Finley Cai Aies Hall March 29th, 20XX

The memories of the day before flashed through my mind like a nightmare, and I had a blinding headache when I woke up. Aside from the headache, I also had an acute ache in my back that made it hard to get up.

There were a couple of windows open, so it wasn’t completely dark, but it paled when compared to the bright gold monstrosity that was the other world.

My eyes fluttered open and I tried to adjust to the new light setting but it was a difficult and painful process. While I did so, I looked around my apartment to make sure everything was okay but saw something else that put me in a foul mood. Bouncing around my room and off my furniture were those same flecks I’d seen in the otherworld. I spent a few minutes to confirm that they were, in fact, the same weird phenomenon that I’d seen in the other world.

They were less dense, carried a dull grey colour and moved with much less vigour than their other world counterparts, but they otherwise held the same qualities. They also, ‘felt’ the same, although there was a sense of dirtiness around them.

What were they anyway?

I hadn’t asked Esmeralda or Cambridge what they were, but I could put two and two together and assume that they were flecks of magic. They looked like smaller versions of what had come out of that wand and had flocked to it when I’d almost used magic before.

I slowly got up and tried to stretch out the ache in my back when a wave of intense nausea assaulted me.

It propelled me onto my feet, and I broke out into a run to the toilet.

After emptying the contents of my stomach and washing clean, I finally opened my eyes completely and tried to adjust to the sudden bright light of the bathroom. As well, I spotted a few bright flecks of gold dancing within the dull grey mass.

It was a slow process, but the longer I watched, the gold flecks increased and the fewer dull grey particles remained. As the flecks replaced themselves I felt better and the ‘dirty’ feeling slightly lifted off me.

As interesting as it was to watch, something else caught my attention. I ran over to the mirror once again and glared at the unfamiliar reflection. The same metallic hair, odd eyes and wings…. It was accurate to my memories, but it wasn’t me.

A large golden fleck danced across my vision and pulled my attention to a large chest that sat in the corner of my room. I remembered the diary and the wand and wondered if I could do anything about my appearance. Not to mention me not looking human anymore, I also wouldn’t know how to explain any of it to others.

The diary flipped open in a grand ceremony of flipping pages and settled on a blank page.

“How do I change my appearance?”

Since speaking to it had worked the last time, I figured it would work this time as well. At the same time, I felt somewhat ridiculous, standing in the middle of my apartment in a pair of giant wings, talking to a magic book. Everything felt so surreal that trying to subject normal logic just felt redundant.

The black text lazily sprawled across the page, as if it had just awoken as well.

Your previous appearance resulted from a series of spells your mother cast on you to help you adapt to the human world. You are not at the same level as your mother, so it won’t be possible to replicate it exactly, but you can achieve something similar.

“And if I have to switch back?”

If you connect the spell to a suitable item, you’ll be able to turn it ‘on’ and ‘off’ - for lack of better terms.

The diary then flipped to another page and a step by step instructional page unfolded itself. It wasn’t until later that I realized how insane it was to attempt magic by myself without supervision. And how reckless it was to follow a written guide without so much as a question. But that was later.

I adapted this from the magical theory of the witches, so it shouldn’t suffer from being cast in the human world. It should also be fine for a beginner like yourself.

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You’ll need the Wand and the locket from your mother. You will also need a lock of your hair.

Put half of the lock of hair inside the locket and pick up the wand.

Picture yourself as you wish to appear, then say “Clauditis” (this should revert you to the version you are used to)

Braid a lock of the adapted hair into the lock of your real hair.

Put them into the locket and put it on.

To revert, say “Reasare”

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I followed the instructions but went in front of the mirror before completely activating the spell.

Once again, the wand heated in my hand and the flecks of magic became agitated. Both the dull grey and golden flecks whirled into the wand in an invisible, magnetic tornado and used it as a tunnel into my body.

I paid close attention to the mirror as I felt the magic enter my body and change it, but the physical manifestation of the spell left me feeling somewhat disappointed.

Instead of the magical changing of colour I admit to having expected, the dull black hair simply grew on top of the metallic gold and kept growing until it was the same length as before. The metallic strands of hair still hung past my shoulders and weighed down the thin strands that now occupied my scalp. It was so comically underwhelming that I almost burst into laughter.

The magic left my scalp and moved down to my pupils. And while the hair had been a mundane transformation, the eyes were satisfactory enough.

My pupils, which I hadn’t been aware had enlarged, shrank into normalcy and the iris did the same. Then, like an invisible bucket of paint was being poured into my iris, a sharper blue than it had been before, flooded and completely obscured by the golden-green colour that the transformation had brought about.

My now-long hair distracted me from fully appreciating the process by swinging around my shoulders and into my field of vision. The metallic ends caught the light from the fluorescent lightbulbs and refracted light around the room.

I grabbed a pair of scissors from the kitchen, one of the many kitchen utensils will had stocked my kitchen with but had gone unused, and got to work on cutting the gold out of my hair.

Another pair of scissors and the knowledge to cut a few inches into the ‘real hair’ later, I’d finished the job.

A heap of bright golden thread pooled around my bathroom floor, and I got the temptation to take it to a pawnshop. I fought down the impulse but saved it carefully in the dresser behind the mirror. I wouldn’t have any answers for where I’d gotten it from, but it would be a good emergency fund. It wasn’t like I thought I’d ever need it, but it was better safe than sorry.

I walked into the kitchen intending to eat something, despite not being hungry when the time on the oven caught my eye.

For one of the first times in my life, I let out a curse and ran around the apartment to gather my school things and get out the door. In the flurry of finding out I was a prince from another world, I’d forgotten that I was still a student with responsibilities and an attendance record to keep. It wasn’t like I particularly enjoyed going to school, but I needed to graduate to keep the company.

Mei Ruan March 29th, 20XX

I stifled a reaction as Lillian phased into the room like a detached shadow and avoided the impulse to make eye contact with her. The other fairy kept her eyes trained on my older sister’s stocky figure and stood silently in the middle of the room until my elder sister finally acknowledged her presence.

“Report”

Lillian dropped onto her right knee and folded the wing on the same side, having learned her lesson from last time. She was our mother’s official aide and served as both a guardian and servant to the three inheriting daughters of my mother.

There was no reason for her to act so subserviently to Jaya, but since my elder sister thrived on such surface displays of respect, Lillian must have decided it wasn’t worth the effort to educate her on the proper rules of etiquette and posturing.

“Reporting on behalf of the third Daughter of the Ruan Family, Aruna.”

Aruna was the third inheriting daughter and had inherited control of the information network my mother had founded. It wasn’t the most powerful network out of the four duchies and had nothing on the royal family’s network, but it was large enough to need an official head.

She should have attended this meeting, just like I was, but on account of her being so young and the fact that she feared Jaya, she would send Lillian to report in her place. On top of being our mother’s Aide, she was also the leader of the information gathering team and assisted Aruna.

“Our sources in the castle have told us that the prince had arrived. We are still unclear of where he was, or how long he was out of the castle, but they reported him to have had a human appearance upon his arrival. This inclines us to believe that the rumours of the prince being ill in the castle were false.”

Jaya pursed her lips in thought and raised a hand to stop Lillian from speaking. The word ‘rumour’ piqued her attention and her eyes narrowed in a sick excitement. There were few things she enjoyed more than hearing bad things about those superior to her. The fingers on her right hand rhythmically rapped on the table as she mused out loud.

“The sickly prince of the fairies walked around the royal palace looking like a human? Is that even possible?... Esmeralda, what exactly have you been doing all alone in that enormous castle?”

She tossed out the question like she expected an answer, but then kept talking without giving her imaginary partner a chance to reply. Jaya finally turned to Lillian and looked down on the dark themed fairy.

“What of the old Queen? Not the prince’s deceased mother, but the one before that.”

“She is still in ‘rest’ and will not be out until the prince and his partner’s coronation. It is unlikely that she will resume the throne.”

“She will surely be pleased to have a ‘beautiful’ granddaughter-in-law from the Ruan family, correct?”

Lillian carefully gave out a response and took pains to choose each word. Jaya was trying to belittle me by reducing my value to my face, but it looked like Lillian was reluctant to agree.

“The current state of the Royal family would benefit from being paired with the Ruan Duchy. If we leverage on the late queen’s words to your mother, I doubt there would be an issue with the match.”

Jaya looked annoyed by Lillian’s completely factual answer, but couldn’t find a reason to punish her. She forcibly relaxed her posture and beckoned me toward her. It looked like I would be a scapegoat again. She clapped a heavy hand onto my shoulder and tightened her grip enough to hurt. I fought the impulse to fling her arm off me and mentally looped my vow of coexistence.

“Why aren’t you thanking me, Mei? If not for your adoring elder sister, how could you have gained the opportunity to become the bride of royalty!”

The mental roar of an impulse to take her out to the field and battle her to one of our deaths roared in my head, but I fought it down and looked down at the floor. She loved to shame me in such ways, but as long as I could keep my cool, that was as far as she would go.

Despite my best to hide my internal struggle between upsetting the entire duchy and letting her prick at my pride any more than she already had, some intense emotion slipped onto my face.

She lifted a hand to my chin and forcibly tilted my face upwards,

“Mei, my darling little sister. You must be the only female in the entire land that is ever going to heed their man’s word before they act! Isn’t that such an honour?! You’ll go down in the history books!”

My heart grew colder and colder at each mocking word she threw in my face, and I could feel my rationality slipping away.

There was no reason for her to be so antagonistic toward me, so I wasn’t sure why she never missed an opportunity to shame me like so. She was cold to our younger sister as well, but she never humiliated her as she did me.

Even on the account that she worried about one of us attempting to usurp her position as the Duchess of the Ruan territories, not that either of us had ever shown such ambition, I didn’t see any reason in tormenting me like this.

“Why don’t you respond, sister? Don’t you agree it’s a wonderful thing to go down in history?”

A sharp pressure fell onto my shoulder blades and I felt myself being pushed onto my knees as she waited for me to thank her. The pressure slowly but surely increased in waves and it raised in intensity by twofold for every second I resisted. Soon enough I felt like I was carrying a behemoth on my shoulders, but I refused to bend and kept my vision on Lillian’s left hand.

As soon as I was about to break and attack my sister in response, I saw Lillian twist her pointer finger and thumb into a circle and extend the other three in a straight line. I gave in to the weight and crumpled onto my knee with a bitter expression.

Jaya enjoyed seeing me in pain, so she wouldn’t have let me go if I didn’t show any sort of discontent at her tyranny.

“My apologies, Duchess. Thank you for the opportunity.”

I felt an outside source of magic paralyze my face and instinctively fought against it, but caught Lillian shaking her head. She tapped under her eyes and then smoothly returned her wand to its holster before Jaya caught her.

My face had probably grown too vicious again, and I couldn’t let Jaya feel like I was anything but satisfied with her occupation of the Duchess role.

But one day. Not today, nor the next, but one day for sure. I would make sure she paid every inch of what she did to me with interest.