What’s my age again?

Lady Ori undressed herself with great difficulty. She at last stripped down to her undergarments. Her bloody gown and skirts she threw to the side. She sighed in relief to be rid of them.

After her capture, she had been placed in a new room without a maid. Her hands and face were still covered in the Contessa’s blood. Her black eye felt like it was on fire. She knocked on her door, “Hello~? Sir Knights? Get me some washing water.”

The knights guarding the door in the hallway made exasperated noises in derision.

Lady Ori laughed.

Julie knew they wouldn’t bring it to her, she only felt like teasing them. They must feel frustrated at having failed their jobs so spectacularly. Her consciousness swam with revenge euphoria. Everything was perfect.

Baby Ori’s feelings were different. She felt self-loathing, shame, and panic―all mixed together. She wanted to die. She wanted to disappear.

The two oscillated back and forth for hours. It was exhausting. Without food, water, or books, Lady Ori had nothing to do. It was boring.

She milled around, then decided to lay down. Her stomach writhed and squelched. She closed her eyes.

―

Her feelings were disorienting. She felt sick. She felt gleeful.

Baby Ori’s disgust was so that she would not look at Julie. She sat rocking herself inside their mind’s eye. “I’m leaving.”

Julie flinched.

She sat down next to her soul-sister. “…to the Reapers?” The idea wrenched at her heart.

Baby Ori shook her head, scooting away. “To the inside.”

Julie felt relief flow over her. “Oh.”

Baby Ori frowned. “I can make it however I want in there.” She pointed to the only door. “I made a room, and a garden inside. I saw other children.”

Julie looked towards the door, “Wow, you did?”

Baby Ori nodded. “I’m going to live there forever.” She was firm.

Julie’s eyes welled up. An idea had crept its way passed her high. “Do you hate me?” She tried to choke down her tears, but was not successful.

Baby Ori was silent.

Julie put her head in her hands. “Are you serious?”

Baby Ori looked away.

Julie agonized. “Without you, I can’t be Lady Ori. You are Ori. I just wanted to protect you. I’m only alive to keep you safe. How can you hate me, baby Ori?”

Baby Ori bit her lip, and gripped her little dress, “Julie, I’m the bad one.”

“How!” Julie snapped.

Baby Ori stood up, her children’s heels click-clacking towards the door to their unconscious. “I thought…if I was a good-girl forever, then I would be safe. But Julie, I couldn’t be safe without you. I was the bad one all along. I lost the game.”

Julie stood up, fists clenched. “We’ve never been bad! It was always the Contessa who was bad! Everything was the Contessa’s fault! We wouldn’t even―“ Julie dug her nails into her palms and swallowed her sobs. “We wouldn’t even be different spirits if it weren’t for that awful bitch! I never would have existed!”

Baby Ori placed her tiny hand on the doorknob. “I don’t know, I need to think about it.”

“Baby Ori!!”

“Bye, Julie.” Baby Ori walked through the door and shut it behind her. The world of adults was too much. It was too scary for a child. She didn’t want to pretend anymore.

She turned around. A beautiful stone cottage near a thicket materialized. The front garden shone with blooming flowers. Children played in the fields around it, shrieking with laughter. This is the world she had made for herself and the other children. Here, in her mind, she could do whatever she wanted.

A child stopped and turned to look at baby Ori. “Hey!!” the child called. “We’re playing tag!”

Baby Ori laughed in joy, and gave her feelings and memories to the body. She did not need them here. That was too much pain for a child. “I want to make a creek!!” She yelled.

“I want to catch a salamander!!” laughed another child.

―-

Julie could not move. She looked at the door, speechless and empty.

It seemed like, in the end, the two spirits could not understand each other.

“Damn it!” Julie sobbed. She had to resolve everything herself, even these fucking moods swings. As if these emotions were not new enough. Did this mean she would have these feelings all the time?

This was hell, the Reaper was right. Even a pit of fire was kinder than this filthy life. Not once had she ever been at ease in this disgusting realm.

Hours continued to pass. The sun disappeared behind the horizon with no fanfare. Julie felt stuck in her thoughts, too wired to sleep. All alone.

Wait.

What?

Lady Ori sat up in bed, confused. Why was she crying over baby Ori going inside?

Wasn’t that where inner children belong? On the inside? All safe and cozy in the unconscious? Untouchable?

Wasn’t she an adult? Didn’t she want to protect the babies?

How old was she again?

Lady Ori realized it in a split second. It knocked the breath out of her lungs.

Baby Ori had surrendered her right to adulthood. She had given Julie the body. Forever.

It only made sense: Adulthood in every form had always, always belonged to Julie.

That was the exact moment.

It all clicked.

She could could never go back.

Julie vanished.

Or was she renamed? Either way, the knowledge that she was an adult hit her like a freight train.

With Baby Ori around, Lady Ori’s age had felt transient. Sometimes she was five, sometimes seven.

Julie hadn’t bothered to pay attention to it.

Yet, now Lady Ori had a definitive age. She was a twenty-three year old woman.

She was a cutthroat bitch who murdered her own mother and stabbed her step-brother in his dick.

She was a transmigrated spirit. She had already spent an entire lifetime in another world, fucking around and snorting cocaine.

That was the adult woman that Lady Ori was. She laughed in disbelief. She looked at her hands, which felt heavy with her spirit inside. She no longer looked through the eyes, she was part of the eyes.

Lady Ori became Lady Ori on a bed caked in her late mother’s blood. She cackled by herself.

―

An attendant rushed into the King’s morning meetings with a letter. He awaited his turn, then passed the letter to the King.

The King read it’s contents as his court stood in silence. He looked down at the attendant from his throne. “Call for the palace doctors and have them attend this evening’s meetings. Then write a summons for the following men.” The King rattled off names and titles.

The court mumbled and shifted in response. “It sounds like His Majesty is preparing for…” “…yes, perhaps he will meet with Lady Ori de Rohan…” “…today?” “…why doctors? Who is injured?”

That order of business done, the King’s court moved on to other affairs. Soon, they would meet Lady Ori de Rohan.