Reaver’s Song

“…Minji?” The voice came from somewhere off in the distance. I scowled. It was too early to be awake.

“Minji?” The voice called again. This time I heard a rhythmic beeping sound as well. My scowl deepened as the darkness I’d been silently floating in began to give way to fractured beams of muted light.

I blinked briefly, laying my hand over my face to blot out the obnoxiously bright light. It was too damn early for this shit, I thought venomously. Whatever needed done to save whichever kingdom I was expected to put my life on the line for would have to wait until at least early afternoon. Probably later if I was honest. I did most of my best work after dark, after all.

No matter how desperate the situation was always portrayed, I found most of my time was spent either walking to wherever I had to go, waiting while some spell was cast to open wherever I needed to be or simply standing around doing nothing while people talked. Nothing was ever vital enough to bother waking me up for. Unless we were under attack, they could fuck off and let me sleep.

“Minji! Wake up!”

“Uggggh! Fuck oooofffff!” I groaned, rolling onto my side miserably and pulling the thin sheet over my shoulders.

“I think she’s going to be ok,” A strange voice giggled not too far away.

“I can hear you, you know,” I growled. “I’m not…” Wait. What the hell was going on? I sat bolt upright in the bed and looked around with wild eyes. I was in neither a dungeon nor a royal bedchamber nor anywhere else I’d managed to find a few hours’ sleep in the past months. I was in what looked to be a well-apportioned hospital room. Mechanical devices beeped and whirred at me placidly. X-rays of what I assumed to be my head hung neatly on screens. Windows were open wide, and I saw mountains in the distance.

A Japanese woman in a lab coat grinned at me from behind a desk while Moon nearly fell backward off her rolling chair in surprise. There wasn’t a chamber pot or half-assed painting of what could be either a guy on a horse or a misshapen llama depending on how the light struck it to be found anywhere. There was a rather grotesque lithograph of a barn own against the far wall but that seemedW more like an errant aesthetic choice than something anyone had spent any actual time creating.

“Whatthehellisgoingon?” I demanded, my words coming out like machinegun fire.

“Welcome home, Minji!” Moon squeaked in excitement, throwing her arms around my shoulders, and squeezing me until I gasped for air.

“Moon?” I wheezed. “What’s happening? Who am I?”

“Oh my god! You’re you again!” Moon bounced up and down excitedly, causing me to bounce up and down with her and threatening to pull the needles out of my arm in the process.

“Where the hell am I? What’s going on?” I mumbled against Moon’s chest as she squeezed my head in an awkward approximation of a hug.

“You’re back in Korea. You’ve had quite the journey, my friend,” the doctor grinned. “I wasn’t sure you were going to make it back for a while there.”

“This is all really confusing,” I tried to say but pressed against Moon’s chest my words came out a distorted jumble. I held Moon tight for a moment longer but finally had to tap her shoulder to signal I couldn’t breathe.

“Oh! Sorry! It’s just been so long since I’ve seen the you you,” Moon giggled, sitting beside me on the bed and holding onto my hand.

“When you had the cardiac incident we feared the worst,” the doctor shook her head.

“Oh my God!” Moon cried, grabbing my shoulders dramatically. “I was so scared! All of a sudden you…well, Ashvallen in your body started bleeding and stuff! If not for Sakura you’d have been dead!”

“Sakura?” I shook my head. I had no idea what she was talking about. There was a lot going on and none of it made any sense.

“Ah, that’s my daughter,” the Japanese lady chimed in, glancing up from the screens she was flipping through.

“This is so weird!” Moon shook her head, poking my cheek curiously. “Just…my physics professor would drop dead if he found out about any of this. And, you know, believed it.”

“I see you are awake,” A sweet-sounding, small voice called from the door. I glanced over to find Ashvallen striding into the room, my…er…her armor replaced out for a sun dress which, if I was honest, looked completely out of place. Had my voice sounded like that when I was in Ashvallen’s body? Honestly, she sounded a bit like a sweet anime teenager. Suddenly I regretted not paying closer attention. My marginally deeper, somewhat huskier voice was far less adorable.

“Ashy!” Moon called excitedly, rushing over to gather the smaller girl in her arms. “Did Bailey give you the all clear?”

“Yep!” Ashvallen grinned. Her eyes turned to me, and her face became an inscrutable mask. She broke Moon’s hug and stepped closer. I suddenly realized the Ferrari I’d been inhabiting until now was standing a meter away from me and I was intimately familiar with the damage it could do.

“F-For the record, the whole thing was neither my idea nor my doing,” I defended myself quickly. It was best to declare your innocence before you could be accused of the crime. Some said it made you look more guilty, but I figured if I’d already declared my innocence, it was a fait accompli I hadn’t done it. The logic I was certain, was solid. “N-Not to mention I did save you there in the…uh…” I trailed off as she stared at me. I sighed. If she threw down on me right now, I was doomed. I had experienced firsthand what that little body of hers was capable of.

“Thank you!” She suddenly cried and hugged me close, her arms around my waist, head pressed against my chest. I glanced down in some confusion, fully expecting one of those twin daggers to plant itself in my back at any time.

“Eh?” I glanced at a grinning Moon curiously. Lost for how to respond I eventually wrapped my arms around her carefully in a hug of my own, trying not to pull the IVs out of my arm in the process. This was rather nice, I decided, enjoying the hug. Far better than being eviscerated by a cartoon-voiced half elf, to be sure.

“I-I couldn’t face going back to that other world,” Ashvallen shook her head. “Leaving Moon, going back to being cold and hungry, and doing whatever it took to survive. I-I couldn’t ever go back to that.”

“Well,” I straightened slightly, puffing with pride. “You’re a national hero, now!”

“Huh?” Ashvallen stared at me, her purple eyes flecked with green as she cocked her head to the side curiously.

“We…I mean, you know, mostly you, I guess,” I paused in thought. “Anyway me in your body saved as many elves as we could from the warrens, avenged the elves by killing the king and prince and brought peace and stability to the land. You’re a hero! Well, I helped but, yeah. Congratulations!”

“Really?” Ashvallen raised one eyebrow curiously. I nodded emphatically. She finally shrugged. “That’s… nice and all, but I’d still rather be here. Anyway! We’ll have lots of time to get to know each other, now!”

“Huh?” Now it was my turn to be confused. Well, I guess if I were keeping score, it would be my turn to be confused again.

“Moon and I are going to be married and I’m going to go to college and be a yoga instructor!” Ashvallen declared proudly. Moon giggled in embarrassed joy as I looked up to her in confusion.

“That sounds great!” I finally replied, not sure how they would accomplish getting married or whether you needed a college degree to teach yoga but determined to be supportive regardless.

“We’ll also have two kids. I think a boy and a girl. They’ll be quarter elf, but I think this world will be more tolerant of them. That’ll mean you and I will be sisters! Not to mention you’ll be an aunt!” Ashvallen struggled briefly as Moon pulled her back into an embrace of her own.

“She’s very excited,” Moon giggled at me, wrapping her arms around the much smaller half elf protectively.

“Who wouldn’t be?” I grinned, the difference in Ashvallen between what I saw in the white waiting room of the gods and now quite a refreshing contrast.

“Oh! We finally are going to have sex!” Ashvallen nearly shouted, Moon’s face turning beet red and even causing the doctor to glance up in bemusement. “I’ve never had it before! We couldn’t have sex when I was in your body because that would be weird, but now we – “

“W-We should let Minji get some rest,” Moon turned Ashvallen abruptly and pressed her toward the door. “S-She looks tired!”

“We’ll be back later!” Ashvallen exclaimed as she was pushed out of the room.

“Happy humping!” I called as the door closed behind them. At least family dinners wouldn’t be too awkward, I thought. Still, it would be tough to explain to mom how Ashvallen wasn’t a child given her height. I’d never really thought about it in the other world living through being that small, but she was really tiny. 145 cm at the most. I glanced down and grinned happily. Not to mention I had breasts again!

Not that Ashvallen was deficient but, honestly, I missed having breasts with some heft. I certainly wasn’t as well endowed as Carrisyn had been and nowhere in the neighborhood of Sascha or Zelaeryn, but a C cup was a welcome change. I scowled. Sascha. Carrisyn. Zelaeryn. Lysabel. Sayuri. Hell, even Alarice’s overt hostility. I sighed. As wonderful as it as being back I would still miss it. Miss us.

I’d miss the camaraderie and the seemingly endless conversations we had wandering the wilds and trying to do the impossible together. I wouldn’t miss the danger, but I definitely missed everything else. Sascha and Alarice and Zelaeryn and Lysabel had accomplished their goals and their lives would be what they always hoped they would be.

The elves would probably thrive under Lyrei and Alyndra now that Rhade was actively trying to erase them from existence. Maybe they would even re-inhabit their ancestral lands and begin to build back what they’d lost in the wars. I’m sure the other nations of the world would welcome not having to look over their shoulders at the Rhade war machine every morning. The world I was no longer a part of had become a better place.

What of my world, though I mused, the doctor’s tapping as she typed fading into the background. I had, apparently, lost my apartment and everything in it. I’d doubtlessly lost my job. I glanced down under my shirt to find a hefty bandage over my heart. I had no idea what the damage to my heart had been. I didn’t know where Carrisyn or Sayuri were or what the hell Jaxxin had even been doing there in the first place. She was absolutely a strange one. I’d worked hard and suffered a lot to come back to something in ruins.

I sighed and stretched languidly, feeling my back creak disturbingly in the process. Carrisyn had kept her word, I supposed. I was back home. Why was I so miserable, then? It seemed everyone had gained except me. I couldn’t even begin to take inventory of all the things I’d lost. It was still too raw and too extensive.

“I’m going to go file this and check on my daughter,” the doctor said with a smile, standing from behind the desk and rubbing her eyes. “Do you need anything?”

“Ah!” I started, pulling myself out of my thoughts abruptly. “Umm, maybe some apple juice?”

“Ok,” the doctor tucked some papers under her arm and headed toward the door. “I’ll send someone in.”

“Thank you,” I smiled, scratching my cheek absently.

“Just relax. You had quite a scare. You’ll need some time to heal.”

“Will do, “I assured her, not really interested in running amok anyway. I figured I’d had quite enough of that to last me an eternity. I sat for a long moment. I lay back onto the bed and closed my eyes with a sigh, folding my hands over my chest.

This was a victory for me, too. Right? Being back was a victory all on its own, I tried to console myself. After everything I went through and all the times I suffered and bled and died to continue on to sit here with Moon in my own body, in my own world, with my own boobs should be a win, right? Then why the hell did it feel so fucking hollow? A tear slipped down my cheek and I closed my eyes tighter to hold back the flood. I heard the door open and lifted one arm to wave.

“Just go ahead and put it on the side table,” I muttered, trying, and failing to sound cheerful. “I’ll get it after my existential crisis has been dealt with.”

“Mew,” meowed the response.