YURI SHIPPING OLYMPICS 2024 - BONUS ROUND 4

[a1c0bb]

for this bonus round, the theme is historical fiction! prompts inspired by specific moments in (real or fictional) history.

this round will end on july 15th

Fills can be in any format, and you can fill your teammates prompts, but you cannot fill your own prompt.

You can post as many fills and as many prompts as you want!

for your prompt post title, please use the following format:

PROMPT: TEAM [TEAM NAME]

for your fill post title, please use the following format:

FILL: TEAM [TEAM NAME]

POINTS - BONUS ROUNDS
For prompts: 10 points each (maximum of 150 prompt points per team per round)
For fills:
First 4 fills by any member of your team: 100 points each
Fills 5-10: 50 points each
Fills 11-20: 40 points each
Fills 21-50: 30 points each
Fills 51+: 25 points each

Comments

FILL: TEAM OC MOON

[scallioncreamcheesebagel]

you said "villainess isekai" and i couldn't resist

Fandom: Original work / Otome isekai

Ship: OC/OC

Words: 1296

CW: Heavily implied suicide (prior to the start of the story)

-

It was a nice fantasy, to imagine being sucked into a world where you knew all the rules. It was certainly better than real life. When the villainess isekai genre took off, she was instantly enamored. Story after story about regular women like her, taken to lands full of magic where they knew exactly how to manipulate every person and event around them. Even if they don’t know, they figured it out along the way. She imagined herself in their shoes, wished to be whisked away. She could do it even better.

One night, she became tired enough of the real world, and she got her wish.

She didn’t wake in her crappy apartment, the hard surface of her bathtub forming bruises where they crushed her skin against bone. She didn’t even wake in the hospital.

The dungeon was dimly-lit, torches casting faint light through heavy bars. There was little else in the room besides her, only the barest necessities for survival and a simple hammock strung up, where she lay.

Her name was gone. She could remember everything else about her life, even her online usernames. But whenever she tried to think of her name, it was like it had been carved out of her. All she knew was her body’s name: Alice.

Alice, the villainess of her favorite otome game. She’d completed a run one last time before her death. She had no doubt she could use her knowledge of the game and its characters to charm her way into a fulfilling life full of friends and love by starting the game as Alice.

But she wasn’t starting the game. This was the cell from the epilogue, after Alice’s murder plot had been discovered. There was no chance to avoid the doomed fate of the villainess: she was already here, picking right back off after the credits.

It was even worse than her previous life. At least there, she could distract herself with games and novels. Here, there was nothing.

Alice began to cry.

She curled up in her hammock and tried to shut it away. Maybe it was all just a bad dream. Even as she thought it, she knew better.

Sniffling, she held her hands out to the ceiling. Alice had fire magic. She was a prodigy, even, something she’d bullied Lillian about, the assumed-magicless protagonist. She could feel the magic waiting in her fingertips, just begging to be released.

Her hands stayed sparkless: she couldn’t. It hadn’t been mentioned in the game, but there was no way dungeons in a world like this wouldn’t have precautions for magic-users, right? She could draw more scrutiny, perhaps be executed. Or she wouldn’t inherit Alice’s talent, and she’d burn herself alive. Either way, she could end up reincarnating somewhere even worse. Maybe all she was made for were terrible lives, and she would be forced to live them all, death no longer a possible escape.

“Lillian!” Alice cried. She needed help, and Lillian was the only person she could think of. She knew Lillian better than anyone. She’d lived Lillian’s life tens of times, through every playthrough she’d painstakingly completed. “Lillian, help me!”

“Hey,” a gruff voice interrupted, a guard stepping into view from just beyond her cell. “That’s Her Grace, Duchess Lillian to you.”

She wiped at her face with the back of her wrist. Duchess. So this Lillian had gone down the Duke Norvin route. That was the tragic one, it always ended with Norvin succumbing to his illness, even in the ‘good’ ending.

“I need to see the Duchess. Please,” Alice insisted.

The guard scoffed on his way out. “Nice try.”

-

Over the coming weeks, Alice tried again and again to plead for some kind of visitor. She begged mainly for Lillian: she knew Lillian was kind, and if she could just have a moment of her time, she could get out of here. She tried for her father, too: Alice was a noble, and surely, her family would be able to at least get her better accommodations. That was a bust; it seemed Alice’s family had disowned her.

She felt more and more for the woman whose body she inhabited. They were more alike than she’d realized. She wondered where the old Alice had gone, if anywhere. Maybe Alice had gone on to a new life, too. Maybe Alice had felt the same thing she was feeling.

Finally, one day, she had her visitor.

Lillian was instantly recognizable, even in person, rather than the lovingly-rendered art Alice was used to admiring. Her flowing hair, fading from gold to deep orange to warm pink. Her eyes, even full of suspicion, shone like jewels. Her skin seemed to faintly glow, a remnant of the light magic she’d unlocked in the game’s climax.

A burn scar crawled up her cheek in the shape of a hand.

“Your Grace.” She performed a small curtsy before intertwining her tingling fingers behind her back. Best to hide those. “Thank you for coming to see me. I’ve been asking the guards to see you for some time.”

“I’ve been recently informed.” Lillian tried to sound stern, Alice could tell she was trying, but there was a gentle waver she couldn’t hide. “What is it you want, Alice?”

Alice dropped to her knees. “I want to beg your forgiveness.” She bowed her head. She didn’t know the customs, she didn’t have Alice’s memories, only what she saw in the game. But this seemed polite enough. “I was cruel to you, and I am sorry. I would do anything for a second chance.”

Lillian was silent for a moment. “I wanted to be friends, you know. When we met.”

“I’m ready to. I wasn’t ready before, but I’m ready now. I’ve changed, and I’ve come to realize I was jealous of you all along. I always wanted to be like you, to live your life. I would be grateful for the chance to even live on the edges of it.” She couldn’t even call it a lie. “Please, Your Grace. Have you ever known what it’s like to desperately need just one chance?”

She already knew the answer. Lillian had been the only one accepted to the program who couldn’t harness her magical potential, and was only accepted when she offered to do work for the university without pay. It would have been a ridiculous decision for anyone else, something else Alice had mocked her for, but of course it worked out for her in the end if you played it right. It was a game, and she was its shining light.

Lillian’s gaze softened. “I could take you on as a servant,” she offered hesitantly. “You would be paid fairly, but you could not leave for the duration of your sentence, and would be sent back to the dungeons for any attempts at foul play. That is the best I can give you. Is that… something you would be willing to accept?”

Alice burst into a grin. “Yes! That would be perfect!”

She would be out of this dead-end of a dungeon and back into the story. She could make something of herself. She could be around Lillian, bask in her light, witness what happens after the events of her favorite game.

It would be something to live for.

Lillian’s eyebrows raised. “Truthfully, I’d expected you to say you’d rather go to the gallows.”

“I said I’d changed, hadn’t I?” Alice stood, smoothing out her dress.

Lillian touched the scar on her cheek. “Perhaps you have.”

“Thank you for this opportunity.” Alice followed behind her, watching the way Lillian walked, mesmerized. She hadn’t imagined she would ever see her so animated, so real. More than anything, Alice wanted to reach out and touch her.

She refrained, for now.