I hadn’t left the castle much in the past week. I’d told myself there had been too much to do -- I’d basically been taking classes from both Kazumi and Sabine, about both the world I’d found myself in and its magic -- but a large part of it was simply my reluctance to leave the safety of the citadel. In the days that followed my arrival, I’d wandered the halls and scared the daylights out of the many servants that worked tirelessly to keep the place in top shape. After a while, I spoke to Kazumi about it, who ended up having a talk with the castle staff to reassure them that Queen Eliza was not going to torture them for laying eyes upon her terrible visage. That was something. Most of them got used to my apologies when I bumped into them in the hall, which I liked to think took the edge off.

But now I was going to not only leave the castle -- which had a name. It had to have a name. I was sure of it, but nobody seemed to know -- but the region I was in, to travel southwest to Innshire. It was a day of many firsts. And the first of the firsts was to finally visit Erza in her new lodgings in the tower. The stairs were long and winding, and I was once again grateful for this body’s physique, because I wasn’t even winded after what felt like ten minutes of ascent. An interesting detail I noted was that most stairs had wooden half-stairs added to them at the sides, to allow people who weren’t as vertically gifted as I was the option to climb the stairs reasonably. I wondered who’d had those ordered and crafted, though I had a sneaking suspicion Kazumi was involved somehow. I arrived at the top of the stairs and gingerly knocked on the door.

“Come in, Queen Eliza,” the voice came from the other side. I pushed the door open, into a large circular room. It didn’t quite look like I’d expected it to. Artificers, I remembered, were basically a combination of wizard and engineer, which, knowing the engineers back home, had filled my head with images of magical glowing robots, half-built not-quite-computers and floating crystals that were prone to exploding. But the room was immaculate, which did fit Erza’s calm demeanour. There were several desks set up. This looked more like a modern-day laboratory, with scientific instruments organized neatly on each table. Subjects of study were laid out in beautiful geometric patterns. And every inch of wall was covered in bookcases, half of which were full. The only thing about the room one could call messy was the neat stacks of books in front of the cases, which I guessed were being put away according to some arcane classification system. That or alphabetically.

Erza was sitting on a small stool next to one such pile, a large tome she’d been thumbing through in her hands. She was as tall as I remembered her, her green skin lit by several magical-looking chandeliers hanging from the rafters. When I walked in she closed it carefully and put it on a shelf in between two identical-looking books, and walked over to me. She once again seemed to be the only person not intimidated by my height, and looked at me from head to toe, and shot my outfit an appreciative smile. I was trying not to feel judged and looked at, and I was grateful for my purple skin that hopefully hid my blushing cheeks.

“I see you’ve figured out how to use magic,” she said, and turned to a nearby table, leaving me standing there dumbfounded.

“What… What do you mean?” I stammered. The thought of being found out already was terrifying already, but Erza seemed so calm and confident it was hard to get too upset.

Erza sat down on the chair by the closest table, and looked through a giant spyglass on a metal arm. “You’re not the original Queen Eliza. That’s obvious.”

I just stammered more as I approached her, but Erza turned to me, her hands folded in her lap. This close, I could see the subtle carvings on her small tusks, and I wondered absent-mindedly what that felt like. She didn’t wear a lot of accessories, and her clothing was very functional, including a lot of pockets and pouches. I did spy a few small rings through her ears, one of which had a small stone in it, and it was interesting to see a small detail like that. She hadn’t struck me as the kind of person who would beautify herself like that. But then again, I wasn’t one to throw stones in the looks-versus-personality department.

“Calm down, Queen Eliza, your secret is safe with me.” For a second I was relieved, but then I squinted at her. This felt like it was too easy. I’d seen situations like this in movies enough to know that this was where threats or blackmail started to happen. She seemed to read my expression easily and stuck out a hand. “I don’t want anything from you. Or rather…” She paused and chewed on her lip. “You know why I’m here, Queen Eliza. My people have already given a lot of ground. We’d much rather have the option of living outside of the Spines.”

The mountains to the north were a ridge that spanned a large part of the continent, and apparently the Orc had been pushed back, refused access to many Wydonian settlements, until they’d retreated in an exodus to the old tunnels and halls in the Spines.

“I was sent here to advise the Queen and hopefully restrain her more… destructive tendencies. You have to understand that she was our best hope at avoiding the complete annihilation of our people. We knew she’d use us to her ends, but she seemed to be the lesser of two evils.”

I just nodded. There wasn’t much I could say.

“Besides,” she added with a hint of something more sinister, “Queen Eliza would not have been able to turn on us, on me, without suffering significant losses.”

The barely-veiled threat to someone who wasn’t even in the room didn’t fail to make me uncomfortable. I didn’t doubt for a second that she had the magical equivalent of a nuclear weapon somewhere on her person.

“Whoever you are, you seem to not be… You’re not the Demon Dragon Queen. You don’t look like you’re going to fire and brimstone towns you come across.” I agreed, but Erza seemed like she wasn’t finished talking and I wasn’t going to interrupt. So far she wasn’t making huge demands.

“I wondered, for a moment, if it was best to keep quiet about my suspicions, but after last week’s meeting, I believe it is best if we work together. I have a question, however.”

That she didn’t want to blackmail me was a huge relief, but there was a niggling anxiety. What if she didn’t like the answers I gave?

“I’m not going to ask who you are. You are not Queen Eliza and so far, you seem to have no idea what you’re doing, so I doubt you have nefarious plans. So I have to ask: what are your intentions? Short term and long term. You don’t seem like you’re from here, yet you’re invested in all of the world’s peoples? That makes no sense to me. So, ‘Queen Eliza’, what do you want?”

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That was an interesting question, one I hadn’t really been asked before. I took a moment. The woman had an intense gaze, one that seemed to be able to look inside my head and read me like a book, a strength to her I couldn’t remember ever having seen before, in this world or the last. But I wasn’t going to tell her she was a character in a video game. That would raise more questions than it answered. Vague answers, then, perhaps, might create a story mystical enough to be believable.

“I… know some things about the future,” I began, carefully. That was true. The original plot of the expansion to the game was obvious, though I hadn’t played it. Hero fights bad guy, loses. Hero fights bad guy’s lieutenants, fights bad guy again, wins, cheers, trumpets, a new achievement for the pile. “Queen Eliza doesn’t have long to live. Not the way she was acting. The Hero of Eferton was going to slay her… I don’t know how long from now. But not long.”

Erza nodded. She seemed to soak up information. Something about the way she looked at me while I spoke was unnerving. Like she was actually listening, instead of waiting for her turn to talk. People didn’t usually do that.

“I’ve… spent a lot of time here. As an outsider. A… long time ago. There’s injustices here I didn’t… I couldn’t see before.” That was also true. Though that was largely because, before the release of the downloadable content, there had been no injustices. I was trying to find the right words slowly and carefully. “I didn’t choose to be here and now, but I feel like… Queen Eliza was in a position to do a lot of good. And I’m going to try to do it, I think.”

Erza nodded again, a small smile played around her tusks.

“I hope what you’re saying is true, then.” She stood up. “Will you keep going by Queen Eliza?”

I nodded. “My friends can call me Liz,” I added after a short second. Erza smiled.

“I hope to count myself among them soon then, Queen Eliza.” I couldn’t tell if she winked at me or not. The glint in her eyes had the energy of a wink. A sort of inherent winkitude. It was hard not to smile back at her.

“I’m going to Innshire later today, Erza. Do you want to come with? I think someone like you could be good to have around.”

“Gladly, your majesty.” Something about the way she pronounced my title, the audible lack of capitalization, made me smile.

“Very good. I’ll come get you when we’re ready.”

“You can always send someone, Queen Eliza. Queens don’t have to do all their errands themselves,” Erza said playfully. “People will expect you to delegate some responsibility, after all.”

“I… yes. Of course. Yes.” I awkwardly made my way back to the door. “Let me know if there’s anything you need, Erza!” I managed as I went outside and closed the door behind me. Erza made me uncomfortable. I constantly felt like I’d been caught with my hand in the cookie jar. On my way through the castle, I bumped into Kazumi, and she was happy to accompany me to Sabine’s chambers. The undead mage had been assigned a room not too far from my own, but far enough to be appropriate for a new resident to the castle. Its seemingly endless corridors seemed to never lack in new, empty rooms.

We knocked on her door. Kazumi looked at me for a half second. I wondered if she’d been half expecting me to barge in without waiting for a response, but I liked to think she knew I wasn’t like that by now. After a second, the door swung open with a soft blue glow. Sabine’s voice beckoned us from inside the room. As we walked in, Kazumi and I both froze when we saw her. Sabine looked entirely different. She’d actually managed to reclaim some of her humanity from the place she’d died. There had been a whole ritual and Kazumi and I had ordered the throne room off-limits while she was busy. In the end, she’d regained her senses of touch, taste and smell, though she hadn’t lost her grey skin colour or the fact that she was cold to the touch. She breathed, occasionally, but that was mostly out of habit, and her now-red eyes were dim, as if the colour had been drained out of her irises. But she had more life to her, as if she was more present.

Her dirty blonde hair, which had been up in a bun so messy I’d mistaken it for short hair, now cascaded down her back. Instead of her functional mage’s robes, she wore a dress I recognized immediately. It was the outfit you unlocked for her when you finished the main game’s romance path. It was a gorgeous design, the colour of the sea, with a plunging neckline and beautiful gold trimmings. It looked much better in person. She looked like… I didn’t have the words. My brain served up terms like ‘emerald’ and ‘gem’ and ‘jewel’ but none of them seemed adequate or entirely accurate. I looked at Kazumi. Her jaw hung open and I was grateful I wasn’t the only one completely taken aback.

“How… How do I look?” Sabine asked shyly. Someone as ravishing as her, in my opinion, had no business being that insecure, but I could relate to someone not liking their reflection despite compliments from other people.

Kazumi was the first to speak. “You look like… a royal magician, Sabine. I… wow.”

“Wow,” I agreed. I was trying to come up with something more substantive. “Wow.” I could do better than that. I was sure of it. Then something popped into my head.

“You're so beautiful it would be painful to look at if your presence wasn't such a balm for the soul.”

Kazumi and Sabine both turned to me like I’d grown a couple of extra heads. Kazumi’s eyes were huge and Sabine was blushing furiously. I was trying to remember where I’d heard this before when Sabine sat down on her chair, clearly emotional, and I suddenly considered the possibility that she might have heard that line before, word for word. Shit.

“Are… are you okay?” I asked, and awkwardly approached her.

She just nodded and looked at me. Her eyes were watery, and she was clearly trying to keep from crying. “I’m okay, Eliza. Thank you for asking.”

“Why… why are…”

“Nobody’s ever said something like that to me. I just… you’re very sweet.”

I cocked my head and sat on my knees next to her. “I thought… the Hero of Eferton…”

She shook her head. “Daniel and I… were very close. But in the end he didn’t reciprocate my feelings. I just… thank you. I haven’t felt pretty in a very long time.”

I felt myself beginning to cry. The Hero of Eferton in this world, Daniel, hadn’t even romanced her? What a coward. I wanted to slap some sense into him, but I realized after a second that going after the Hero was exactly the kind of thing that had gotten the original Queen into trouble in the first place. Sabine seemed to understand that I was upset -- the crying gave it away -- and she wrapped her arms around my neck. Her skin was cold and pleasant to the touch. After a second, Kazumi moved up closer and put a hand on my back. I looked up, and Sabine grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her in close.

“And thank you too, Kazumi.”

Kazumi just made a small squeaking sound. After a moment of bliss, where the three of us just existed in this little bubble and the rest of the world didn’t, we pulled away. I was trying to realign my thoughts.

“I was… we were… I was wondering if you’d like to join us today. Traveling to Innshire.”

Sabine smiled. “I mean, yes, Eliza. I thought that was the plan, for me to take over responsibility for the region. I’d be hard-pressed to do so without ever visiting it. But yes, I’ll happily come with you, of course. Let me just get changed.”

“You’re… You’re not wearing that?”

She shook her head.

“I’d like to keep this one for… you know… special occasions.”

I nodded. I understood, of course. Royal meetings and such. The dress was too special to ruin on a trip that could last days.

“When do we leave?” she asked.

Kazumi piped up. “We can leave in just a few hours. We need to get the carriages outfitted for a four-day return journey. The horses still need to be fed, I believe, but I haven’t gotten a chance to meet with the stable master yet.”

“Hold on,” I said, vibrating with excitement. “I have horses?!”

Before either of them could answer, I’d barreled out the door, looking for the nearest staircase that might take me down to the stables.