Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Future Becomes Present

The Hero Became a Mousegirl
Chapter 1: Future Becomes Present

 

I wish I could feel happy.

The words never left my lips. I reached for the golden scepter in the emperor’s outstretched hands, with those words in my heart.

I’d intended to speak them, to utilize my reward for killing the Fell Dragon Stelryus to chase away the darkness surrounding my heart. So that I could know more than the empty greyness that had plagued me since my early childhood.

Another chance would never present itself. Only the Imperial Family’s ancient relic, the Scepter of Eynhilda could grant me my reprieve. However, when my fingers brushed the scepter’s warm metal, my consciousness faded.

The next thing I could recall was floating in an endless void. The space around me both air and fluid, bright and dark, visible and not. It was a maddening assault to my mortal senses.

Unable to make sense of what had become of me, I gripped the hero’s mark on my left wrist and I prayed. I pleaded with Eynhilda, goddess of light, to rescue me. I’d spent my entire life in her service, surely she would not abandon me now.

I prayed until all I knew was prayer. I begged, I sobbed, I made demands, all of it went unanswered. Eynhilda had abandoned me, as I wrestled with this realization, a warmth spread throughout the void.

At first, I tensed. Fearful that things would become even more inhospitable for me. Yet the warmth did not threaten to drive me to insanity. Instead, it wrapped around me, embraced me. Soothing my frightened heart.

Pain flared as I felt myself collide with the ground. The warmth that’d blanketed my body abandoning me. Forcing me to feel a stinging coldness. As if I’d stepped outside in winter wearing only my underclothes.

Opening my eyes I gazed up at a familiar yet foreign ceiling, of broken and weathered stone. Sitting upright I faced the stage upon which the emperor’s throne had once sat. Its ornaments missing. Its base cracked and covered with dust.

Placing a hand against the floor to push myself to my feet I froze. The hand now within my sight was far too small to be my own. Taking a deep breath I looked down at myself. My eyes widening as I gazed upon a form foreign to me.

Gone was the large muscular frame I’d honed over twenty-eight years of life. In its place was a dainty runt of a person.

“Status,” I squeaked. My voice now several octaves higher than it’d once been. Sounding like a minuscule bell ringing softly in a gentle breeze.