Baudouin had been sure he knew how the discussion at dinner was going to go after the meeting had concluded earlier. He had internally sighed when they had brought out the young queen's favourite food, explicitly telling her they had requested it just for her. It was a blatant attempt at swinging her opinion towards agreeing with them with as little trouble as possible. Yet, it would work to do just that nonetheless.

And while he did think well of the girl before this, he had expected her to just agree with them outright. She was just too young and innocent for him to expect her to realize the consequences of such a decision. In the world where she did disagree with them, it’d either end with Hugues’ managing to convince the girl it was for the best or he’d get Bishop Érrard, technical Castle Chaplain when it suited him to actually act in his capacity as one, to agree with them later on so they could overrule the original decision.

So he hadn’t had much hope for Camille’s service to last much longer. Aimery’s grudge against her was something well known throughout and he had no doubt the moment he could command her with impunity without her authority as the head chambermaid to shield her, she wouldn’t be lasting much longer despite how devoted the stern woman was.

Life at the castle would just be that much worse with her loss. Not that he had too much right to complain about it when, if he really wanted to, he could force the issue and keep them from enacting their punishment. She just wasn’t worth the nightmare that’d come about if they both ended up leaving and he had to try to figure out suitable replacements for them.

Even if Aimery was a pain to handle with his constant grudges.

And then his expectations for what she was capable of had been nearly as shattered as they’d been when Jean had told them he was to marry into the Kingdom of Jerusalem and now needed to go visit the Pope before he made the journey there. It wasn’t of nearly the same scale that day was, but it had caught him off-guard nonetheless.

He couldn’t help but wonder while he stared at Yolanda if the girl would reveal any other unexpected facets of her young mind during dinner.

The girl herself was surreptitiously enjoying the last of her rabbit stew before it began to grow too cold, like she hadn’t just maneuvered around the punishment Aimery and Hugues had wanted to give Camille in a way that turned their own words against them and prevented them from trying to get around it. He hadn’t even realized just how much fault laid on those two as well until the girl had pointed it out.

Baudouin had always thought Jean had spoiled the girl too much, spending small fortunes on luxuries for her. Apparently, he just hadn’t glimpsed what her father had seen within her until today. The gleaming intelligence and sharpness behind her gray eyes was something he had occasionally seen before from her when she was getting particularly wanting about something, but in that discussion he had recognized the same look there he had seen in Jean’s eyes when he came up with some astonishing plan beyond that.

A glint of determination.

Why she hadn’t shown it before, he didn’t know. She had always seemed to be an overly curious girl when he had seen her and had spent years without a personal attendant. Had she been acting like it this entire time to have less responsibilities placed upon her? But that didn’t line up at all with how she spent so long without a personal attendant, unless she hadn’t wanted one until now and used their disservice to her advantage?

Or maybe it was somehow the sickness that nearly killed her that had brought it out towards the forefront. The grim visage of death did have a way of revealing the very core of a person. Children like her shouldn’t have to confront it of course, but death reached for all equally. He knew that well.

Whatever the reason, it was a shame she wasn’t a boy. He’d have loved to have borne witness to the rise of an exceptional king that Jean would have raised them as. He’d still keep a closer eye on her though, that sort of brilliance seldom led towards mundane lives.

All he had to do was look towards Jean for proof of how true that thought was.

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Blissfully, after the events at dinner, nothing else truly notable happened. It was a nice salve to my exhausted mind being able to quietly go through the motions of Isabella’s life for the rest of the day. Being just occupied enough that my mind never strayed towards the more uncomfortable thoughts that hounded me in moments of inaction.

There was still a lot I had to get done if I wanted to be able to subvert the fate that’d be coming towards me, but I’d done more than enough for today.

I’d ensured that I’d be getting a reader tutor sometime in the near future, courtesy of the Seneschal’s own pockets, and could begin to work at the supposedly simple first task of becoming literate in my new language. I’d figured out some of the strangeness that had come with me here and revealed the duplicity of Isabella’s supposed personal attendants while setting up my new one, hopefully being that girl around my own age instead of someone I had no clue about. And I’d even managed to hold my own in medieval castle politics, successfully not letting the Seneschal depose Camille over a grudge and the Castle Steward do the same for whatever his reason was.

Said woman outwardly didn’t act like anything was different around me, but I did notice her glancing at me with an unreadable expression from time to time when she thought I wasn’t looking while she temporarily took the role of my personal attendant. Normally it wouldn’t be what she’d do, but for some reason, the Castle Steward wasn’t feeling particularly enthused about officially deciding who would be taking that position for me right now.

Really, his reaction was quite tame when compared to how the Seneschal was taking their scheme falling through. From the servants that occasionally came by to report to Camille while she was by my side, apparently he had been taking out his ire on anybody coming to get supplies from the storeroom and nobody, if they could help it, wanted to deal with him right now.

I wondered, not for the first time, how the man had even gotten the job.

However, the light busyness I had managed to maintain throughout the rest of the day could only go on for so long. And after supper in the great hall, essentially a light modern day dinner instead of the midday one that happened now, I was left alone in my room once more. Camille having excused herself after supper to finish up the rest of her duties for the day and assuring me that she’d either be back tomorrow to continue temporarily serving as my attendant, or that the Castle Steward Hughes would get off his ass and organize the schedule so someone else could officially fill the role.

Not in those words exactly of course, for all her abrasiveness the stern woman seemed incapable of swearing around me, but I got the gist of what she actually meant.

After reviewing the notification I’d gotten earlier and confirming that the Seneschal was indeed an angry man, I was out of things to do for today. I was left with a silence only broken by my own thoughts and the crackling of a fire that Camille had set-up within the chamber’s fireplace in anticipation of the chill of a February night. Or a ‘Februarius’ night going by the calendar of the time that Isabella remembered, the Julian calendar.

What were the actual differences between the Julian calendar and the modern day calendar that probably had a name I never bothered to remember? I couldn’t say because I had no idea what the difference really was. Surprisingly, this wasn’t because Isabella didn’t know.

Her natural curiosity had served her well in pushing her knowledge of numbers and the dates of the different months, having learned purely from those questions and paying attention to when the date was announced at breakfast in the great hall every morning, with today being the seventh of Februarius.

No, it was just when I compared the differences between the Julian calendar and the modern day calendar, I couldn’t find a single difference that wasn’t the month's names. How that made sense, I didn’t know.

And now I was ranting within my own head now about calendars I didn’t understand in an effort to avoid giving my thoughts too deep a chance to delve into the details of what this situation had taken from me. I sighed while I sat on the far too comfy feather bed, letting my too small head fall into my too soft hands.

It was so much easier to ignore all this when I could focus on other details. To act in spite of it all because to acknowledge it in the moment would just bring trouble down on me.

Now? Now I had to confront it since there was nothing left to distract my mind. Sure I could continue to try and ignore it like I had been doing all day, but now that it had taken root in my head there was little I could do to shake the thoughts.

Maybe I was looking at this the wrong way though. If I could reframe the situation in my head, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

For one, I had a once in a lifetime opportunity to experience medieval history from a firsthand perspective. I’m sure to some people, I was living the absolute dream.

I was also young again, having regressed a full eighteen years in age. I mean sure, I probably wouldn’t live eighteen years longer than I would’ve before since healthcare wasn’t exactly at its best right now, but I’d get the unique benefit of living through my youth twice over and not having to deal with the woes of an aging body for longer than normal.

Already, the annoying crick in my neck that had become a constant companion over the past few years was nowhere to be found.

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There were also some wholly unique benefits to now being in Isabella’s body. For example, I could see better than I ever could with contacts without any of the issues contacts came with. That in itself was a major win. And the severe burn scar that had once wrapped around my midsection was absolutely nowhere to be seen alongside its accompanying pains I hadn’t even realized I was still experiencing, instead replaced by the smooth skin of Isabella.

Being able to truly confirm that different people experienced sensations in different ways was a weird benefit, but the tiny discrepancies in the way things felt between my life in the modern era and now weren’t hard to spot.

Plus I even got my very own character sheet, complete with some of the benefits you’d expect from RPG’s like the one Boon I had. Did the traits have far greater of an effect on my bearing than I could ever be comfortable with while the Attributes themselves were frustratingly vague in how to progress them other than to just live your life and maybe they’ll go up? For sure, but being able to see something like that was still incredibly useful.

Finally, nobody could ever say I didn’t know how it felt to live on either side of the gender spectrum anymore. Or well, they could and they’d still be right since I hadn’t experienced female puberty yet and hadn’t even gone a full day yet like this, though it was only a matter of time until it all came about and I could easily refute them.

It was around there my attempt at thinking of these changes positively began to fall through and I felt a wetness seem to seep from around my eyes and on my hands. Isabella’s hands, not mine, I reminded myself.

That was the most terrifying part of this situation to me. So much of this should’ve felt so wrong. This wasn’t my body. Her memories weren’t my memories. And I was most assuredly not a girl and had never thought about being one before outside of jokes.

Yet, when it came down to it, none of it felt physically wrong. I could move around with the same ease she did without having needed a single moment to adapt being half the size I was as Derrick. Not a single one of her memories felt truly out of place, all of them feeling like they were my own despite how I knew I hadn’t personally lived through them. And if anything, it felt weird to think about how I had been a man when that obviously wasn’t right when it felt so much more comfortable to be a girl.

The resistances to those aspects of my new life all came from within my own head. And it could all be so much easier if I just… let go of them and accepted them as my new normal.

Hell, it felt natural to pay attention to people when they called me Yolanda, like that was my true name and not Derrick or Isabella as I’d stubbornly insisted on calling the girl instead because it was what I knew her by before this.

After all, reality was all in the eye of the beholder.

I couldn’t just let go of everything though. I wouldn’t. Yet, people changed with time and I would be no exception. It was human nature to adapt to new circumstances when they arose. Maybe one day my mind would decide to accept it all and who I had been would just become experiences unique to me.

To an extent, that would be the case tonight. I knew I couldn’t keep going with this constantly tearing at me in moments where I didn’t have something to focus on to keep it at bay. Especially after denying myself the opportunity to easily rid myself of this with the Boons I’d been offered because I was just rational enough to realize their consequences would be too much to handle. So something would have to give if I didn’t want to break at some point down the line when I couldn’t afford to.

But I wouldn’t lose myself. I’d hold onto it as much as I could, even if I let myself begin to change. And I certainly wouldn’t forget where I came from and all that I’d lost while appreciating what I’d gained.

So it was with that thought that I let the tears within my eyes that had begun to build up flow freely. That I began to let myself grieve for my old life.

I grieved for the family and friends I’d never see again. I grieved for a life I fought so hard to make work despite its difficulties being taken from me without a choice in the matter. And I grieved for all the dreams of a man named Derrick that would never come to fruition.

I wasn’t sure how long I spent just crying and letting out all the pent up emotions within me. Somehow, at some point, I had ended up clutching tight a doll I recognized to be one that Isabella’s father had given to her the day before he left for the crusades and with my face smooshed into a damp pillow.

Frankly, I still felt like shit. But I did feel a little bit better about everything after crying my eyes out. I wiped the remnants of tears from my eye with a forearm. Hopefully nobody had actually heard me.

Sitting up, I thought for a moment about how I would handle finishing the first step of what I had decided to do. Just like many a major decision in my life though where I was in a position to at least take a bit longer to make it, I procrastinated bringing that first step to a close for a little while longer.

Instead, I stood up and walked towards the small slit that made up the chamber’s window and gazed out of it.

The night was still young. The guards I had seen practicing in the training grounds earlier today were nowhere to be seen anymore and only a few sections of the castle and the patrolling guards were lit up by lanterns like fireflies in the night.

There were no cars racing through the darkness to finish some late night business and ensuring the constant roar of their engines pierced through the gentle silence, some much more obnoxiously loud than others. Instead it was replaced by the calls of various nocturnal animals. Occasionally it was punctuated instead by the sound of a particularly loud conversation from the patrolling guards below, not that I understood what was being said at this distance.

It was far more peaceful than a night in the city had ever been.

My gaze turned skyward after that to find a clear moon that had begun to rise into the sky surrounded by glittering stars that shone clearly in the night without even a hint of the light pollution I knew had been affecting the sight within the city. I couldn’t name a single constellation I saw in the night sky and yet, it was still a breathtaking sight.

For a long while I simply stared into a night sky I had never gotten the chance to appreciate before now. It was no wonder that astronomy had been so popular in the past with ethereal sights like this that nobody had a singular explanation for what they were.

I wondered how an astronomer of the time would take it if I told them that the Sun and the stars were one and the same, being giant balls of fire constantly combusting that we could see just with the Sun being a lot closer and that the Moon was just a giant rock floating around us.

Or maybe they’d surprise me and already have theories semi-close to that like the people here had with how seriously they had taken cleanliness.

I wondered just how much my modern knowledge would actually be something that the people of now knew about. Certainly the tales of what technology would become at best imaginative futures to them, but there could be quite a bit more they did have at least a basic understanding of.

Really, how did the perception that the people of the past were stupid come about? Just because they didn’t know some things and were a completely different culture when you got into it was no reason to think like that. I had seen plenty of proof of just how people in this day and age were just like modern day people. And yet until today, I had held that same line of thinking to some extent.

I lightly laughed to myself, what a change in perspective could do in such a short time. Just as I made to leave the window though, a glimpse of an unusual light in the sky pulled my attention right back.

It took me a second before I realized what I was looking at. A shooting star, a meteorite falling burning up in the atmosphere as it fell to the Earth.

It was a bright streak within the sky that made its presence unmistakable within the sky, lasting for an astonishingly long time. I was far from the only one to spot it judging by how the various moving lights I knew were guards carrying lanterns converged together.

What were the chances that the first night I found myself here I’d see a shooting star like that I didn’t know, but I watched it nonetheless until the brilliant streak finally dissipated into the night sky, like it was never there in the first place.

I didn’t make a wish when I saw it. Wishes were desires for impossible things that wouldn’t happen in the first place. Flights of fancy for your dreams. You wished for what you wanted but could never attain. Not for things you hoped you could make reality.

Changing Isabella’s fate was the latter. Going back to my life as Derrick and not having to deal with everything here was the former, but still, I didn’t wish for it on the off chance I could make it truth again one day.

However, I did feel my inhibitions at closing that first step fade away after the sight. And so, I took the chance to finish it. I wasn’t under any illusion that this would magically change the way I thought without effort on my end, or that it would solve all the problems plaguing my mind. But it would be a start to properly adapting to this new life of mine.

I took a deep breath before I began to softly speak to myself, not in Isabella’s voice, but in my voice. “Once, my name was Derrick Johansen. I lived a good life and made the best of it as him. But he is gone now. Now, I am…”

For a moment I hesitated, part of me still unwilling to take that last step. I sympathized with that part quite a bit. But I hadn’t managed to make something of myself as Derrick without taking steps like this before. In a way, making this step in the first place would be the greatest way I had of keeping that part of myself alive.

And so I did.

“My name now, it is Yolanda de Brienne… That is who I am now. This is my body, this is my life, but I do not accept the fate in store for me. For I was once Derrick, and I clawed myself out of a hole that seemingly didn’t have an exit out of sheer grit, determination and clever thinking. And that has not changed just because I am Yolanda now. I will make the best of this new life and I won’t let anything stop me. I will carve my path forward and that is that.”

For a moment, there was just me alone in my chambers after having made the declaration aloud. In the end, all I did was just say those words to myself and true change would take a while yet. But that was for later. Tonight was just that first step. To take up the name everyone called me here, Yolanda, and make it my own.. To look at my hands and see my hands where before there was a disconnect.

There still was of course, but it wasn’t as severe as it was before. It would probably be lessened even further if I accepted other parts of Isabella and made them my own, like her memories that insisted they were my memories. But for the moment, I would keep that boundary drawn between them and the ones I made from now on. To preserve as much as myself while accepting this new life as possible.

I clenched my hands into fists. I could and would manage despite everything. Because that was just who I was, no matter the name I took.

And then I nearly jumped as the sound of a familiar bell played within my own head, followed up a second later by the same sound signifying I’d received two notifications.

I groaned before my face twisted into a frown. The notifications were as badly timed as they could be in the game sometimes, because of course they were.