My body felt heavy and someone’s hand was gently holding mine. Everything was soft and warm, I seemed to be sleeping in a very comfortable bed. My eyes slowly blinked open.

The person formerly know as Sasha who was currently inhabiting my body smiled down at me tenderly.

“Hey, pet… you okay?” She petted my arm softly with her free hand, and I pulled away my hand from hers, which she didn’t stop, although she frowned slightly.

“You aren’t still upset, are you? I have to take control if we’re both going to survive… you see that, right?” I looked away from her.

“Shut up.” She sighed.

“Watch your tone, Sasha. I really just want to make tonight as pleasant as possible for you, you know that, right?” I growled at her calling me ‘Sasha’.

“I don’t know, seems I can’t trust your words at all… I thought you didn’t want to betray me again.”

“And I didn’t.”

“What the fuck do you call what you did, then.”

“Just… necessary. I was hoping you’d understand that once you got some rest.”

“Yeah, well… fuck you.” She stared at me, a little confused, and then smiled, drawing closer.

“...I’d be glad to make love, pet, you only needed to ask….” I put my hand on her forehead to hold her back, and she let me stop her, though she looked increasingly annoyed. I was pretty annoyed myself.

“No, that was my bad, ‘fuck you’ is an idiom from my world, it more means… some sort of curse.”

“Ah.” She furrowed her brow, and I crossed my arms against my chest.

“You just want me for my body anyway.” She frowned.

“That’s not true… how can I make you believe me?”

“I mean, you have mind magic, you can make me believe whatever you want.”

“I don’t want to overwrite your mind, Sasha….”

“Coulda fooled me.” A soft growl came from between her lips, and her hand was suddenly gripping the top of my head, palm against my forehead, and I glared up at her as best I could with her arm half-obscuring my vision.

“Yeah? Go ahead, it’s the only way I’ll ever care about you again.”

For a long moment, we stayed there, our gazes locked. Was she already starting to alter her mind? I couldn’t tell.

Finally, she took her hand away, holding it in her other hand as if she had hurt herself, and shook her head, looking away from me.

“I’ll... give you a little time to cool off. Don’t do anything stupider than usual.” She stood up and was gone in an instant, leaving a blur behind her before I could respond.

“That desperate to get in the last word, huh?” I asked the empty air.

I stood up and paced for a bit, looking around the room. Given the décor and the sheer quality of the bed, it felt like it was one of the nicer rooms in her harem. There were windows to outside with natural light filtering in, but when I went out to feel them, there was no breeze or change of heat… some sort of magical wall made to look like windows, then.

I went to open the door– locked. Ugh. I walked over to the bed and threw myself down on it, punching it, but it was soft and not very satisfying at all.

How could I have been so stupid as to trust her?

I needed someone to vent to, but I didn’t trust anyone.

When it came down to it, that was the issue, wasn’t it? She was the only person in the world I could trust to protect me, and she constantly betrayed my trust in every other way.

I wanted to believe her, because I didn’t have any other options for someone to cling to.

Fuck.

But first I’d have to escape from this room. I could bust it down the door if I was willing to expend some mana, but that wouldn’t be the first.

“Can you quiet it down? You’re supposed to be in there, and if you keep it up, I’ll have to call the guard.” A feminine voice, but so was everyone’s here. Hmm.

“Who’s on duty right now?”

“Valentine and Eskra.”

“Can you get Valentine for me?”

“...just cause she’s a softy doesn’t mean she’s going to let you out.”

“Yeah, just….”

“Fine, fine, but don’t tell anyone I was being soft on you.”

“I don’t event know who you are.”

“Velt. You’re Sasha, right? Pretty famous.”

“...yeah.”

“So what’s the story with your Master locking you in there? The stories always said you two were close.”

“...we had a bit of a disagreement recently.” She let out a low whistle.

“Openly disagreeing with your master? I dunno if you’re brave or stupid.”

“She’s just using me for my body.”

“That’s pretty normal, though, right? She takes fairly good care of you… or are those stories all inaccurate too?”

“She tries, I guess.”

“See? So you’ve got it good.”

“No, I don’t… just get Valentine, please.”

“Ohhh, are you jealous of her upcoming engagement to her highness?”

What.

Oh. Oh, right. She was in that body now, so… I slumped against the door. Fuck.

“...yeah. I always thought I was her number one, and now it feels like I’ve just been being used this entire time.”

“It’s politics, what’re you going to do? Everything I’ve heard neither of them plan on casting you out or anything like that… you’ll still probably spend more time with your Master than our Princess does… or any of us get to spend with our Princess, for that matter. Maybe just make some other friends with your newfound free time? I’d like to get to know you a bit better myself.” There was a flirtatious lilt to Velt’s voice.

“Probably a bad idea, she got all jealous when another girl kissed me, after basically saying she wouldn’t mind if she fucked me.”

“Ooh, yeah, the possessive type, ouchie. I hope she doesn’t get that way about our Princess. Her highness is a bit of a free spirit, you know?” There was a bit of wistful amusement in her words. “Well, don’t worry too much, Sasha… I’m sure we can get you some access to some good sex toys for when you’re alone, at least.” Not really my concern right now, honestly, but...

“Yeah, I appreciate the thought.”

“Who kissed you anyways?”

“Valentine. Speaking of, do you think you could finally go get her?”

“...I think that wouldn’t be wise, if your Master got all jealous over a kiss and you just fought.” I sighed.

“Probably not smart, no, just…”

“Yeah, I get it. You want to see her jealous and know you matter. But you gotta be careful with stuff like that. A couple of girls have gotten executed with going too far in their pursuit of the Princess.”

“...what!? I thought she liked her girls!”

“Well, yeah, she does… but if you betray her or hurt someone else out of jealousy, she’s probably going to kill you. One time this one girl stabbed me just to get a moment of her attention, and she had her executed by a guard without even going to see her. It was rough. Even I was asking her to at least see her one last time if she refused to forgive her, and the Princess was crying, but she said she couldn’t be gentle with this sort of thing.”

“...wow, yeah, I don’t know how I’d handle that. You okay now?”

“I feel bad for the dead girl, but… yeah. I think Princess Asperia was sort of avoiding me for a year or so there – y’know, not my fault, but made her remember – but she’s warmed up to me again. She even called me over to lick her pussy last week! Gave me lots of pets and affection. It was really nice. I was so horny afterwards I had to ask my girlfriend to fuck me, even though I usually top her.”

“...you get to have girlfriends?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. I guess you don’t? Her highness doesn’t care what we do as long as it’s not with outsiders and we put her first. She’s really the best Mistress a slave could have… and sorry, here I am bragging while you’re feeling shitty about your Master.” And that made tears rise to my eyes for some stupid reason, although I did my best not to cry.

“Yeah… you’re fine, though. I wonder if I’ll be able to at least be able to hang out with you girls sometimes when the two of them marry.”

“Probably, she can’t be that jealous, right? She let Valentine travel all the way with you after she kissed you, after all. That’s some spicy gossip, right there… I’m going to have to tell everyone.”

“...can you not?”

“Awwh, but it would be so much fun. What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

“Other girls think I’m loose, one makes a move on me, I give in because I’m lonely and mad at Master, and then…”

“Ooh, yeah, okay, I’ll wait at least a week on that one. Don’t want another dead girl’s blood in my hands, after all!”

“Why do you sound cheerful about that?”

“I mean... gotta have a little humor of the graveyard as a slave, you know? Even if we’re fairly safe here in her highness’s little garden, we’ve all been just a few wrong steps from death before.” She giggled as if this was itself a joke. I didn’t get it.

“...mmm, okay. I’ll keep that in mind.” I wiped my tears away, for all the good it was doing me.

“...not around non-slaves, of course… but it does really help to be able to make light of things a little… Master keeping you pretty close to his side, huh?”

“Hers, actually. And yeah.”

“...shouldn’t it be Mistress, then?”

“...yeah, that’s a good question. Not that I care how she wants to be addressed right now.”

“...wow, your Master – or Mistress – really lets you get away with a lot, huh? Her highness loves all of us, but she wouldn’t let even a little disrespect just slide.”

“Otherworlders, you know? Probably why she’s so possessive, too.” ...why was she so possessive, come to think of it? And why hadn’t she rewrote my mind? Would that mess with the mind-swapping spell?

“Mmm, yeah… I wonder what it’s like being a slave in the other world.”

“Apparently there’s a lot less of them there. It’s mostly illegal or something?

“Oh, awesome! Wow, that’d be such a popular destination, if we could go there instead of pulling people from there, and also if slaves were allowed to actually freely cast magic.”

“...yeah, I’m sure it would be.” I thought back to my world. The planes, cars, apartments, convenience stores… it all felt kinda distant now, unreal. I was the only living person who remembered them, and I’d never meet another Hero if the requirement for a new one being summoned was the current one died.

“Hey now, I can hear you crying… try to pull yourself together, yeah? And oh no, it looks like someone’s carrying something huge, I was never here, talk to you later, bye!”

A set of swift footsteps, and then heavier ones, walking at an even pace. I scurried back to sit on the bed.

That person unlocked the door, opened it, and brought an entire bookshelf loaded with books in, set it down against one of the walls, covering up part of the beautiful mural there, but nothing else. She looked down at me with an even expression.

“These are magic books. You can study them all you like. If you can figure out a decent way to get rid of the body swap spell, and actually pull it off without me stopping you, you’ve proven yourself, and this body is all yours.” Null spell through my head?

“Not a null spell through your head. That’s easy, and also it’s really bad for you. It’s like being stuck in manacles of glass, and your solution is to grab a sledgehammer.” ...ah.

“Let’s see. You can’t cast magic with the intent of harming me, nor can you cast Null to disenchant yourself or myself, nor can you use any other brute force method of removing Mind Magic. Other than that stipulation, you can cast magic wherever and on whoever you want, forever, for eternity.” She stared down at me impassively.

“Is your little tantrum mollified?” I glared up at her, and then shook my head after a moment… it didn’t really do my any good to hold a grudge, and technically she was giving me a way out of this.

“Close enough. I sort of forgive you.”

“Good.”

In a moment, Master was next to me, hand loosely around my throat, eyes staring mercilessly down into mine.

“Because I expect good behavior from here on out. If you ever act like this again, you can expect to get punished for real. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll rework bits of mind until you’re obedient, if I have to. I'm not going to have your foolishness screwing up our chances for survival, or everyone chance's for freedom”

I swallowed, heart beating quicker, and rolled my eyes.

“I know you aren’t going to choke me to death, so it’s kind of pointless to–”

I woke up in a stone room with bars, a prison cell, it seemed, and a hallway leading away. There were a few slits up above me, opening just a bit of the cell to natural light and the blue sky outside… although I wondered if it was just another magical thing, it was high enough I couldn’t reach it.

The only furniture was a little cot on the floor that I was sitting on, and the blanket upon it.

Was this a punishment?

I tried to practice my magic, but found, for whatever reason, I couldn’t cast magic at all.

I sat in it and waited.

I thought about my life and waited.

I exercised and waited.

I rolled around and waited.

I touched myself and waited.

It was finally evening, judging from the sun, and it felt like it had taken eons.

I had never been so bored in my life.

How long was this going to go on?