Content Warning: Unintentional misgendering. Forgot to mention before, sorry. >,>

Amy

Sleep took me relatively quickly once I laid my head upon my pillows. Not that I’d originally intended to sleep, mind you - it was just that milking all my tentacles had proven to be surprisingly exhausting. It wasn’t just the physical activity, either - rather, the more mana I expelled, the more tired I felt, as if I were draining something far more intrinsic than the mana itself. By the time I’d emptied every tentacle, and dismissed my spell, I was more than ready to collapse. 

So it was that I closed my eyes in bed - and then opened them again, a moment later, feeling completely refreshed. Only I wasn’t in the same bedroom I’d fallen asleep in, but rather an odd mishmash of my current and former bedroom, complete with a computer, a TV, and… a cracked mirror.

“You’re back.”

I blinked at the sound of my own voice, turning over in bed to see a face that mirrored my own - though I was fairly certain I’d never scowled like that before.

“Do you have any idea how boring it’s been to wait for you here?” my twin asked. “Because the answer is very. Not that looking through your eyes is much better - feeling my body move under someone else’s control, watching ‘myself’ flirt with that thrice-damned light touched girl. Ugh. Even inhabiting one of your tentacles was better than that - though not by much.”

“My… tentacles?” I asked, blinking at her, as I tried to put things together.

“Yes - they’re handy appendages, I must admit. Not quite what I would have chosen, of course, but I suppose beggars can’t be choosers - and you’ve very much put me in the position of a beggar, so far.”

I blinked again, sitting up in bed and studying my mirror image even as she scowled at me. “…Amelia?”

“About time you figured it out,” she replied, narrowing her eyes at me. “Tell me - why do you look like me, in here? I would think you’d look like your old self. Heaven knows I did, during the sweet release dreams provided.”

“I… I’m not sure,” I admitted, glancing down at my hands. They were familiar, delicate and soft - mine. It wasn’t as if I couldn’t recall what they’d once looked like, though. Even if I really didn’t want to. “An effect of this body, I suppose? Since the original Amelia was cis, it only makes sense that I would feel comfortable in her body now that I have her brain.”

“Cis?” Amelia asked, frowning at me. “That’s a word from your world, is it not? Referring to those who aren’t trans? No, wait - before that, what do you mean by ‘original Amelia’? I’m right here, you know!”

“Well, yeah, but this is just a dream,” I pointed out, throwing aside my blanket and standing up to stretch. “It’s not like you’re real or anything.”

Amelia - or her dream lookalike, at least - opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again, studying me for a moment.

“Right,” she said, eventually. “A dream.”

“Y-yeah,” I confirmed, trying to ignore the feeling of foreboding rising up  within me as I walked towards m desk. “Just… a really weird dream.”

“As you say,” Amelia replied, scooching over to the side of the bed and getting herself up. “Though, if it really is just a dream - as you say - then perhaps you could do something for me?”

“What?” I asked, refusing to glance Amelia’s way as I studied the dream computer. It looked just like the one I had at home, right down to the largely rubbed off lettering of my keyboard.

“Open the door for me?”

I blinked, turning around to glance at the door that Amelia was now gesturing to. I hadn’t noticed it before - but of course it made sense for it to be there. We were in a bedroom, after all, so of course there’d be an exit.

“In a second, maybe? I’m sort of reminiscing about my old work space right now…” Not that ‘work space’ was really the proper phrase to describe it. It was where I’d sat, day after day, writing - a job, to be sure, but… also a way to express myself, at times. Not that I’d done much of it, really - most of the time I just wrote what I thought would sell - but… still. It hadn’t all been work to me. There were good memories as well…

“Don’t bother,” Amelia scoffed, even as I ran my fingers across the keyboard. “The damn thing won’t turn on, anyway.”

“Really?” I asked, glancing at the tower beneath the desk. “Did you try pressing the power button?”

“I tried pressing every button,” Amelia replied, rolling her eyes at me. “Including the one down there, yes - it wasn’t as if I’ve had anything but time on my hands.”

I let out a non-committal hum, before kneeling down to study the computer proper. My first thought was that perhaps it had come unplugged, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

Did that mean it was truly broken? I hoped not… I had a lot of good memories with that computer…

“The door?” Amelia pressed.

“In a moment,” I replied, reaching out to touch the power button. The moment my finger made contact, I felt an electric shock, akin to static, but without pain. It was just a sort of tingly sensation.

Then the power button lit up, and the computer hummed to life.

“Huh…”

“You got it working?” Amelia asked, sounding more intrigued than irritated for once. She strode toward the desk, assumedly grabbing the mouse, as a moment later she was letting out a hum of satisfaction. “Impressive. Or not? Perhaps you’re simply the only one capable of turning it on… it would make sense, with everything else I’ve experienced here…”

“What do you mean?” I asked, turning around only to pause as I came face to face with a pair of shapely legs. “And… um… could you perhaps back up a bit? I need to get out.”

“Right…” Amelia murmured, taking a few steps back so that I could crawl out from under the computer. “Now, about that door?”

“In a second,” I replied, glancing at the now-lit computer screen. The desktop background was the same as it had always been - a boring, but calming, light blue. There was only one icon on it, though - a headset, labeled ‘voice chat.’

“Oh come on,” Amelia whined. “You’ve had your fun - turned on your little gadget - and all I’m asking is for you to turn a knob. Surely you can at least do that much for me, can’t you?”

“Why do you care so much?” I asked, frowning at her. “Why can’t you open it yourself?”

“I… because I can’t,” Amelia replied, not quite meeting my gaze. “I think it might be locked.”

“You’re lying,” I accused, feeling that same magical certainty I’d come to associate with my ability. “It’s not locked at all, is it? You just can’t open it.”

“…No,” she admitted, after a moment, letting out an irritated huff. “I cannot.”

“And you think I can?”

“You turned on the computer, did you not?” Amelia asked, arching an eyebrow. “Not to mention the closet door, last time.”

“The closet…” I frowned, my brow furrowing. I remembered, now - even though I’d forgotten completely during my waking hours. “Right. You were trapped in there, for some reason.”

“Blame the demon, I suppose,” Amelia replied, fiddling with the ends of her hair a bit. “They stuffed me back into my body, and yet you remain in control.”

“Your body…?” I asked, a sense of horror dawning on me. “You’re… back?”

“I am,” Amelia confirmed, holding her head high. “And I want my body back.”

“No… this… it’s a dream,” I murmured, shaking my head. “There’s no way this is real.”

“No?” Amelia pressed, arching her eyebrow. “Are you sure? Because I think you’ve already felt my presence in the waking world.”

“The tentacle,” I murmured, thinking back. “The one that acted all weird when the duke was-”

“Don’t mention him in my presence,” Amelia interrupted, shuddering. “The mere thought of being back under that man’s thumb - if there’s one good thing that’s come from this whole mess, it was being disowned.”

“You hate him that much?” I asked - though, in truth, I knew the answer. I knew her character like none other, after all. Of course, it was possible that my confidence was misplaced - after all that I had seen in this world, all that I had been misinformed about, or outright missed, I had to allow for the possibility of being wrong - and yet I knew I was not mistaken.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Amelia said, glaring at me

“Like what?” I asked, blinking in sincere confusion.

“Like you understand me. I’ve read a little of the drivel you wrote - not much, admittedly, as I found it rather disheartening to be linked to a writer of such mediocre talent - but from what I saw, you only ever had a surface level connection to us.”

“Maybe,” I admitted. “But I think it’s different with you. If nothing else, I’ve been in your body for a couple weeks now - and felt a little of your emotions here and there, besides, I think?”

“Here and there, perhaps,” Amelia admitted, looking away from me again. “Though not nearly enough if you missed my terror at the very idea of taking some random potion from a student. What were you planning to do if she poisoned you?”

“May wouldn’t do that,” I protested.

“Perhaps not,” Amelia conceded, shaking her head, “but you don’t know that. Thankfully at least one of us was capable of thinking ahead - I don’t know what you did to get Pauline of all people interested in you, but seeing as how she’s set on guarding you already, you really should be taking proactive advantage. She has a spell to purge poisons, you know - it’s the whole reason my plot failed, remember?”

“I did take her, though,” I protested, before freezing in place. “Wait… The tentacle that grabbed her…”

“Was me,” Amelia confirmed, nodding her head. “As I said, at least one of us is capable of thinking ahead.”

“I… I thought…”

“That you grabbed her out of love?” Amelia scoffed. “That some part of you was desperate to stay with her? You should know better than anyone that that’s not how your mind works.”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded, irritated now. I was aware that my cheeks were aflame, though whether it was anger or embarrassment I couldn’t say.

“I mean that I’ve only been sharing a body with you for about a day, and yet I can already tell that you’re the sort of self-hating buffoon that would throw himself in front of a moving carriage to save a stranger, and call the world a better place for your absence. In what universe, exactly, do you think that you’d willingly - let alone unconsciously - take someone you actually care about into harm’s way with you?”

“…’Herself’…”

“What’s that?” Amelia asked, narrowing her eyes at me.

“I said ‘herself’! I’m a woman, now - thanks to you, and your cis brain.”

“There you go with that Earth word again,” Amelia muttered. “What does it even mean in this context?”

“It’s… Uh… Someone who isn’t trans? I think?” I wasn’t honestly all that sure myself, only being tangentially aware of the trans community on Earth. “You’re a woman who’s happy being one, basically - and since I’m sharing a body and brain with you, that means that I’ve ended up wanting to be a girl too.”

“I’m… fairly sure that’s not how it works, but whatever. Will you open the door for me or not?”

“What would you know about it?” I demanded.

“Well, I was in your body for one thing - and I certainly didn’t enjoy being a man there. In fact, it was the most terrible part of the whole thing - I almost prefer being trapped back here, compared to that.”

“What? That’s…” I frowned. “I mean, that doesn’t make sense? I like being in your body, and…”

“Well, maybe you didn’t like being in your body, then. Can we move on? Preferably towards the door?”

“I…” I didn’t want to think about what that might mean right now. “Why are you so fixated on the door?”

“I’m not telling,” she replied, crossing her arms and pointedly looking away from me.

“Then I’m not opening it,” I replied, crossing my own arms and doing my best to look her squarely in the eye.

“You…” She ground her teeth at me, but didn’t say anything else. Which was unfortunate, since it left me with no distractions from the question about why she’d hated being in my body. Though…

“Wait a minute! If you were the one who grabbed Pauline, then what about Clara?”

“Tsk. Caught on to that, have you?”

“Were you hoping I wouldn’t?” I asked, glaring at her. “What did you do? Does she know you’re here?”

“I’ll tell you if you answer the door for me.”

“I’m not opening anything until I know why you want me to.”

“…I used one of our signals. Two squeezes against the underside of her wrist. A code that tells her to stand back, and await further instructions.”

“Does that mean she knows you’re back?” I asked, a feeling of dread blossoming in my stomach. If Clara knew that her original mistress was back, then what did that mean for the loyalty she’d shown me so far?”

“Relax,” Amelia replied, rolling her eyes. “As I said, the code explicitly told her to stand down. She won’t try anything - not until I get another signal to her, anyway. Which I will find a way to do, with or without help from your tentacle spell.”

“…Where are you going with this?”

“Open the door, and you’ll never have to find out.”

I scowled at her. She scowled back.

And then someone knocked on the door.

***

I sat upright in bed, heart beating wildly, breath heavy. I was… I’d been having a dream? A scary one, from the state I was in. It was… it was important, I knew it was important, but… all I could remember was someone knocking?

As if on cue, another knock sounded - coming from my bedroom door.

“Hello?” Bridgette called. “Amy? Dinner is ready!”

“Right…” I murmured, shaking my head. “I’d been napping.” Whatever the dream was about, it was over now - and I couldn’t remember it anyways, so surely thinking about it could wait until dinner time?

Hello? Amy? Can you hear me?

…Maybe the familiar voice in my head could wait until after dinner too?

~~~

Author's Notes

I know, I know - it's not Naughty Magic. We're about halfway through the next chapter for that, but it's been slow going and I really wanted to get you all some more MOV... So we wrote this! In the span of, like, two and a half hours maybe? Which is a good sign - it means that things are moving properly again in terms of inspiration! Hopefully I can return to former productivity levels soon...

To be honest, though, depression has been a real bitch. This is the first time in a week that I've managed to get out of bed after waking up without just... laying in it for an extra 3 to 6 hours... Which has been a really big hurdle for writing, honestly. (Like, seriously, it's probably not a coincidence that I finally managed to write on the same day I didn't do that.)

Still! I have hope of things getting better! With a bit of luck, I'll see you in the next day or two for some Naugty Magic, and then some more MOV. (And then Double Trouble, because it's been a bit and my girlfriend sighed dramatically about it.)