Chapter 20: A Breaking Down
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Eliza was trying to regain her composure, and doing a much better job of it than Daniel was, still choking on his food as Hayden tried to help him by patting him on the back. It shouldn’t have been a difficult question to answer, or not answer, as the case might be, but clearly Daniel was having just as much trouble with it as she was. They weren’t together, after all. They were sworn enemies, only temporarily brought together by the whims of fate, so that they might escape this world together. 

As Daniel sat up again, his head red and his breathing heavy, their gazes crossed and Eliza knew that that was a lie. Daniel was no more her enemy than the mashed potatoes were. In fact, as the potatoes had just attempted to assassinate him, a uselessly glib part of her brain pointed out, they were more eligible for that position than he was. 

But that left the question unanswered. Unanswerable. Their eyes stayed locked, and Eliza knew that speaking right now would lead to stammered nonsense. But she had to say something, didn’t she? But what if she misspoke? If she had fundamentally misunderstood the nature of them… or worse, if it didn’t matter. They would still return, after all, and she’d be Demon Queen again. He would be Hero again, with all that entailed. They had worlds to return to, and something like this would be left as nothing but a bittersweet memory. Wouldn’t it?

“I’m not,” Eliza began, and the part of her brain that usually did the words thing failed and the backup words thing short circuited, and she bumbled through a series of noises that Jenny seemed to find humorous enough to pretend not to laugh at. “He’s not…” she tried again. “We’re not supposed to…” Eliza finally said. 

“Yes,” Daniel said, his voice clearly still hoarse. Why did that have to give it that low, gruff quality his voice’d had when they’d first met? Why had his voice decided that now was the time to be so eminently attractive? “We can’t,” he said, and Eliza felt something pierce her chest, like she’d been stabbed all over again. He was right, of course, but somehow this hurt more than the first time he’d run a sword through her chest. 

“Yes,” she said, with an apologetic smile to Jenny and Hayden who, of course, didn’t understand. “It’s a very long story, but sadly, there’s no future between us. I couldn’t…” She paused, trying, struggling, failing to find the words and having to resort to a handful that was going to have to do. He was the Hero. He would never be able to be hers, not with someone like her, when they went back. “Not with someone like him,” she said, and sipped her drink, hoping to hide behind the glass for a moment. 

Daniel nodded, his face about as grim as she felt, and he looked between Jenny and Hayden, who now seemed to have shifted into concern. “It’s a very long story,” he said, and Eliza tried her best, for her own sake, not to hear his voice breaking. “It’s… for another time.”

“I’m so sorry,” Jenny said. “I didn’t know this was a touchy subject. I never should have brought it up.” She looked positively guilty, and Eliza couldn’t help but feel bad. The girl really hadn’t anticipated shattering the evening’s atmosphere with a question like that, and clearly it weighed on her. Eliza tried to give her a reassuring smile. 

“It’s quite all right, Jenny. It’s something Daniel and I discussed a long time ago,” she said, looking across the table at him to make sure they were still on the same page. “Perhaps it was for the best that it was brought up again?” It was a half-question. Part rhetorical, part plea, begging the universe to tell her that, no, it wasn’t. 

But no such answer came. Daniel simply nodded again. Their agreement stood. And that was, perhaps, for the best. Companionship has a tendency of making things complicated. Even someone as isolated as the Demon Queen knew that. If and when they went back, there would be worlds between them again, after all, and then it would be easier to wave this all away as a strange episode in their lives, if one she would try to remember with all the fondness she could muster. Even if it made her want to bawl right now. 

Dinner continued quickly and quietly after that. Not much more was said. Not much more, Eliza felt, could be said. Something had been broken, both in the evening and, she feared, between herself and Daniel. Maybe temporary. Maybe not. A broken bone could heal, the devil on her shoulder told her. A broken pot could not, the other devil on her other shoulder reminded her. There was no telling. 

It was quiet. It wasn’t… pleasant, not as pleasant as it had been, and even though the room was warm, the food tasted wonderfully and the company was good, Eliza felt cold. She wanted to hold someone, a thought she also needed to push to the background because she knew only one person she wanted to hold. As the evening came to a close and they said their goodbyes, Jenny apologizing again for the unfortunate question, Eliza did what she could to make sure the wonderful couple didn’t feel too bad. It hadn’t been their fault, after all, and both Jenny and Hayden had been exceedingly charming. She’d been made to feel beautiful by them both, and they’d given Daniel clothes that had made him look and feel a lot more like the person he really was. The person Eliza saw so easily when she looked at him. 

The walk back to their apartment was uneventful, to Eliza’s regret. She would’ve given… well, not anything, but a lot, for something to break the silence, the glass wall that seemed to have been invisibly set up between Daniel and her. She wanted to talk to him, but would that do any good? They’d already talked. They’d already agreed on what they were and what they’d be doing. Sure, she’d still be more Eliza than ‘Evil Demon Queen’ if she ever found her way back, but he’d be Daniel, the Hero. They weren’t supposed to even be friends. Would it even be worth it to go back, in that case? If she’d just be in her castle, talking to servants and dignitaries and accountants and… 

More importantly, she wondered as they walked up the flights of stairs, did she even want to go back? Here she could read, and write, and people paid her to do it! Not much, but enough. And she would have that nest egg that would last her in times of hardship. She didn’t have to be anything but Eliza here. She could just stay. 

As they walked into the apartment, which felt cold and cramped instead of warm and cozy, too dark and too oppressive today, Daniel simply walked over to the couch and sat down. Without looking at her, he started to unbutton his shirt. “You can take the bed today,” he said quietly. “I might take a walk.” Eliza nodded. It wasn’t really that late, all things considered, and she couldn’t hold the need to clear his head against him. She could use the same, if she was honest with herself. On top of that, she appreciated that he wouldn’t be waking her up if he did decide to go out. She just nodded in response and went to the bedroom, trying to figure out why. 

Why, she couldn’t figure out, was she on the verge of tears as she took off her shoes? Why did it feel like she was losing something as she scurried out of her sweater dress? Why was every fiber of her being telling her something was wrong as she crawled into bed? Nothing had changed, she told herself as tears started to flow. Everything was just the same as it had been before, and that was the right thing, wasn’t it? As she slowly curled up into a ball, Eliza cried herself to sleep. 

 

----

 

“No,” Eliza said, as she stood in an infinite field of nothing. “I am not in the bloody mood for this right now.” She took a deep breath and tried to unfurrow her brow and unjut her jaw. She put her hands on her hips and was surprised to find them there again. They were her hips. Sure, the hormones had done some work, but these were… well, it was a bit like sitting in your favourite chair. There was a sense of familiarity. She looked down. She was in her own body again. Sure, the skin was more… skin-coloured, and her center of gravity was a little closer to the ground. She wasn’t the giantess she had once been, but that was fine. She’d gotten used to a more human height anyway. 

“I can come back later, if you want,” a voice behind her said. On a modest bench made of the same nothing-material as everything else sat… well, her. Goodness, she had never really considered how big she used to be. Except that this person had none of the panache, the presentation she’d once had. Knees together, wearing what seemed to be a modest summer dress instead of the risqué pieces Eliza had once worn, this felt like a timid reflection of the person she’d once been. But she was smiling happily, in a way Eliza had never done, either. 

“You’re… Liz, right?”

“Yup!” Liz said with a happy bounce. “Sorry for taking your name, it just… fit.” Eliza waved her concerns away and sat down next to her. 

“You’re free to do with it what you will,” Eliza said, wearily. “Daniel has mentioned having talks like this with Sally. I must be honest, I’m not in the mood to exchange pleasantries and gossip about both worlds right now, Liz.”

“Oh, that’s not why I’m here, Eliza,” Liz said, the picture of innocence. “It’s been taking me a lot of time, because, well, magic is hard, but… I’m the one who started this,” she pointed between herself and Eliza, “little interaction.”

Eliza frowned. “Wait… how did… but doesn’t that mean that…'' Liz just nodded cheerfully, encouraging her to go on. “You’re able to establish contact between us at will?”

“Yeah! Well, sort of,” she said. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to bridge the gaps between our two worlds and all that, but I’m going to be really honest, I wouldn’t know how to do that. I mean, you would, but I keep blowing parts of your castle up.” Eliza frowned harder at that. “Oh! Don’t worry, I fixed it! But the problem is still there. You know how to use your magic and I don’t.”

“So learn,” Eliza said, a little sourly, not in the mood to play games.

“Well, I could,” Liz said, “but that could take a while. But I think I can do something else instead. Something that could help a lot faster.” Now that piqued Eliza’s interest. 

“Go on?”

“Well, I think I can send through a bit of magic. Nothing major but… enough for, oh, say, two people to jump across the apparently quite flimsy barrier between this world and that one?” Liz seemed a little self-satisfied and, Eliza had to admit, she probably had the right to be. It was a good plan. 

“Enough magic for two people to make it through, huh?” she said. “Not four? You and Sally don’t want to go back?” 

“We-ell,” Liz said with an innocent little pout, “I’m actually pretty happy here, so if it’s all the same to you I would like a guarantee that once you’re back in your own body that you give me one a lot like it because I don’t think I want to go back. Sally’s fine too, by the way.”

“That…” Eliza took a moment to chew on her thoughts, looking out into the void, hoping for it to come up with answers. “I don’t think that will be a problem,” she said. “I don’t think I want to go back anymore. But Daniel might. And I could use the magic to adjust my body a bit over here. Well, your body,” she shot Liz a glance, who had stuck out her tongue in a look of mock disgust. 

“Ew, no, it’s all yours, thank you. Well, if you think you’d be able to make do with that kind of thing to help you out, feel more than free to turn it into… well…” Liz looked down at Eliza with a smile. “You look like you already have a shape figured out. You’ll get there.”

“Yeah,” Eliza said, trying not to think of what her life would look like soon. “I will.”

 

Tick

This chapter was hard to write. Communication breakdowns like this happen all the time, of course, but it's hard to see characters you've seen grow for so long make assumptions that are clearly hurting them. 

A reminder that this story is completely finished and has over ten chapters that have yet to be released on scribblehub, and that you can already read all of them through my Patreon, and you get a whole bunch of added benefits! On top of that, it keeps my lights on and even lets me eat! Patrons get a ton of benefits, like access to new stories, sometimes weeks or even months in advance, as well as cheaper commission rates, exclusive discord roles, and access to private polls about future projects. 

Regardless, I hope you like this, and I'll see you all soon!

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