Gwennyth shakes her head.  Suddenly, she feels unnaturally light.  Lighter than she's been in years.  It's like she's shaking free from all the spells and strictures that've been hemming her in.

Her hair's still silver, but it's longer than she's been able to wear it in years, back in the same hime cut as the last time she was young.

And now she's back in the same magical courtyard where she walked into --

She thrusts out her finger at the angel that stood by smiling while she walked into disaster.  "Curse of Regret and Chains -"

Not only does nothing happen, Gwennyth doesn't even feel any magic passing through her.

She was free to cast it -

- but the magic didn't come -

- oh.

^{"I only had that magic inside Villarosa, didn't I?"}

The angel nods.

It's not the first time someone's tried to attack her.  Nor even the first time since she's been working for the Will of the Multiverse.  Nor anywhere near the least, or most, effective.

At least so far... if Gwennyth actually manages to hurt this construct-body, it'd be a bad surprise about how enraged she is, but it'd say good things about her finding her initiative again...

Gwennyth stares down at the cobblestones twisting in their patterns that don't quite fit into two dimensions.

And then she looks up again at the three moons.

She feels like most of her choices are missing now, between the vanished magic and the angel standing in front of her and... she's not sure what.

The one thing she can grab onto is her rage.  "You just plopped me into that disaster without any warnings!  And you just say you're happy to have me back here!?"

The angel frowns.  She gestures, and a light wickerwork couch appears behind Gwennyth.

"I did warn you while you were building it, and again once you had built it, didn't I?"

She doesn't fall onto the couch.  She stands straight and crosses her arms.  "You told me it would be a real story.  You told me I was taking a risk.  You didn't tell me what would happen!"

"Of course I don't give spoilers on your story!  And I can't, because you're one of the people who make the story!"

"But you know something like this could easily happen!"

She wanted it to come out the righteous angry cry of - of Kosvin from her first life, leading the Revolt.

It came out like her shriek when someone had stolen her dance partner at Queen Valya's Academy in Villarosa.

But she wouldn't repeat herself; that would spoil things even more.

The angel nods.  "I asked you to design your Bad End, and I told you it was a Bad End, and that you might get it."

"... and you chose Servitude."

"But -"

For a moment she tries to remember what twixt the seas - no, that's a Villarosan expression; what in the multiverse - she'd been thinking.

"-- I didn't realize it'd be that bad!  That binding!"

(That was weak.)

"I was watching you."

(She was about to say "It was a good story to watch," but she knows Gwennyth wouldn't hear that well - what's a better way to say that -)

"It was dramatic."

"And you didn't help?"

She points her finger to fire off another spell - and then sinks back on the bench, shaking her head.

"No, of course you can't help.  The whole Will of the Multiverse can't do anything to help a girl in her story."

If the Will of the Multiverse did help - if it was obvious, it wouldn't be that girl's story anymore.

And it actually never crossed her mind to help while Gwennyth was in the story.

But now...

A cup of warm milk appears hanging in the air in front of Gwennyth.

For a minute, she ignores it out of spite.

But then - she smells the smell.  Goat's milk.  Rich and warm, just like from Mama's goats in her first life...

... It's so utterly incongruous with anything about Villarosa - anything about this courtyard - that she finds herself reaching out to take it.

Then she stops herself.  Just to prove she can.

And when she can, she takes it.

And with the first sip, she breaks out crying even more.

Only then does she notice that her dress isn't the fancy velvet, or the Academy colors, she would've worn when she actually had this hair.  It's the nondescript homespun from her first life, with the same tassels she'd added onto her own dresses while dreaming of broader horizons before those dreams came all too true.

And then... finally, she speaks aloud.

"What happens now?"

She takes the magic scroll from the pocket of her robes and unrolls it.  It says some vague words which boil down to, apparently, the Will of the Multiverse hasn't given instructions about Gwennyth yet.

She could give a rush order to the worldbuilding team for a new world for Gwennyth, and probably get away with it before the Will figures out what's happening... but she doesn't want to just yet.

"Do you want to talk over what happened?"

Gwennyth looks up, brushing both the hair and the tears out of her eyes.

"What happened was that I had no idea what nobles and their conspiracies were actually like!  And I didn't learn anything even after one of those conspiracies killed me in my first life!"

The angel sits down on the couch next to Gwennyth.  It magically expands to make room for her.

"I wouldn't think so.  You did well with yourself, for a while."

Gwennyth ignores the angel.

"Mama - first-life Mama - was right all along.  All the nobles are bad.  All their conspiracies.  Do away with them all.  Seas and stars, I should've been helping poor Taisa when she was trying to tear down the whole Academy!"

"It would have been a wild story..."

It would have, even though the angel's sure the Royal Academy of Villarosa had far too many wards for a Duke's Daughter and a disaffected teaching assistant to actually tear it down.

"And it would've done something."  She shakes her head.  "Or at least tried to.  Maybe I still would've gotten enslaved in the end, but it wouldn't have been any worse."

But then she shakes her head again.  "Okay, it could've been worse.  At least Nimyel was honorable.  And she meant well.  Usually."

"If you had made Taisa's plot too large for the Academy to handle as an internal disciplinary matter...  it would probably have come to the King's court, but your father would still have had enough political latitude to defend you."

Gwennyth makes a face.  "Ugh.  He would've stashed me in the remotest manor.  And maybe the charges would still be suspended over my head just in case I ever went off to do anything..."

Would that have been even worse than being spell-bound to Nimyel?  Maybe.  But she's not going to admit it.

After a minute's silence, the angel continues.

"Your plots were well handled, for a while.  You did well with yourself along the way you took."

"I guess.  Until Nimyel popped them all.  As fragile as Prince Keremoth's plans -"  She shakes her head at the Villarosan expression.

The angel shakes her head.  "Less so than that, I think.  You weren't trying to break into a magical wellspring.  You were just maintaining the same social structure as every other noblegirl."

"They're all as fragile as Prince Keremoth!  Maybe first-life Mama was even more right than she knew - maybe all the nobles of Maranon would have all their schemes fall apart if their people just knew there was something else - just like Kosvin overthrew Earl Varin in a single week -"

And then she shakes her head.

"But they killed me instead.  And then maybe killed Mama."

She suddenly turns to the angel, wide-eyed.

"-- did they kill Mama too?  Can you show me what happened in Trinnshire, in Maranon, after I died there?"

It's not usual... but this whole conversation isn't usual...

"I will try."

Gwennyth throws her arms around the angel in a brief hug.

And then she coils back, surprised at herself.

The angel hugs her back, briefly.

And then she pokes her finger in the air, querying a spell to (if the Will of the Multiverse allows) open a window into Gwennyth's original world.

A window opens - briefly - to show a young woman standing in a castle hallway, a crown on her head and a few friends behind her.

She's facing down a man also wearing a crown, as well as a shirt with a sheaf of grain embroidered on it.

And then the window closes.

Gwennyth gasps.

"The Sheaf Rampant - that's our badge!  The emblem of Trinnshire!  What's that man doing wearing our badge and wearing a crown!?"

"Ah..."

The angel looks down at her magical scroll.

"... Apparently it's a few generations after your time.  Maranon is in the middle of a civil war right now.  Your mother survived; most of your siblings survived... the other nobles apparently held their peace after killing you, or maybe they were stopped, this isn't saying...  And then, a few generations later, a powerful mage named Barvid invaded, and your great-to-the-nth-nephew Teppin decided to claim the crown as Barvid's puppet.

"Your other relative, Eldred, is fighting him.  Along with the legitimate queen, who's taken the name Lila."

^"Oh."

She feels so small and obsolete. Time has passed her by - her failures and successes both - as well as all the things she and her mother fought for and against.

^{"How am I remembered?"}

She looks down at the scroll again.  When it doesn't say anything, she pokes another spell to send a message to the Communications Team:  "is there really any reason to not share this?"

...

"... I'm sorry.  Apparently they're not telling me anything about you.  All they're saying is that your grandfather Kosvin is remembered as a hero, both by the people and by Queen Lila."

Hopefully that will help her?