7Waking up in a different body was awkward.
Waking up in a different body when she remembered dying was terrifying.
It was strange and wrong and nothing around her made sense. She was a child again, an infant, small and uncoordinated and useless. She couldn't move, not really, not the way she wanted to, and she could barely see anything unless it was right in front of her face. She could hear voices, but she couldn't understand them. It was all just noise to her, gibberish, nonsensical sounds that meant nothing to her. She felt like she should understand it, but the knowledge, words, slipped through her fingers like water.
There was a woman with pale skin and dark hair that smiled softly at her.
"Rayna," she would say, voice gentle and honey sweet.
It took her far longer than she would like to admit to realize that was her name.
It wasn't the name she remembered, wasn't the name she had picked for herself in her life that was.
And it wasn't the only thing that was different. She couldn't see herself, but she could see her hands. They were chubby, the way all baby hands were, but the skin covering them was the wrong color. It was pale with rosy pink splatches of color. That wasn't her skin. Not the skin that she remembered. She remembered a golden tan that grew darker in the sun. The skin she had now looked so white that if she went outside, she'd probably burn. She had no idea what color her eyes were or what her hair looked like and she wasn't sure she wanted to know – wasn't sure she could handle knowing. The only thing that was keeping her from having a break down every other minute was the fact that is seemed like she had been born with the right parts this time around.
The knowledge that she was in diapers and needed someone to change her was eased, somewhat, by the fact that it was that very occurrence that led her to this realization. She couldn't see, but she could feel it when whoever was changing her wiped her. The first time she realized, she burst out into great, heaving sobs. There would be no obstacle course, no hoops to jump through, to make her body the right sex this time. No surgeries or treatments or therapies. She was a girl and everyone knew it. As her grasp on the language grew better, she heard people call her the right pronouns without prompting, without her having to correct them. Having the wrong coloring would be easy to handle in comparison.
In theory at least.
She'd wait until the euphoria wore off to make a decision.
The first time she looked in a mirror and realized what she was looking at, she scrutinized her reflection thoroughly. Ignoring the way the adults cooed at her behavior in the background, she leaned in close to get a better look. She was pudgy, face round with baby fat and covered in skin as pale as her hands. It was hard to tell what her features would look like as she grew. Her eyes, she could tell were a little narrower, more pointed in the corners than they were in her last life. She almost expected blue eyes, the way you read about babies' eyes being, but it looked like hers had settled; a dark gray-green color. Not quite the hazel she had before, but close enough she supposed. Her hair, well, her hair was the right color at least. Dark tufts of fluffy black hair sat on her head with a little purple bow clipped in it. It was baby fine and probably wouldn't hold curls without a boat load of hair spray even once she was older.
Small hands interrupted her exploitation and she turned to look at a face she now realized looked startling like hers.
Twins, was the delayed thought.
A brother, if her budding grasp on the language was correct. Not that that necessarily meant anything; she'll just have to ask him when they're older.
She's not sure which of them was born first, but she knows that his name was Regis the same way hers was Rayna.
He babbled at her, giving her a sweet smile that only infants could pull off, and she found herself cooing back without even thinking.
She could live with this.
Waking up in a different body when she remembered dying was terrifying.
Waking up as a character that didn't exist in a world she knew as a story was…something else entirely.
It took her awhile to put it together. She knew Regis. Her brother, her twin, her constant companion. But then she learned that the man that visited them often with the woman with pale skin and dark hair was named Mors. And as she learned the language, she realized little things: the way the women who watched over her and Regis called them "Highness," the way people called Mors and the woman who visited "Majesty," words like "Insomnia" and "Lucis" and "Astrals."
She'd been reborn as the twin sister of Regis Lucis Caelum, 113th King of Lucis.
Fuck.
Her brother, who smiled at her and shared toys with her and pat her cheeks because he knew it made her giggle. Her brother, who was going to die at fifty because of an old grudge and a stupid prophecy after draining his life force for who knew how many years to act as a shield for as many people as he could shelter. Her brother, who wanted nothing more than for his son to live even though he was born to die for the very Astrals they all worshipped as gods.
Her brother, who made her love him without even trying.
She turned to look at Regis, napping on the playmat next to her, ignorant of the sword hanging above his neck. She took his hand and his fingers curled around hers automatically, an inborn reflex that neither of them had really outgrown yet, but one that never failed to turn her heart to mush.
Regis stirred and yawned, smacking his lips together as his eyes opened to peer up at her, hazy with sleep.
"Ray'a," he slurred, curling around her clumsily, burrowing into her side like he belonged there.
Her breath hitched and she felt her eyes burn. That was her name now. Her new name was her new brother's first word, sloppy and sleep slurred as it was, it was still her name. She curled around him in turn, hands clasped between them.
"Re'is," she whispered back, tongue clumsy in her mouth, heart in her throat.
Her brother hummed and dropped back into the land of dreams.
She stayed awake and whispered his name until she could say it properly without fail.
The gods of this world wanted her brother's servitude.
They wanted him to serve their Crystal, to drain his magic to nothing until the only thing he had left to give was himself. And then they would demand more. The life of his future son, her future nephew, for the sake of a prophesy that would have never been if these gods had been the kind that kept their word.
The gods of this world wanted her brother's life.
They couldn't have him.
Before anyone comes after me for "whitewashing" my own character – Rayna is based off of my own family. My mom's side is 100% Italian, Sicilian specifically. According to the world at large, Italians are white.
My grandmother has always been tan. She's a bit pale these days, but she's pushing 90 and doesn't get outside much, so cut her some slack. My grandfather is brown. Always has been, rain or shine, summer or winter. His skin is brown. But since he's Italian, the world calls him white.
My mom's skin is a few shades lighter than his – she gets darker in summer, lighter in winter. She tans super easily, like she spends 30 minutes outside and *BOOM* perfect golden-brown skin. She's dark enough that people often mistake her for other ethnic groups (mostly Middle Eastern or Southeast Asian) even thought her facial structure doesn't match the features typically found in those regions (because no one cares about anything other than skin color, let's be honest here). My mom's sister, on the other hand, is the palest Italian woman I have ever met.
So my aunt's been carved from ivory and my mom's been dipped in gold because genetics are heckin weird. But regardless of how dark they are, since everyone on my mom's side is Italian, according to the world, they're all white.
So, since Rayna was Italian in her before life, she was white, not a person of color. At least according to society. But what do I know; I'm just the chick who's salty over the fact that my family's "white" but we still get shit over my mom's family's brown skin.
Basically, Rayna is A Brown Italian Middle-Class Trans Woman Reborn As A Pale Royal Cis Woman. Body dysphoria is something that will be brought up in this fic because waking up in a different body is always weird.
The tag for this story can be found on my tumblr one my story tags page.
Until next time,
~Elri