For obvious reasons, Kazumi and I did not end up taking a tour of the other counties. It was, instead, a time for a lot of firsts for me, and I intended to take my time to try and grasp what this sudden change in my life, my relationship to the people around me, actually meant.

For the first time in my life, I had not one but two girlfriends. That one was, on its own, quite huge. In my life, I’d had partners before. A large part of the time, I’d dated people because they had, for some odd reason or another, fallen for me -- or an idealized version of me -- and I’d felt obligated to return the feeling. But no relationship had lasted for one reason or another, and I certainly had never felt like I’d had two people who thought I was good enough for them. Two girlfriends was wild. I couldn’t really wrap my head around it, but I was grateful all the same.

I spent as much time with both of them as I could, and it was probably the best time any of us had spent at Whitehallow. The first thing we did, of course, was tell Erza and Sally.

“Finally,” Sally exclaimed, as if she’d known all of us for years. Erza just burst out laughing. I didn’t even know what to make of that.

“How did this… happen?” Erza eventually asked, curious but, as always with an air of diplomacy and tact.

“They asked me,” I said, beaming with pride. And I couldn’t imagine myself ever not saying something like that with pride. Two of… no, the two most excellent people I knew, had asked me, me, to be their partner. Their girlfriend. I’d be mad not to take that seriously and enjoy it as much as I could.

“Really?” Erza said with that glint in her eye, and both Kazumi and Sabine blushed furiously as she turned her attention to them. She was smiling with more earnest pleasure than she often did. “That’s very… daring of them.”

“Did… did you think we’d be too scared?” Sabine said with some semblance of defiance. It was always an adventure, watching people try and stand up to Erza only for her to listen in rapt attention until you found the floor slowly dropping away from you and you were hanging in nothingness and she caught you with a gentle smile, knowing full well she could have dropped you then and there. She was a scary and powerful woman.

“Not at all, Sabine. Just that I thought you or Kazumi would’ve…” She looked at me and my heart skipped a beat. “capitulated sooner.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I merely expected one of… Someone to come forward sooner. I’m pleasantly surprised they’ve found each other, as well.” She smirked at them and I could tell that even her fainter smiles had the same effect on them as they did on me. Her gaze lingered on them for a moment. They responded like most people did when Erza looked at them for a while: they felt like someone could see their entire soul laid bare, and for some infuriating reason, the response was a playful smile and a look that implied a wink, but didn’t include one. Kazumi and Sabine practically melted, kept upright only by the fact that they were holding hands. “Have you… considered the size difference yet?”

“I…” Kazumi began, and then looked at me. “I can reach, but… uh…”

The kiss had been sweet, explosive even, but the simple fact that my head was almost twice as big as hers had made it a very careful thing indeed. It’s something we’d realized but not really talked about, as such. We all looked at each other a bit sheepishly.

“Surely there’s some magic that would allow you to change size, no?” Erza looked at us with incredulous amusement, as if this was something we should’ve come up with ourselves, and she probably wasn’t wrong.

“Well… there’s no way to change the body,” Sabine began.

“The soul resists,” Erza finished for her. “I know. But we’re not talking about a permanent change, are we? You just want to feel big. Or, for that matter, for Liz to feel, well, small.” She looked at both of us with a smile. “There has to be something?”

Sabine scratched her head, and went to studying. I trusted her to find something, and clearly, so did Erza. Her knowing smile implied she had more than a sneaking suspicion, anyway. Sabine and I also tried magic again, focusing more on what had worked before. Not much came of it, except that sometimes, when I was scared enough, I could throw up a kind of shield. I also tried to get some kind of shape-shifting spell working, but no such luck. Either I wasn’t able to, or I wasn’t going about it the right way. Not that I was very motivated. I was more than happy to spend as much time as possible with Kazumi wrapped around me as we watched the sunset, or Sabine in my arms as we fell asleep.

That’s why what happened next was so absolutely horrifying. Terrifying.

It had been a few months since Queen Anastasia had gone back to the capital of Wydonia. We hadn’t heard from her yet, but we simply assumed she’d taken her time getting back. She hadn’t.

A messenger arrived one afternoon. It was well into autumn now, and while the days were already getting shorter, Innshire was a warm county and we spent a lot of time in a nearby field having picnics together. It was a magical afternoon, the kind where the smells of autumn, that of fruit and vibrant life permeated the air, the sounds of crickets and bees made you wish that moment would never end, and the company of the people you love was the most important thing in the world.

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Until I was handed the letter.

“To Eliza, usurper of the Wydonian Territories,

“You have been found guilty of acts of hostility against the nation of Wydonia and its people.“You have been found guilty of attempting to subvert the government of Wydonia, and we do not recognize your rule over the territories.

“You have been found guilty of infecting the honorable and innocent Queen Anastasia and turned her away from the path of wisdom and righteousness. The responsibility of her enforced exile and isolation rests entirely on you, and you will pay this debt in full.

“As such, the council of regents and stewards of Wydonia see no other option but to reject your false peace offering, and to fully and unequivocally declare war on you and all who would follow you.

“May justice be swift,

The Council of Wydonia”

I froze. The others saw something was wrong, of course, and they hurried over. Before any of them could ask what was wrong, I handed Kazumi the letter, who read it out loud. I didn’t have the strength for it.

When she got to the end of it, I was crying. Everything we’d worked for was about to implode around us in the most horrific sense. Wydonia’s standing army was no more, they’d all been sent home, their swords-turned-plowshares no use to any soldier. All that was left was the Queen’s Escort. And, I supposed, Elena. I’d spent time sending letters back and forth to her, relaying wisdom I’d received from my old therapist, and, all things considered, she was becoming a more mellow person, if her correspondence was anything to go off of. But she was still the human equivalent of a nuclear deterrent.

“I have no idea what to do,” I cried, and both Kazumi and Sabine held me close. Erza, too, seemed perturbed. She clearly hadn’t expected this either. Sally sort of awkwardly flicked her tail. She’d become more invested in the world she was living in, sure, but to a certain degree, this was still foreign politics to her.

“It’s… certainly not an ideal situation,” Erza said. “In your position I’d, well, retreat, but that doesn’t seem like an option, if I’m honest.”

“How long do you think we have?” Sabine asked. “Do you think they’ll be knocking down the door? It’s been… months.”

Erza shook her head. “The Wydonian military is a massive beast, but it’s spread very thin. The presence of your escort during Queen Anastasia’s visit, I think, might be in our favour.”

I looked at her quizzically. Sabine nodded, and filled in the gaps.

“To a lot of people in Wydonia, to people in the capital, the north is a terrifying place full of monsters. If Queen Anastasia told her council what she saw, she most likely also relayed the fact that she saw over a dozen races, armed to the teeth in shining armour. They have to think your armies are still intact, and terrifying at that.”

“How does that help us?” I asked in despair. I didn’t see the point in delaying the inevitable. “Why not just surrender now? We’re just… playing for time to do… what?”

We sat there for a moment, trying to think our way out of all-out war while sitting on a blanket in a field. Suddenly, Sabine got that look of hope in her eyes, that look of hope that was so scary because it got you hoping too, and it terrified me.

“I wish,” she said with all the wrong intonation, “Daniel was here.”

“What?” Kazumi asked, mirroring my own sentiments.

“He’d know what to do. This is what he does. He’s already saved Queen Anastasia once, hasn’t he?”

I shrugged, shook my head. “That’s… true, but that doesn’t help us now. He’s not… with us anymore.”

Sabine turned to Sally.

“But what if he was?”

Sally sighed like someone who had to tell a child for the third time that their dog wasn’t going home. She had a look of frustrated pain. “I told you, Sabine. There’s nothing of him left in me. I’m not him.”

Sabine scratched her chin.

“That’s… true and not true.” She sat upright, getting more engaged, and I saw Erza lean forward with cautious interest. I didn’t share their optimism.

“That body was his once, right?”

“M-hm. What’s your point?”

“Well… I mean…” She looked a little sheepishly at the rest of us. “I’m a lich, right? I mean…”

Something really weird and probably highly unethical came to me, and I thought I figured out what she was saying.

“You’re going to try to… summon Daniel? From the dead?”

She made a face that was hard to read, but she nodded with a resoluteness I found hard to resist. The idea of necromancy, she’d told me once, wasn’t really forbidden. But it was considered abhorrent. It was said to taint your soul, which was why liches didn’t really mind doing so. Their soul was usually in a container. There was a risk to her. After all, her soul was in her body, even though there were some technical complications there. And neither of us knew just how much magic cared about technicalities. But if she was willing to risk it…

“Do you think you can just… bring him back? What about Sally?” I asked.

“Hey! Yeah!” Sally added, realizing what was actually being said.

“Well…” Sabine began, “we might have to figure that out as we go along? Daniel might not be able, or willing, to come back from the dead. He deserves his peace. But we can only try, right?”

An actual Hero to save the queen? That sounded about right. We agreed, and quickly packed to make the two-day ride back to my own castle. Though it still looked as oppressive and bleak as it had when I’d left it months ago, the surrounding landscape had changed massively. It was no longer muddy, rock-filled fields. It was thriving, and I was pleased to see that some new towns had even sprung up, mostly filled with Orc. It would take a long time for the reintegration to be completed, but it was good to see positive change. I just hoped it wasn’t all about to be undone.

We decided to try the summoning in one of the abandoned towers, above my personal chambers. That way, if something went wrong, the situation would be easy to contain. Sabine had been studying up on some of the more abhorrent and forbidden arcane arts, and when we got back, she quickly prepared the summoning circle. Sally was required, of course, but Sabine wanted to try this, first, with a drop of her blood and a lock of her hair, which was preferable to the alternative. I stood beside her, ready to shield anyone in case of potential… fallout.

Sabine spoke the words, a long dead, forgotten tongue that was all guttural noises, aggressive and hard. It was like listening to nails on a chalkboard but underwater, somehow. We were all deeply uncomfortable, but each word of Sabine’s seemed to send black and blue tendrils of energy directly from her mouth that swarmed over her face. It made her look truly terrifying as her lips slowly turned black and the strands of power flowed into her hands, which quickly looked frostbitten, until something discharged, and power was released into the circle. I didn’t even look at the magic, at first, but at Sabine, who, thankfully, looked like herself at first, if a bit tired.

That’s when I allowed myself to turn my attention to the hole in space that hung in front of me.

“What the fuck?” I said, as I saw what very clearly appeared to be a normal sofa, with two very normal people making out on it. As I spoke, they rolled off each other, completely startled. The first thing I noticed was the smaller figure, who looked a lot like Sally, and yet entirely different, with short hair and the beginnings of a stubble, and a slightly less rounded jaw.

The other person was possibly the most confronting I’d ever seen. It looked like me. Like I used to. And yet also… Not. Softer, perhaps. More feminine. No more stubble. Longer hair. But most definitely a face I’d spent decades avoiding in the mirror.

“I have a follow up question,” Sally said next to me, who was staring at the masculine version of herself that was scrambling not to fall out of the sofa, “which is also what the fuck.”