Greetings, and welcome to a very niche story. I wanted to run this one alongside my other creation, Reversal, because sometimes I'm in the mood to just write smut, and sometimes I'm in the mood for some plot with my porn.
This story is a love letter to a fairly particular genre. If you clicked on that title, chances are you're familiar with it. It will be tropey, it will be referential, it will be satirical at times. For the most part, though, it's a typical 'oh-gosh-I-died-and-was-reincarnated-into-my-favourite-novel' story, but with the addition of futanari, because I am nothing if not predictable. Sexual content will mostly revolve around Futa/F and Futa/Futa pairings; male characters will barely feature in such scenes.
I hope you enjoy.
***
Chapter 01
I was thirty-two years old when I died.
I'd like to say it was dramatic, or heroic, but that would be all sorts of false. I'd been crossing the street, staring at my phone, fully engrossed in a rather poorly translated web novel. The marks of the original Korean were all over it - characters seemed to enjoy saying 'Keuk!' a lot - and the characters' names changed randomly between chapters. Juan became John, became Shaun, became Jones, became... Jone?
In spite of the shoddy quality, the story itself had captured my attention. Though
The Rose Grown in a Garden of Shadow
was a little formulaic, it played with the appropriate tropes with just enough originality to keep my interest - and that of the thousands of others who waited eagerly on the translation of each new chapter. The pure-hearted lead, Elowyn, was on the verge of conquering her long-time rival, the evil Duchess Sophia, who had harnessed the power of a devil to take over the kingdom. I'd noticed a new update as I was leaving work, and against my better judgement, had opened it immediately and let myself get sucked into it, walking home on autopilot.
Yeah... you can figure how that worked out for me, right?
I'd like to say that I at least turned to dramatically throw my hands up at the last second as a speeding truck bowled me off my feet or something, but in all honesty I didn't even see what killed me. One moment I was walking and reading, the next I was dead.
Splat.
Unexpectedly, I've had plenty of time to reflect on my mistake. Normally I'd at least expect death to be the end, but they say every mistake is an opportunity for a new beginning.
I guess the universe takes that literally.
***
I hadn't expected to open my eyes. Not after that accident, that blinding, all-encompassing flash of pain. Maybe, at best, I would swim back into consciousness in a hospital bed, days or weeks later, every muscle and organ crying out in agony.
And yet...nothing. My eyes snapped open with remarkable alacrity, a cold sweat breaking out across my brow as I flailed my way upright, gasping in panicked confusion. Long, slender legs kicked at soft, luxurious bedlinens (which, some detached corner of my brain registered, I'd certainly never been able to afford before). Above me was not a ceiling, but the ostentatiously-appointed canopy of a four-poster bed, draped in velvet curtains that were currently tied back at the corners, allowing the gentle, warm glow of morning to filter through from a distant window.
My heart still racing just as fast as my mind, I struggled to extricate myself from the many layers of sheets and blankets, barely noticing the trim of gold brocade and the incredible fluffiness of the mattress. My bare feet hit the burgundy carpet and almost sank into it, toes wiggling in astonishment at the luxurious feeling. This was certainly not a hospital ward. As my eyes adjusted to the bright morning light and my breathing calmed a little, a faint shiver still rattling down my spine with every deep inhalation, I glanced around the room.
It was... ostentatious. That was the only word that seemed appropriate. Everything was gilded, bejeweled, embroidered, or lavishly wood-panelled. The bed on which I sat occupied a central position, perfectly placed to receive morning sunlight from the floor-to-ceiling windows that filled an entire wall. The other three walls of the large room each featured a large, ornate door, with the largest straight opposite the window. Shelves lined the wall either side of that door, apparently a showcase for a collection of trinkets I couldn't quite make out through my bleary eyes. A dressing table the size of a small kitchen occupied one corner of the room, a shimmering mirror flanked by multiple shelves groaning with little glass vials, bundles of herbs, soaps and cosmetics.
All in all, it seemed to have come straight out of a period drama. The thought put me in mind of something; casting around, I looked for my cell phone, which had been with me when I-
Wait. Did I actually die?
"Gah! Fuck!" I cried out as my head was pierced with a splitting, lancing pain. My hands flew to my temples as I hunched on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees and gritting my teeth. Seeming to flood through a gap opened by the pain, images shuttled through my head like a broken film projector - not all of them familiar. I saw myself as if from a bird's eyes, meandering through my boring daily life as if nothing mattered. Working. Sleeping. Eating. Scrolling mindlessly through my phone. But then I saw a little blonde girl, one who looked nothing like my dull, brunette self. She smiled and laughed, as children do, her hair in lush ringlets.
I watched myself sitting my high school exams, wincing internally at the ridiculous 'scene' haircut I'd insisted on wearing. I didn't have time to dwell on it, though, because I saw the blonde again, a few years older now.
Her smile had faded. Like the twins in
The Shining,
she stared straight through me in a way that made me shudder. Maybe ten years old, her eyes were dull and apathetic. She stood in a room full of adults that I couldn't see, her back straight.
My first date. Her first day of school. A random Tuesday in March. I clawed at my head, groaning in pain as darkness clouded my vision. In shattered fragments, I watched the girl grow up, becoming tall and beautiful even as her eyes grew cold. My own memories whirled through the scenes, melding and twisting until I couldn't tell who was who anymore.
Compelled by some force I didn't understand, I stumbled to my feet, almost tripping half a dozen times as I lurched across the room, collapsing against the boudoir-style dressing table, my hands scrabbling at the wood, knocking bottles over in my trembling haste to keep myself upright. The scenes in my mind continued to whirl: a dance; another examination, but for the blonde girl this time; a kiss under a starry sky; a fight with two other girls; a man shouting, roaring his displeasure; a swirl of what could only be magic, wreathing the sky in fire. There weren't two girls in the memories any more, just one. She just had two different faces, two different hearts, two different names...
"Sophia!" I croaked, and the pain fled. Eyes watering, stinging faintly as the piercing agony in my head faded, I slowly raised my head. Blinking away the tears, I stared at myself in the mirror.
One final image, long forgotten, swam to the forefront of my mind, almost superimposing itself upon reality. An illustration, an amateurly-scanned insert page viewed on a shoddy phone screen - the colour panel accompanying Volume 3 of
Garden of Shadow
, one of a handful of illustrations commissioned by the author to celebrate the story's serialisation... I had seen it a thousand times, and now it stared back at me in the mirror.
Fair skin with fine, almost crystalline features. A narrow, elegant jawline. A tumbling cascade of voluminous, ringleted golden hair, with a few loose strands falling haphazardly in front of clear, sharp blue eyes. Thin, pale lips, lacking definition but capable of twisting into what the author's narration had dubbed 'the cruelest of self-serving sneers.' Dressed in a frilly, pink nightdress, a slender body with gentle, appealing curves, so unlike my own... my other body?
"What the fuck...?" I whispered, sweeping silky blonde curls out of my face to get a better look. Sure enough, the girl in the mirror - Sophia - mimicked my movements, those cold blue eyes locked on to my own.
I was... somehow, against all odds and all logic, I'd become Sophia. I'd died, apparently, and that was enough of a mindfuck to begin with, but even more astonishingly, I appeared to have been reincarnated in the unmistakeable form of a character from my favourite story,
Garden of Shadow
.
And not just any character, either. The villainous Duchess, Sophia of Eastwood. Every second I stared at myself confirmed it further. Not only the commemorative illustration, but every written description matched. The tiny mole under my ear, the faintest of scars on my cheek, easily hidden beneath makeup.
There was just one difference. In the chapter I'd been reading on my ill-fated walk home, Sophia was already a woman past thirty, striking and powerful. The Sophia looking back at me now - while possessed of the same beauty - could not possibly have been older than twenty. She - I? - still had a little of the softness of youth around her face.
I was still unable to look away from my eerily beautiful, youthful, totally unfamiliar face in the mirror. Exhaling deeply, I flopped down on the comfortable, expensive-looking chair in front of the vanity.
That was when I noticed something else was amiss.
Below the diaphanous fabric of my nightdress, I had almost sat on... something. Springing to my feet again, I glared at the chair.
The chair, to its everlasting credit, did not return my gaze. Moreover, there was nothing on it but a soft, even cushion. Certainly nothing that would nudge between my legs like that. In fact, I could have sworn I still felt it now.
Blinking, I glanced downwards at my (Sophia's? Every time I tried to conceptualise the difference, my head throbbed) body once again. The shift I was wearing was fairly shapeless, but I could tell that a slender, feminine form lay below, the picture of noble beauty. The author had always taken great pains to describe how gorgeous the wicked Duchess Sophia was, and it seemed she had always been that way. But there had been no mention of anything below the belt - as expected of an all-ages web novel, I supposed.
Slowly, hesitantly, I waggled my hips left and right.
Something moved.
