eyes dart to Zenith, curious about their opinion, but I only get a blank stare in return. Turning back to the Count, I try to be delicate. “Well, maybe? We obviously aren’t nobles, so we can’t do dances or anything. We would probably embarrass you at any noble get-togethers."

Laughter booms out of the Count as he replies, “What do you mean, get-togethers? The yearly one? That happened not long ago so you have much time." Chuckling, he continues, “Did you think we went town to town, having parties with each other, girl? Leaving the boundary is putting your life on the line, travelbeast or no. Nobles won’t risk their necks to just go to some party." He pauses, a frown flickering on his face. “Well… unless it’s the king’s." His smile returns as he looks at us again. “If you two were my children, I could easily have your scans marked secret, so only the king, I, and yourselves could look at it. I can work with the king, so don’t worry about that." His eyes unfocus a bit as he starts thinking to himself. “With your files sealed, the guild wouldn’t ask for any scan information to register you. They’d go off whatever I say, as long as it’s signed by the king that is… It would be messy, but easier than if I just hired them."

Zenith looks at me, clearly amused at the man getting distracted. Trying to hold back laughter, I grab the Count’s attention.“So we wouldn’t be restricted by nobility, sir?” I probe, trying to pull him out of his little world. “How would you explain suddenly having three kids?”

Eventually he looks up.“Well, you’d have a few responsibilities as a noble, like the royal rager. One of you would also have to be my heir… As for how I’d explain you two, that’s the easy part. I’ll just say that you are me and my late wife’s children… That I had hid you away to save you from politics. I’ll claim that I brought you into the light so that I’d have an heir." He smiles wryly. “If anyone tries to object, I’ll just blow them off. I’ve already been punished, so they’d hesitate to do it again." As he speaks, I’m slowly but surely won over by this idea. “I’ll brush off your skin color saying you’re blessed or some such nonsense, they can’t prove that wrong." He looks between the two of us. “So, how about it?”

Looking over at Zenith’s faces, I see them nod at me. So now it's on me to decide. He’s nice, lovable, and willing to help us out. We have no other allies and not much knowledge on how things work.

I’d go for it, sis, this is an opportunity we can’t afford to miss.

Nodding, I look Count Holdings in the eyes. “I like the plan, what do we have to do?”

He loudly claps once and rubs his hands together, clearly ecstatic. “We have much to do, kiddos. First things first, we need a fake name for one half of Zenith, I’ll claim them as two children. Next is how we’ll deal with you guys, Scarlet. I think I’d rather have Scarlet as my heir, it would be odd to put my younger child in that seat when they have a twin. That gives other problems, though, what do we do about your swapping, who will we claim the other kiddos are? On top of that, what if you’re needed as a countess but are currently eleven?” His eyes meet mine.

What if we claim that our body is unstable and shifts at random, but don’t mention the separate people? I find myself nodding at Coil’s idea, which causes a look of confusion to cross Cleave’s face.

“We could say that our body shifts, and leave out the separate people thing."

The Count scowls, but slowly nods. “That could work, but we’d need to play it up. People seeing it as a weakness would be my biggest concern. However, if you manage to convince people it could be a benefit, that wouldn’t be an issue." His thoughtful frown turns to a grin. “Not bad, girl!”

I feel guilty, so I decide to fess up. “It was actually Coil’s idea…” The two give me questioning looks, so I explain, “Coil can talk to me for some reason, I hear him in my head."

The Count barks out a laugh. “Well, that’ll make it easier to pretend to be the same person, now won’t it!” Turning to Zenith, his eyes sharpen. “Now, what will be your other name, kid?”

Zenith’s eyes widen, before narrowing to a scowl. Silence fills the hall for a few moments, until they answer, “Nadir, I’ll call the male body Nadir in public." With another round of scowling, Zenith adds, “Please call me Zenith when not in public though, I don’t like acting."

I nod and check to see the Count’s response, relieved to find him in agreement.

“Now that that’s settled, I’m going to teach you both the basics. Usually I’d have someone tutor you, but it would be strange for teenage children of a Count to not know even basic things about the world.” Holdings reaches under the table like he did the night before, and soon a maid comes in. I glance over to see if it’s Emma, but it’s not. The maid is short and somewhat fat, her face is bright, and she is moving very hurriedly. “Ira, bring me the papers from my desk, in the yellow folder." She nods before quickly leaving, as if a monster was chasing her out.

Around ten minutes later, Count Holdings has a small device, along with papers, set on the table. The scattered papers seem to cover many topics, some having graphs while others have isometric diagrams of buildings. The Count shuffles the papers around, apparently trying to give them some sense of order, before giving up. Shaking his head, he looks between me and Zenith.

“Alright! Class time, kiddos!”