Life's mysteries never arrive politely. Case in point: porcelain hands. Tiny, delicate, too small for the weight they're about to hold. Viridian hair spilling to her knees. A noble's gown stitched with gold like it was trying too hard. Nobody wore this to grab groceries.
Cosplay? Sure, if conventions had resurrected from the dead. She hadn't touched one in years.
Then the stickiness. Blood smeared across these dainty fingers. The headache that had hibernated for a year now returned with vengeance, like it had been saving up its energy for this exact moment. She wanted to hurl herself into the river just to negotiate a ceasefire.
Pain carved into her skull, each cough pulling more blood. Her skin paled into something statues would envy.
"Th-these coughing fits should be enough."
Of course, they weren't. Her stomach disagreed, projectile evidence paired with a nosebleed. Excellent.
She collapsed by the river, meeting her reflection with blood-streaked lips.
"Dear, oh dear."
So this wasn't her. Not really. The knees of this borrowed body shook as she dragged herself beneath the trees.
"If not weak. I'm terminal," she spat, then added under breath, "Author should've dialed back the melodrama."
Under the Hian Tree, she wheezed like a broken flute.
Breathe. Relax. You've read this genre before. You know the script.
But this body was blank, no memories, no breadcrumbs.
"A novel," she croaked. And there it was: viridian eyes in the river. She recognized the child. Fictionally.
Etterellia Vonworgh Carala Beirre Lei Adiand. Ett. Empress Dowager. Mother of the Emperor. Professional strategist, destined corpse at your service.
What a syllable salad name.
"Hah."
The Ett she remembered could topple kingdoms with her schemes while bedridden. And now she was that Ett, in all her frail, porcelain glory. Complete with the same eyes, same hair, and her Earth-child face run through a beauty filter.
"No going back, huh? Classic cliche." She sprawled in the dirt. Body of tofu, will of stone, patience of zero.
"When will he come?"
As if the universe had a sense of timing, a figure approached. A butler.
"Greetings to Her Grace, the Matron, the Empire's Majestic Eclipse."
Not the villain. Xiwen. Former commander, current servant, walking plot device.
He reminded her gently, "The Emperor wishes his mother to remain alive and well."
Sure. Why not. Alive, well, bleeding to death in a forest.
Ett closed her eyes. "A moment."
Their was a backstory, nothing more. A misery flashback to remind the reader that the Imperial Family couldn't save their lives.
"May I aid you, Your Grace?"
She waved him off. No need.
"Lead."
I'll follow behind.
Xiwen slowed his pace for her. The man had manners, quiet respectable. In the novel, she'd faint right about now, cue rescue scene. But no, she dragged herself toward the towering walls of the Empire, the false paradise.
And there, viridian hair again. Guren. Eleven years old, yet he wore indifference like armor. She met his eyes and got nothing back but still-water emptiness.
"Good guy," she muttered, dry as bone.
"...Shall we head to your chamber, Your Grace?" Xiwen asked.
"Alright."
She'd met the villain. Her own son.
How nice.
Ett sighed. She could maybe accept becoming a child again, Detective Conan made it work. But Guren looking thirteen while she looked five? Unforgivable.
Still. Pretend. Bluff. Cheat the novel if she could.
Change destiny? Please. Be a changed mother? Who? Her? Come on. Death would be easier.
Her head throbbed again, a warning siren.
Tch