So, please allow me to introduce myself.

Repeat offender of racing to the end to get to the beginning.

I am Lilly.

And I am a Changeling.

There comes a time in every Changelings life when they have to decide who they are. To determine if they want to be themselves or get lost in the Divergent Personas. Seekers choose to suppress the urge to hide in their skin, but they are afraid to go outside and live. Passers are the ones that are most often seen, though I doubt anyone will know they are a Changeling. They hide inside their skin and pretend they’re normal. The Becomers are, well, the method actors. They don’t feel comfortable in their skin for too long as themselves and tend to forget who they are.

I was born to a Passer and a Becomer. Granted, the Becomer became a Changeling to make this possible, but in the end, they got me. A Seeker. I have stopped trying to become something I’m not. Because I know what I am now.

A Changeling with the brain of a god.

This means I know things that normal people often don’t think about. I’m no smarter or wiser than any other person in existence. I don’t have foresight. I can’t manipulate the physical world around me. And, after tonight, I will no longer cast spells without going through the proper channels. I am mortal. I can die. And I will, someday. When I’m done.

All my life I have felt I had a purpose. That I survived my death for a reason. With as many times as I have thought I had finally reached the end, embraced death willingly, the has to be a reason I am still breathing. Perhaps it’s just that I’m too stubborn to die. Perhaps it was Divine Intervention. Either one could be true. But the point is, I’m still here for some reason.

The last time I did something stupid and almost bit the big one, Lucifer broke the rules of the game and crossed the line between realms to bring me home. He didn’t yell, he didn’t scream or break things. He just held me to his chest as I cried in silence. I told him I was tired. That I just wanted to sleep. But he wouldn’t let me. It wasn’t until after the Clerics brought me back that I realized I’d died again. That set me back a hefty amount of gold, but it made me stop and reevaluate the situation.

I started thinking back through the Divergent Personas I had taken on over the years and tried to figure out where I had lost my way. I used to have a plan. Then I got derailed by some seriously bad life choices. I got lonely and decided to try and find someone that fit my ideal. Dominant, masculine, sexy. My hormones have been on overdrive since I hit puberty. To curb the chances of being painted as a whore, I required a relationship before I would put out. Looking back on this, I am a raging cunt for that when I knew it wasn’t right. I never wanted to be kept in a cage. Why would I try to do that to somebody? Why would I make them stay loyal to me without earning it? Like I said, selfish twat. *points to self*

Or, at least, I was, back when Lilly was born. Fully matured and out on my own for the first time, Mystra sent me Destiny who dubbed me Lilliana Stormwalker. Granted at the time it was an inside joke about the fact that I like walking in the rain on the material plane when it’s warm.

But it fit when I started to remember things from the times I wasn’t mortal. Back then, I was a librarian. Total puss, really young as far as Old Ones were concerned, and jumpy as fuck. I always squeak when I get startled, even now as a mortal. But, back then, there was one in particular that loved making me jump.

Until he did it one too many times and got pissed at him and stormed off. I got lost in the library’s shadows. Wandered way too deep into the stacks and ended up in the horror section. Now, the Astral Library is already an impressionistic nightmare, but the place where the terrors live is weird. The geometry is wrong in an already twisted expanse of knowledge and it makes your gut twist as the temperature plummets in your veins. Frozen by terror takes on a whole new meaning in there. I lost my mind in there, all alone and screaming. He found me there and pulled me out. That was the first time I understood that it was his section. That was why he thought it was funny when she squeaked. For all the times he’d startled me, I never felt threatened.

I went from hating his guts, to Notice Me, Senpai, to fuck this shit, I’m out with him for a few different reasons. You see, I was in charge of the stories that ended with Happily Ever After and he was in charge of the books that could fuck shit up in the wrong hands. As soon as he saved me from terror itself, I saw him as a hero. I blinded myself to his flaws and only saw the greatness, so I wouldn’t go away no matter how much he tried to scare me. I had seen what thrashed around in there, I knew what he dealt with, but I was never afraid of him. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, no matter how much he blustered. That irritated the fuck out of him. He started baiting me and daring me to do things he knew scared the piss out me. But I was determined to win his affection, not knowing he was no longer capable of it.

When it got to the point where I had proven my strength and bravery to be able to earn a promotion to be able to wander his section without him, he still refused to see me as anything more than the kid that still squeaked when she got startled. That pissed me off more than anything. The day I found a way for us to walk in mortal skin without ripping reality apart, we ended up fighting. I called him a coward and declared that, if he wouldn’t help me, I’d figure it out by myself like I had everything else. I cast the ritual and ripped open a portal just in time for him to see me jump through it.

That was the last time I saw him. I remember what he was like as far as his personality back then, but the mortal interpretation of him is a bit more complicated. I have to think about the opposite of what I am to find him. And, I know he’s here. I can feel him. This is his world. He created it. He is the darkness where the imagination lives. That’s how I know I was imagined. But, I’m real now. Because I know who I am. I used to be a character in his story. The princess he always dreamed of rescuing. As much as he denied it back then, I knew he enjoyed the stories I told him. But I am not a princess. I don’t have royal blood. I was trapped. I was held hostage by a monster. And I waited for my prince for what felt like forever. But my story doesn’t end with Happily Ever After.

I tried to see my prince of darkness in every person I loved, changing myself to be their princess instead of his. The only time I was ever truly myself, i.e. calm and level headed, was the first time Destiny told me I could choose to be anybody I wanted to. I was well on my way to becoming who I am now until I made the mistake of thinking I found him. It set me back quite a bit in my development to the point where I started over as a Bard in the College of Eloquence after being a Ranger for years as a Swarm-Master. Now, I about to do it one last time. As an Artificer. After growing up hiding in plain sight, being in the spotlight doesn’t feel right, but I like working with my hands and studying magic. And I know enough now to qualify as Tenth Level. So, I’m going to do what I should have done, instead of believing my own stories, and realize there is no Happily Ever After.

There was no challenge levied in my direction. When he told me not to go, he didn’t mean "don't do the spell". He meant don’t leave without him. He wanted the chance to recheck my work to make sure it wouldn’t cause destruction. If the feeling that I get when I think about the nothingness seeping in is any indication, I think it might have. So, before I can face him and submit to his ire, probably get dragged back to the library by the ear, I have to fix the cracks I created. If I could snap my fingers and have it done, I would do it right now. But mortals can’t handle that kind of power.

It’s a good thing I’m good at improvising. I don’t have any instructions on this one. The only one who has the full copy is the one who wrote them. And he hated me. After everything I put him through in the library, I honestly don’t blame him. I just wish he was here so I could tell him myself that I’m sorry for all the damage I caused. I truly do hope he found happiness. After all the darkness he’d spent his existence in, he deserves it. I still get angry sometimes, when I think of the tradeoff we’d have had to have made to exist in the same timeline in secrecy from each other. But it’s because he left love. I wanted him to feel it so bad that I’m pissed that he chose to give it all to me instead. I know, as a mortal, he is older than me, because he got first-pick of everything. If one of us was more powerful than the other, he’d be outted for what he is, and I’d have already found him. You see, the mystery was never Lucifer’s, or Order’s. It was mine all along.

But trying to figure out the perfect person for me, my prince, it forced me to truly look at myself and realize what my needs are and how to fulfill them. I managed to break it down to the basics; food, shelter, and connection. I don’t need coins or things and, to be frank, I don’t want it. It creates too much greed and clutter. I show my love through words and service. I’ll put those I love before all else. I admired the heroes of the Light until I realized the only difference between a hero and the villain was whether they were willing to lie to protect their reputation. In my experience, villains own their past mistakes and accept their reproductions. It’s the heroes that deny any wrongdoing.

So, on that note, I proudly declare that I am a villain. I have caused a lot of damage. I have made a lot of mistakes. And I will spend the rest of the time I have left as a mortal to fixing them. I’ll never be the hero and my mistakes drove away the truest love I’ve ever had. But I will find a way to make it up to him, even if he never sees it. I hope he has found happiness and that he learned to love. Because I will give him an eternity to enjoy it if I can, even if I’m not in it.

But before I can go fulfill that destiny. I have to explain how I got here.

If I knew then what I know now... Oh shit, I think I did.

END OF ACT ONE