Lost in darkness, Sophia was enveloped in a void broken only by a faint, comforting warmth. Time seemed meaningless, slipping through her grasp like elusive memories. Then, as if emerging from a deep slumber, she felt a shift in her surroundings, a subtle awakening to her existence.
"Hello... Mike, are you there?" Sophia's voice trembled with desperation, reaching out into the abyss.
"I'm here, but where the fuck is here? I feel like I haven’t slept that long since that bender we had on Bourbon Street last year," Mike's reply echoed through the darkness, his usual bravado tinged with an undercurrent of unease.
Sophia recognized the edge in Mike's voice, a flicker of vulnerability that stirred memories of their shared struggles in foster care. Though fleeting, those memories remained etched in their minds.
"I don’t know, but at least we are together, and only you had a bender that night, Mike. I had to keep you from trying to pet that cop's horse," Sophia tried to reassure her brother while remembering that disaster of a night.
"Are we in the hospital somewhere? No, that doesn't make sense. Maybe hell. Oh well, at least I smashed that guy's head in, so I doubt he will be a problem again," Mike pondered aloud, his thoughts meandering as Sophia, snapping out of her memory, tried to solve their first dilemma—where was here?
"Forget him! I can’t feel anything... wait... there is something... oh, it’s just my foot," Sophia said, her voice tinged with a mix of frustration and relief. She reached out, searching for her brother, seeking the only comfort she could find in this desolate dark place.
"What do you mean? That was my foot you just grabbed! Sophia, come back this way," Confused by his statement, Sophia grabbed her foot again.
"You found me! I’m right here, take my hand," Sophia's hand grabbed her other hand without a thought... at least not her own. Panic gripped her.
"Mike, something is wrong. Very, very wrong!" The panic in her voice was clear to her older brother.
Mike immediately tried to reassure her, only to come to the same realization when trying to hug his sister... they were in the same body. They hadn’t even been talking; Their thoughts were enough to communicate.
"What happened to us, Soph?" Mike called to his younger sister through their newly discovered telepathy, using a name he hadn’t used since they were wards of the state.
"I don’t know how, but I think I did this to us. Mike... I’m so... so sorry. I just didn’t want to lose you again. That year we were separated was the worst of my life, and I just panicked. I'll fix this, I promise," Sophia said with desperation in her voice.
Mike could feel a tear running down his cheek along with his sister's dread, further cementing how intertwined their body and souls had truly become.
"Thank you, Sophia, for everything. I was always there for you before, and I will always be now, so nothing changes." Mike reassured her.
At that moment, there was a light in the distance and the faint sound of screaming.
"Look that way! Let’s go!" Mike said, trying to storm ahead, but something was wrong with the way their body responded. It was slow and felt heavy. He pushed on, and soon they were in the light, and a giant of a woman stood there in what looked like rags and poorly stitched clothes.
"That lady is huge! And where the hell is that crying coming from?" Mike questioned Sophia.
"Mike, I think it’s us crying, and I think I know why!" Sophia's realization came quickly, drawing from her fondness for stories of reincarnation. Though familiar, the concept was hard to accept in their current situation.
"Well, it looks like we have just been born, even if this is just a dream," Sophia said with a shaking voice.
"Hopefully, they stick around this time, even if it's just a dream," Mike added with nervous laughter ringing in Sophia's head.
A tall, tan-skinned man who appeared to be balding but wore decently made clothes approached and took them from the woman in rags. As he picked them up, they got a better look at the room, and by all accounts, it was a shithole: dirt floor, a thatch roof, and wood walls closer to a barn than anything. A pale, blonde woman was lying on a straw bed, sweating profusely, and seemed to be in pain, but she had a smile on her face nonetheless.
"That must be our new mom, considering where we just came from," Mike said brazenly, somehow a bit of his old self flowing out of him.
"Mike, this is insane! You do realize we might be in a coma or something?" Sophia reasoned.
Mike scoffed, "Then how the hell are we talking, Sophia? Don’t worry about that. We are here now." Sophia doubted her brother's willingness to accept this so quickly, but knowing her brother, it wasn’t surprising he was handling this a lot better than her.
"Congratulations, Theodore! You have a beautiful baby girl," the woman said as she handed them off to their father.
"What the hell did she just say?" Mike exclaimed, sounding alarmed for the first time since they came into the light.
"What shall we name her, my dear?" Theodore asked the woman on the bed.
"What about after your great Uncle, the adventurer Valicar? He was a hero around these parts, and I know you always looked up to him."
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Theodore looked down at the small, beautiful baby girl he had helped bring into this world with a father's love, then glanced back at his wife. “That’s a fine name, my dear,” he said as he walked over to her and handed over their most beloved newborn, pride swelling in his heart.
Alexandra, looked down at her newborn and into her oddly unique eyes, squinting as they faced the light. One was a brilliant fire red. The other eye was a deep ocean blue with no bottom.
Mike interrupted the woman’s contemplation with a sharp kick to her nose.
“Why the hell did you do that?” Sophia chastised her brother.
”I just wanted to see how hard I can kick now that, oh you know, my DICK IS GONE!” Mike exclaimed, his voice laced with frustration and disbelief.
Alex, unfazed by her newborn's sudden outburst, continued with her maternal duties, moving the baby down to feed.
“You don’t have to take it out on this poor woman, though, Mike. She was just trying to... what is she doing to us? Wait, NO! NO! Wait... we just met you 5 minutes ago!”
Suddenly, a hunger they didn’t know had overtaken them, and like any newborn, they ate, then quickly fell asleep with little else holding their attention but primitive hunger and a fog of exhaustion they hadn’t felt in years.
This continued for a few years as Sophia and Mike got used to their new life as Valicar. They gradually learned they could both control their body as best as a baby could, anyway, either one at a time or taking turns with each limb. The problem came when trying to use their underdeveloped motor control. It took some practice, but they eventually got a basic understanding of their new situation.
They had learned that their father, Theodore, served the local manor, which meant they were relatively well-off compared to the rest of the village. While their house was modest by modern standards, it was among the better dwellings in the area. That wasn't saying much, though, considering the shacks that surrounded their home. The climate resembled that of northern Europe, as far as they could tell. Valicar looked around: to the East was nothing but the vast expanse of the ocean, to the South lay the road leading to the next city, to the West stood the imposing Unicàn Mountains, and to the North loomed a dark forest of untamed wilderness.
The manor itself was little more than a long hall atop a hill, encircled by a wooden palisade manned by guards who, in Mike's opinion, left much to be desired in terms of vigilance. Sophia quickly grew tired of the novelty of living in a medieval society, especially when it came to basic amenities like bathroom facilities, which essentially consisted of shitting outside, sometimes even in the same river they drank from.
“We have to get the hell out of here, Mike! Even the Romans had cities more advanced than this!” Sophia voiced her frustration, a sentiment she expressed daily as they encountered one primitive inconvenience after another.
“We are just kids, Sophia. You know it’s going to be a while before we can leave, but we can always prepare for our journey.” With that, the years passed by, with Mike doing his best to regain his lost strength and Sophia trying to recall anything she learned in school that could help them.
Although their parents were kind and loving, they were often distant due to the demands of the local lord, Vernon. Alexandra worked as a maid, while Theodore was a chef renowned in local circles. This left Valicar with plenty of time to wander the village and nearby forest. While the minds of two adults were locked behind Valicar’s eyes, at heart, they were still just a child, subject to the whims of adolescence, including the fits and joys that came with childhood. The world had never seemed so bright.
One day, while chasing a particularly colorful butterfly after their morning nap, a group of what appeared to be knights on horseback rode into their pitiful town square. There were four men in full plate and another eight in chain mail. They flew a flag Valicar had never seen before a roughly stitched black lion on a field of red. The villagers who were out and about looked fearful and quickly scurried away to the poor protection their huts provided.
“Mike, I think we should follow the others' example and get out of here,” Sophia urged, attempting to move, but Mike halted her. They had learned that he had more control over their physical actions, while Sophia wielded a subtler power of their mind—and another ability she hadn’t fully grasped yet. She could recall the first time she felt it, when dying in a hallway while holding her brother in her arms.
“Don’t worry about it, Soph. These people get scared when it thunders too loud outside. Plus, this is the first time we have seen a real knight instead of our overweight lord on a glorified donkey in a rusted tin suit when he comes down from the manor occasionally.”
The butterfly was forgotten as their willpower overcame their more basic instincts to behave like children. The man at the front of the column of knights dismounted his horse. He was a tall figure dressed in the same colors as the flag they flew—black and red—with a large lion crest on his chestpiece. His face was obscured by his helm, but his voice resonated with authority.
“In the name of the grand inquisition, I call forth your village elders!” The man's voice boomed, commanding attention.
“Your pathetic excuse for a lord has failed in his duty to the gods, and for this transgression, he shall be summarily executed by divine judgment!” At his command, the men at the back of the column finally made it forward, dragging a man in chains, his once-fine clothes now stained with mud and blood.
“This pathetic heathen has shirked his duty to the inquisition and the church by not purging the filth from his lands,” the man declared, his words carrying the weight of authority.
An elder, a long-time friend of both their father and Lord Vernon, stepped forward from the protection of his home.
“Sir Templar, there has not been mage blood found in this land in nigh 30 years, and the fee for an Inquisitor to test the youth is simply too expensive for a poor remote village such as ours,” the elder pleaded, trying to reason with the imposing figure before him.
The "Templar," as the elder had called him, simply raised a hand, and both the elder and Lord Vernon were engulfed in a golden light so bright it was as if the sun had come to earth.
"Some lessons must be taught to you bumpkins so you can truly understand our grace, and so I will show you but a small power of the Pillars." Soon, screams erupted as holy fire wrapped itself around the lord and elder, both consumed by the divine flame.
"However, retribution is never so simple," the Templar lifted his arm, and the flames stopped, but the screaming continued. "Heal these wounds, Oh lord of light."
The golden light dimmed, and both Sophia and Mike, gripped by fear and disgust, couldn’t look away as the men’s burnt skin flicked off, only to be healed and replaced in mere seconds by the Inquisitor’s spell. Each moment of healing only prolonged their agony, as they were repeatedly subjected to the searing pain of the divine flames.
By the end of it, the Lord and Elder were nothing more than a grotesque mass of charred flesh, their features distorted beyond recognition. Their screams, now guttural and choked, were muffled by the layers of scar tissue that covered their mouths. They convulsed in agony, their bodies contorted in unnatural shapes as they were left to suffocate under the weight of their own burned flesh.
“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!!” Sophia and Mike screamed, their voices drowned out by the cacophony of suffering echoing through the village. With their thoughts merging into a blinding terror, Valicar ran, their small form trembling with horror as they fled from the nightmarish scene unfolding before them.