Heart of Fey and Fire - Chapter 1 - A New Life

Brianna

Being reincarnated sucked. I mean, not as much as just plain being dead, I guess, but a lot more than never dying in the first place. I mean, for one thing, reincarnation fantasy novels had lied to us - in those, the main characters almost always retained their regular personalities after being reincarnated. In reality? There was no such thing as a freaking mental age! No matter how mature you thought you were, you still had to deal with the same hardware as any other child growing up.

On the other hand, we’d become a lot more… present, in each other’s lives, if that made sense? Like, we’d been together for as long as I could remember, but usually just as a little presence in the back of one another’s mind. Whoever was fronting would know the other was there, and be able to sorta-kinda communicate through yes and no questions… but that was about it. We hadn’t really been able to co-exist. Not unless we were willing to turn to recreational substances like alcohol, which seemed to facilitate swapping back and forth somehow.

These days? We were just there. Always present, always able to talk. There was just one little problem… Remember my rant about our brains aging us down to actual children? Well, the effects were somehow a lot more pronounced  when we were in the front. 

Which could lead to us having perfectly calm discussions about, say, taking a bath today, like the maids wanted us to. Only for…

“I don’t wanna!” I screamed, slipping between my maid’s legs.

…Wait, had I swapped? Was I in the front now? Uh… no time to care about that! The fun and games would end the moment the maids actually caught me!

And this from the one who kept saying we should just give in and bathe! Ha!

***

Turning five sucked.

…I was saying that too much, wasn’t I?

“Yup,” Brittany murmured, nodding to herself. It drew a lot of looks - unnecessary looks - but she never really cared about the consequences of her actions even when she wasn’t in the front.

Also, fine, maybe I was using that phrase a bit too much, but was it my fault that everything legitimately sucked? I was turning five years old, and yet they expected me to stay perfectly still and act like the perfect Princess Delegate as nobles came to greet me and try to earn my family’s favor.

The only thing that kept me squirming endlessly in my seat was the fact that I had Brittany to talk to.

Also, I’d just taken the front again, hadn’t I?

Yup.

Well, whatever. I could sit still as easily as Brittany could! Better even! I was going to be the bestest at it ever, and earn cookies as a reward!

So there.

***

Turning ten didn’t suck. At all. Partially because birthdays were one of the only times we could actually meet with our father, but also because it was apparently the age where we got to learn about magic.

I don’t know who the hell decided it was a good idea to teach little kids about powerful magic, but at a guess? They didn’t expect anyone that age to be quite as good at it as Brittany and me. 

“Arianna?”

Brittany in particular was a prodigy. She had an intuitive grasp of magic, and the capacity to cast pretty much any spell she wanted to. Put a wand in her hand and she was a veritable mance, capable of taking even armies down - or so she’d have you believe, at least. In truth, she had one very obvious weakness: fire. For some reason, she just couldn’t cast fire spells. Not only that, but they basically punched through all her wards like they were nothing. Our tutors had no idea why, but I had a pretty good idea.

“Arianna? Can you hear me?”

Fire was my domain, after all. I could do pretty much anything with it! Make it hot enough to incinerate, or cool it to the point where it became little more than a colorful light. I could make it stick to people, refusing to go out, or I could extinguish it with a thought. Even the fire spells of other people weren’t immune to my control - if it was in my sight, it was mine. So long as I had a wand in hand, anyways.

Unfortunately, that’s pretty much where my skills ended, though. That, and body enhancement, which Brittany also sucked at. It was like there was some sort of rule keeping us from overlapping. 

“Ariana!” A voice screamed in my ear, shaking me. “Are you paying attention?”

“Huh?” I asked, blinking owlishly at my magic professor.

“I am trying to impart basic lessons on the nature of magic,” the professor told me, frowning. I found myself wondering what she’d look like with glasses - a lot stricter, I think. “Are you even listening to me?”

Ooooh, someone’s in trouble!

‘We’re both in trouble, you dork. Also, didn’t we agree that we should at least try to act more mature when we’re in the back?’

Says the girl who can’t stop trying even when she’s in the front! Also, the professor’s really starting to glare at you now.

Dammit… Why did ADHD have to follow us across time and space?

***

Puberty was terrible.

Wait, you can actually use words other than ‘suck?’ Color me surprised!

As was Brittany.

I guess, on the plus side, we were at least going through the right puberty this time. At the same time, though, we’d already gone through it twice in our past life - what with the change in hormones and all - and I really didn’t think I’d done anything wrong enough to warrant going through it a third time.

I couldn’t say anything about Brittany, though.

Hey! 

‘Kidding!’

Not kidding.

***

Turning sixteen was the worst. Suddenly we were seen as ‘of an age where one should at least begin thinking about marriage.’ My magic lessons got cut in half, as did sword training lessons, and my painting time, in favor of lessons in etiquette.

There’s other shit, too. Like all the stuff princesses are actually supposed to know?

‘So that we can be of use to our future husband? Yeah, no, let me keep living in denial… besides, we only need to parrot stuff back to them in those classes. It’s the etiquette they expect us to live twenty-four seven.’

Needless to say, I had no intention of acting like the perfect lady. If they tried to pair me up with a dude, I’d do anything and everything in my power to go wrong. Whether that meant eating messily, or insulting him to his face. Though… maybe I’d try to avoid the latter? No need for diplomatic incidents, after all!

Except as a last resort.

***

We made it to twenty. Four glorious years without a fiance. Then our luck ran out - our family actually found a kingdom willing to take me. It was some duke’s fifth son, who we knew absolutely nothing about. Except his name - Florencio.

Ugh.

“So I take it you’re onboard with my  escape plan?” Brittany whispered, squirming around a little to get more comfy in our oversized bed.

‘Say it a bit more loudly, why don’t you? The guards outside might not have heard you.’

“Is that a yes?”

‘Of course it’s a yes! Even if your plan is insane…’

“It’s not insane! It’s just… creative.”

It’s a teleportation potion. How does that even work!?

“I don’t know… it just… does, alright? Trust me.”

‘…Like I have a choice.’

“We’ll get the ingredients tomorrow, then?

‘The ingredients you don’t even know the name of?’

“I told you, I’ll know them when I see them.”

‘Right… and where did you get this potion recipe again?

“...A dream… but, like, a hyper realistic dream! And super detailed, too - like, I know exactly what’s in it! I just… don’t know what any of it’s called…”

‘Great… I’m sure that’ll make it easy to find what we need…’

“Look, it should all be available in the street market, alright? If the dream is to be trusted, at least…”

‘Of course it shouldn’t be trusted! It’s a freaking dream!

“You know my dreams sometimes have meaning, though…”

Just because you dreamed up the location of our favorite stuffy a few times - 

“Five times!”

‘Doesn’t make you a prophet.’

“Well, why are you going along with this, if you don’t trust it?” Brittany asked, letting out a little huff.

‘Because I’d rather die than be forced into bed with a man. So… You know, let’s just hope this works the way you think it will.

“Don’t worry,” Brittany whispered, closing our eyes and readying us for sleep. “It will.”

~~~

Author's Notes

Not really sure how I feel about this chapter... It was a bit of an experiment? Though I suppose the entire series is one, to an extent, since I'm sorta stepping out of my normal comfort zone here...

This chapter and the prologue are basically going up on Scribble Hub immediately, but the next two chapters will stay as Patreon exclusives until I get an actual buffer going.