Mally pulled to a stop outside a massive mansion. It was stately, with red brick and windows polished until they gleamed. They swung off the horse and unstrapped the chest, vaguely aware of everything they had given up to be an adventurer, and then they paused to take in the sight of it.

It was beautiful. Picturesque. They were sure the garden out back was perfectly pruned and presentable. It was perfect in every way, and they felt massively uncomfortable without a dress on. Like they needed their own armor to face this.

They paid for waiting, because there was the sound of clopping horse hooves and carriage wheels, and when they turned, a carriage was pulling up to the estate. Their eyes widened in sheer panic, and they turned to flee, but then they realized they still had the chest in their hands. They froze, not sure of what to do, and the door to the carriage opened.

“Mally?” Edwin asked, and Mally bit back an unflattering curse as they turned back to him.

“Ah… I was just dropping off some books. From the shop,” they said, and Edwin stepped down onto the ground and approached them.

“I can take those,” he said and held out his hands, and gods, why did they give this body the capability to sweat?

“I should hand it off to the butler,” they said, and he stared down at them with an unreadable expression on his face. “What.”

“Just give me the chest,” he said and took it, and they let him. “We didn’t get a chance to invite you for tea.”

“I think you forget I’m a commoner,” they lied, and he frowned at them.

“You saved the lives of all my men with your quick action,” he said. “And the lives of the paladins. We didn’t even lose a horse.”

“I don’t think I should be celebrated for being able to kill easily,” they said, and bit back a curse at how abrupt they were. They shouldn’t have said it like that. Fuck.

Edwin was quiet, and they turned and swung atop Rat.

“Have a nice day, my lord,” they said, and spurred Rat on, leaving Edwin standing and staring after them in silence. Their heart was hammering in their chest, and they thought they were kind of an idiot for back-talking nobility like that. They needed to get better about that. They were no longer nobility, and they needed to act like it. As the daughter of the Marquis of DeVille, they had certain privileges, even as an illegitimate child, and a sharp tongue was one of them. They no longer had those kinds of privileges. They needed to seriously start acting like a commoner, or they were going to get into trouble. They knew Edwin was the type of person to let that slide, but they may end up brushing shoulders with other nobility, and they had to protect themself.

It was frustrating. They were well aware they had given up just about everything, but they seriously couldn’t imagine going through life as a woman in high society. It was one thing to be a commoner woman. Being a noblewoman was a whole other story, and they couldn’t…

They couldn’t.

They just couldn’t do it. Every etiquette lesson, every smack of the riding crop, every snide comment about their inferior birth… They couldn’t do it. For the rest of their life, they would be treated as a dirty half breed, and if they had to choose between their commoner side and their noble side, they would choose the commoner side, every time.

Every. Single. Time.

Taking a deep breath in, they tilted their head back and squinted at the sun. It was shining brightly, but they heard the townspeople talking about a storm coming in. They would probably be stuck in the inn tomorrow. They hoped it was a nice inn.

In the meantime, they had to go to the guild and collect their payment. They spurred Rat into a canter, since the streets were clear, and rolled with his easy stride. Their legs and backside were aching, and fuck, why did they give this body a sense of pain? The sweat, the pain, it was supposed to be as lifelike as possible. They needed to pass as human, though they weren’t even sure they were human anymore. Ah, things to worry about later. They were human enough.

When they looked over their shoulder there, Edwin was still standing there, staring after them. They frowned and faced forward, not liking that in the slightest. Had he taken offense? Was he going to complain to the guild? He was petty enough. He burned down the entire DeVille family just to spite Georgina. The whole damn family got executed, so they knew he had it in them, but he may decide it wasn’t worth the time.

He would probably decide it wasn’t worth the time.

They breathed out, following along in the canter, and stretched their arms to the sun. Their back didn’t pop anymore, because they didn’t actually have a spine, just a mycelium structure, and they idly wondered if they should be concerned about treatment. They had tested and made sure regular cleansing and healing spells worked on this body, but…

Ah, well. It was fine.

They had leveling up to do, they didn’t have time to worry about these sorts of things.

How long would it take to reach A-rank, they wondered. They had scanned over the quests and were pretty sure they could handle most of them, but spores didn’t really work against the undead. Well, they could just skip the undead. Or come up with a more creative spell. That worked, too. Hypothetically, they could just bring the undead back to life and just kill them again, but that seemed a bit too labor intensive. They wanted an easy time of things.

They just wanted to level up as quick as they could and gain as much money as they could so they could lead an easy life in the aftermath.

Maybe they would open their own bookstore.

Or a specialty tea store? That was one thing they had always loved about being noble. All of the various teas they got to try. Yeah, they could trade rare and exotic teas in their retirement. That seemed like a good enough option.

Thoughts swimming with the idea of retirement, they led Rat through the twisting city, on the hunt for the guild. They got turned around a few times, but soon, they made it there. They swung off their horse and tethered him out front, and then they made their way inside and walked up to the counter where Mirabel was waiting.

“Mally!” she said warmly. “Back already?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied and held out his guild card. She scanned it over a strange lump in the desk, and a light popped up, floating above the card to show one guild crest. She tapped on it, and a detail about the job appeared before her.

“Looks like you completed your first quest!” she said brightly, and handed him back the card. “Let me get you your payment.”

She disappeared back into the backroom, and he leaned on the counter, turning the guild card over in his hands, wondering what magic was on it and how it was keeping track. Did all of the leaflets have spells on them? It had to be pretty complicated magic. No wonder it was two gold to register. The silver to replace the card seemed a little low, though. These things must be easy to produce once the magic was already made.

Mirabel came back out and slid five copper coins across the desk to him, and he took them.

“Thank you!” he said cheerfully, and she waved at him.

“Now, it’s getting dark out. Do you have somewhere to stay?” she asked, and he smiled at her.

“I have an inn!”

“Oh, you’re not local?” she asked, and he shook his head no.

“No, I’m from down South,” he replied, a lie, but it was fine. No one was going to fact check him. “This is my first day in the capital.”

“Have you eaten yet?” she asked seriously, and he hesitated, because no, he hadn’t, but… “We have food here. Get something before you go. It’s cheaper than the food at the inn.”

“Oh… Okay,” he replied and looked around.

“Right over there, next to the bar,” she said, and he nodded and made his way off. Nervously, he approached the counter where the chef was cooking, stirring a great pot of a stew that smelled absolutely divine, and he cleared his throat.

“Hi?” he tried for, and the chef looked up. He was a big, burly man, covered in magically enchanted tattoos that moved along his skin in a lifelike pattern, and Mally was immediately intimidated.

“You’re skin and bones,” the massive man said and slammed his massive butcher’s knife into a wooden cutting board. “Sit. Now.”

Mally blinked, not sure how to respond to that, and slowly crawled onto the stool. The chef dipped a massive ladle into the stew bubbling on the stove and spooned it into a bowl, and then he tossed it in front of Mally, followed by a small loaf of bread.

“First meal’s on the house,” he grunted, and Mally stared down at the stew. Oh. Okay then. They picked up the spoon and dipped it into the stew, taking a sip, and to their surprise, it was very good, but they had no idea what the meat in it was. It didn’t taste like a beef or pork stew. It tasted like something very different. There were root vegetables in it and tiny pearl onions, and Mally just decided to give it their all and make their way through the soup. The chef glanced at them, and then---

“You eat like a noble, kid. Make a little noise,” he grunted, and Mally froze as they recalled stinging hits on their shins.

“A lady does not slurp, nor does she noisily sip.”

Mally swallowed and tentatively, oh so tentatively, slurped at the stew. The chef grunted in approval, and Mally did it again before they bit down on the meat and made sure to noisily chew.

Okay.

Yeah, okay.

They weren’t a noble anymore. They could make as much noise as they damn well pleased when they ate. It was uniquely liberating, because in their first life, they had been a noisy, messy eater. Everything about them had been sloppy, and they had been shamed for it, but they had never stopped.

This was nice, they thought as they swallowed down the stew. This was… It was different, but it was nice. No one had really said hi to them, but they were just settling in. They could still see their father’s cold purple eyes in their mind’s eye. They had always hated that they had the same eye color as him. They had once considered gouging their own eyes out to spite him, but then they wouldn’t be able to read books, so they didn’t.

They liked their eyes now. Honey-brown, the color of sweetness and kindness. They liked their eyes a lot. They didn’t see anything wrong with them.

They wondered if the world was going to punish them for what they did. If the cosmic forces of the universe came together to force them to bend a knee to the force of the plot. They hoped not. They truly hoped not, because they could only imagine showing themself in high society like this. Never mind that they had technically found the path to somewhat ethical immortality. You just kept growing bodies.

… No. No, they would not be mentioning that to anyone. Ever. They would take the secret to their grave. Immortality…

No. They had seen Altered Carbon. They knew exactly how messy it would get. No, thank you. Growing bodies made out of mycelium, basically being able to program them to do whatever, erasing the need for pain, sleep, emotions, if you really wanted to get nasty with it…

They had endeavored to make this body as lifelike as possible. If they kept it together, no one would ever know. They just couldn’t get close to people, which meant no parties. No, no parties. That was not a good idea.

With a sigh, they scraped the bottom of the bowl to get the last dregs of the stew, and the giant man leaned back on the stove and studied them.

“So, where are your parents, kid?” he asked, and Mally swallowed.

“Gone,” they replied, and he tilted his head.

“Dead?”

“No. Just. Gone.”

“You run away?”

“Yeah.”

“You have a good reason?”

They could still remember the riding crop.

“Yeah,” they replied quietly, and he snorted.

“Alright, then. You’ll find a home here,” he said, and they nodded and looked down at the rough countertop, scarred again and again with people stabbing knives into it. “Get a boot knife. You need a backup weapon.”

“I’ll get it tomorrow,” they promised, and he nodded, content.

“Good. Now get on back to the inn. It’s getting late,” he said, and Mally slipped down from the stool.

“Thank you,” they said, genuinely, and the old chef snorted.

“Don’t thank me, kid. Just get home okay.”

Get home okay.

Would this be home?