I.

Droplets of cold water splotched Madoka's hair and shoulders as they stepped carefully into the grotto. The bobbing sphere of light produced by Audrey's magic floated like a spirit ahead of her. The path before them seemed like it waited on them for a long time. Their footsteps were solid and their echoes continued as they headed deeper within.

She looked to her side and could see her reflection in the peaceful waters. Her heart stopped its pounding several steps in and all that remained was the annoying patter of dew on her skin. Outside, cold daylight filtered from the entrance.

"A kind god is waiting for us in here, right?" Madoka pierced the uncomfortable silence.

Audrey's magical torch spell flickered as she stopped for a moment.

"Think so," Audrey kicked a rock in the lake. "But I don't feel that strange feeling I usually get when I approach a god. You know, that feeling where your skin crawls and you feel all tingly?"

"I know that too well."

"Oh, thank god, I thought I was the only one who felt that."

"Everyone feels that way, Audrey."

The two drifted into silence. Madoka recalled Audrey said that this grotto was not that deep but they have been walking for quite a distance now. She glanced over her shoulder and realized that the grotto's entrance was still the same distance away when they started.

"Audrey," Madoka tugged her shoulder and pointed back. She was spooked by the revelation. "We are going nowhere."

"Huh?" Audrey's blue eyes looked back. Her eyes widened. "Okay, now that's trippy. Spacial anomalies was not what I had in mind today... Let's, uh, see if we can get out of here first. Okay?"

"Okay," Madoka took her hand. The princess jumped at her touch but the two began their journey back out of the grotto. Their uneven and nervous steps echoed through the cavern. The echoes matched the loud heartbeat inside her chest. What if they were stuck in here forever? Madoka soon found herself gazing upwards at the salt powdered trees and lake. The two jumped for joy from their elated relief. It felt like no time passed since they entered but Madoka's desire to go back inside diminished. "The sun has not moved at all..."

"Wow," Audrey released the time spell into a bubble. It was the spell she used in the Inn. The green mana light stuck in a spot within a bubble and apparently confirmed that Madoka was correct. How did she know that was accurate? "It seems if we were to go inside there, time outside freezes."

"F-Freezes?"

"Stops moving forward," Audrey started to walk back inside. "Meaning, we have all the time in the world to figure it out!"

"Ugh," Madoka grumbled. Audrey gripped her hand again and gave her a pleading look. How could she say no to that face?

"We'll be fine," Audrey rose a finger. "I'll give up if the answers to this puzzle I'm thinking of fail me."

"Y-You're not going to blow up the cave, are you?"

"N-No, Madoka," Audrey sighed. "But that does sound like a great idea."

"Audrey Elise Dalion," Madoka remained stern in her stance of blowing things up.

"It's a joke!" A raindrop splashed on Audrey's nose. She wrinkled her face at the touch and looked at the clouds above. "Raining and not snowing, huh. Well, let's get inside."

Madoka followed her in the grotto once more. Audrey's fire spell came to life and the rain outside seemed to freeze in motion. The maid did not want to think too hard on it. She willingly entered a potentially dangerous situation once again.

"Okay," Audrey's finger began to glow. "Yah, yeet!"

"W-Wait!"

The princess's spell released and fired a small sparkling light further into the cave. The light illuminated the grotto's walls before revealing nothing but the back of the cave. The lake that pooled inside beneath them seemed to also have an end. Madoka realized that the grotto was small like Audrey said but they could not reach the back of the cave despite their journey taking hours before.

"Time is funky," Audrey muttered as they walked on. "We have to walk a bit before I can test something out. I know, we can talk about theories! Local time has ceased and even is starting to mess with space itself. Wait, that doesn't make any sense..."

"Theories?" Madoka wondered what a theory was.

"There's a lot of them on the concept of time. Most of them are about how it doesn't exist as we know it. There's one that I heard about which made me feel weird. We're constantly in a static situation even if the sun rises and set. Like we're fated to do the things we were already planning to do—"

"Okay, Audrey," Madoka interrupted her. "You're hurting my head."

"There's another theory! Time is contradictory and relative only to us. L-Look, I'm not stalling! I know something though: There's five dimensions to the universe as a whole," Audrey went on. "Time and space are merely two of them, but they don't coincide with how our consciousness and brains operate. I'm, uh, totally not sure what time is either other than right now, I feel that you're annoyed by me."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"You are wrong," Madoka scoffed. "I'm annoyed with you all the time."

"C-Come on, man," Audrey sighed but shifted her attention to the lakeside. "I wonder if there is a God of Time and a God of Space. Heh, that sounds silly since I was a former athiest. Gods kind of just forced themselves into my life. I wouldn't know. Anyways, I think we made it to where I want to be."

"Where?" Madoka wondered aloud. They have gone exactly nowhere since they've entered the grotto again. "We're walking in place, right?"

"Not exactly. It might seem like the Devs left this bug in the system, but we've actually walked about a couple football fields in," Audrey stopped. "We just had to be the correct distance to render the object in!"

"Object? Render?" Madoka's tongue twisted over the words. She had not noticed it before but an odd presence crept upon her skin.

"You got a cute accent, you know that? Or maybe I'm suffering from some kind of cryptophasia," Audrey peered at the lake. "I'm just joking, don't yeet me into the lake! The presence that called me here seems to be detached from reality. Man, we should have asked Saze for some swimwear."

"S-Swimwear?" Madoka realized what the girl meant. "I-I don't know how to swim!"

"Well, that's a problem, I think," Audrey paused. Was the girl finally considering Madoka for once? "You would look so hot in a bikini!"

"I don't know what a bikini is, Audrey, but for some reason the way you're looking at me makes me not want to know," Madoka wanted to slap her forehead. Audrey was licking her lips. Of course she was thinking of her body instead of her safety!

"I'm joking!" Audrey fished out her storage talisman from her bag and manifested the portal. "We'll check the depth of this thing and if it's too deep we'll pack it up and head home. How's that sound?"

Madoka desired to leave quickly so she agreed to whatever Audrey had in mind. The girl pulled a spear out of the portal and plunged it into the lake's water. The spear landed on solid ground about ankle deep. When she moved it further its staff sank deeper.

"Waist high, huh," Audrey tucked the spear back into the portal. "For you, at least. For me, ah, it's a different story."

She looked up to Madoka and shifted pensively. Her eyes glinted from the magic residue particles. The maid rolled her eyes and then her pants.

"Get on," she ordered and kneeled down to give her a piggyback ride. Water or not, she will assist her princess whenever possible. Audrey's hands and legs gripped around Madoka but she was quite light. The maid would not admit that her body's magical warmth felt good pressed against her back.

Tentatively, she stepped forth into the water. Coldness wrapped her ankles like thin fingers but Audrey kept her warm. Underneath her feet, solid and flat ground kept her steps on a smooth slope down. The princess's magic light could not pierce its murkiness, but Madoka felt like she was walking on stone.

Onward, towards the center of this impossible underground lake. Madoka let her mind wander. Perhaps the slime was guarding this place? She looked outside the grotto briefly towards the crater as more sinister thoughts invaded her mind. Maybe Audrey led her here in the first place? That dark implication made her gasp and realized she definitely knew all along.

"Madoka?" Audrey asked. "No creatures in the water, right? Turn back if you—"

"Just what are you, Audrey?" Madoka was waist deep in the water. She waded effortlessly but the threat of suddenly dropping deeper made her worried. "You knew this was here the whole time, didn't you?"

Audrey was quiet and only the magic light bobbing weightlessly above her finger revealed her presence. So Madoka stopped. Her curiosity and demand for answers would not allow her to move.

"You go on about things no one has even heard of before, cast magic unlike anything the mages in the palace have seen, somehow figure out how to destroy monsters with knowledge no one in this world knows," Madoka pressed. "I don't even understand what I am not supposed to understand. Time? What about it? Why are we here, Audrey? How did you know we were supposed to be here?"

"Well," Audrey finally broke the silence. Her voice was flimsy and Madoka was sure her excuses would match how weak her voice was. "Truth to be told, Ceghinort told me he'd be here. Like the other gods. The other stuff, Madoka, I was just trying to be interesting while we walk. I'm sorry. I won't talk about theories and nerdy stuff anymore."

"T-That's not what I'm telling you to do," Madoka breathed. The water rippled around her as she hefted the princess up in her grip. "I'm asking how you know about those things? Do people of your age from your... old life... know of those things as well?"

"N-No," Audrey stammered. She was panicking at Madoka's interrogation, but why? Madoka could not fathom any of it and was ready to give it up. "Every God I meet has told me of the things I used to be. I... I try to fight those things off. How could I be anything except me? I didn't make it in my past life. I was killed by my stepfather. I had nothing but books and an insane amount of loneliness built inside."

"I was simply a void, trying to fill it with anything to distract me from my family," Audrey rested her head on Madoka's back. "Every time I meet a God here, I ask it if I am in a videogame or some simulation and if it was the reason I have come here. I can't help but feel terrible for Elise. She should be living here instead of me!"

"B-But," Madoka felt bitter. "She is you."

Audrey did not say anything. Instead, her magic light came to life again. It glowed a soft yellow, like a light bug's abdomen buzzing in the night. Her foot was the reason the girl stopped talking, for Madoka stepped on something uneven that sank beneath her foot into the murky lake's floor. She heard a click as the plate lodged itself in place.

Something rumbled before them in the waters and the chaos nearly knocked Madoka off her balance. In her wobbly vision, she saw a large ornate pillar rise from the ground. The structure fully emerged and revealed to them a stairway and platform beneath it. A white glow flashed from the pillar. Madoka nearly let go of Audrey but she looked away from how bright the spectacle was. She looked as soon as the glow faded. A gateway?

Its white and gold trimmed doors stood ominously before the girls. Audrey tugged her sleeve, so Madoka placed her on the steps so the girl would not get wet. The princess took a step before turning back to face the unmoving maid.

"I don't care if we do things like this Audrey," Madoka crossed her arms. "Just be honest with me!"

A tear slid down Audrey's cheek as the waters pushed away from the structure. Madoka was steadfast in her stance in the uneven waves. She also meant what she requested from Audrey with all her ignorant heart.

"I want you to trust me, for once," Madoka sighed. "I am your servant—"

A tear landed on her elbow. She knew it was not the vapor from the misty waters of the lakes this time. Madoka wiped her eyes and stifled the disbelief within her. She did not even know why she was crying!

"Okay," Audrey nodded, wiping her own tears off.

Madoka knew those tears, that look of frustration and anguish.

It was the look of many hopeless days spent longing for answers; the look from many winter nights she's spent staring at the vast heavens above for anything meaningful in her existence.

The princess had the same defeated look that marred the red haired girl's own face. A single drumbeat that closed a revelation: The truth was nowhere close to being revealed no matter how many more beats she struck upon.

Audrey looked as if she had asked herself Madoka's questions over and over again for a painful moment. She wished she did not ask Audrey for anything. That was how full of anguish her princess looked. The unfair and cruelty of a silent universe's single demand: To be or be silenced forever by not being. Madoka saw her sit down on the wet marble stairs so she waded over and sat beside her.

"I feel guilty, you know?" Audrey's warmth dried the steps around her. "I won't ask you to understand or tell you that you can't understand. Elise died when I showed up. It's the only thing I know for sure about myself. They spoke of an illness she suffered before I came along. It's when they started calling me a witch because I was supposed to be dead. All that ran through my head were sick visions and guilt. How much of a witch and a murderer I was! I had thought maybe what if this is hell for all the things my stepfather blamed me for? Why am I in this world with you? I don't deserve you."

Audrey chuckled bitterly. Madoka realized that was the day she came to clean her chambers. She was so young back then. So afraid. The princess must have felt the same way.

"I'll tell you the next time I sense a God. I swear. They don't always reveal themselves immediately but I'll do my best. Again, I don't know everything about the truth of why I'm here. I hate being here. I don't want to be in the place of another person. I want to know how I ended up being reincarnated here. Why I started in a broken country that I'll have to face head on one day. That's what I'm trying to find out myself, Madoka," Audrey smiled weakly.

"Who Elise was, if she is me, or if I'm her... I know it's hard to process. I feel like I'm the reason she died or got forced out. I'm scared she's swapped places with me and has to face my stepfather. We can turn each other's heads inside out over the questions here in this little grotto. I think that's what that God wants. But I have a feeling that through this door we can find out a bit more."

Madoka glanced at the doorway and then back to Audrey.

"Fine," she nodded and extended her hand.

"I promise if you want to find out more about yourself I will help you," Audrey declared. Madoka helped her up when she took her hand. "Even if that means setting you free. Now, the game's in a buggy state right now. We got to hurry it up."

Right, Madoka thought. Even beneath the sad and beautiful face of hers, Audrey always kept a fierce and unexplainable determination flame within her. Of ancient nobles and powerful Royals she spoke of in the Estate's library, Audrey was the truest Royal of them all.

"Let's go," she nodded.