—July 1st, X767—
In the warm summer of July 1st, X767, I awoke to my new life to the sounds of pained screaming. My body, unusually awkward and totally uncooperative with anything I wanted to do, felt weirdly cold and wet, and I felt more than a little unsecure with how vulnerable and exposed I felt at that moment. I felt so unprotected, even as large, warm hands quickly helped clean me up before wrapping my tiny form up in a soft blanket of some kind.
Couldn't I just go back to that nice, safe place I was before?
Sounds fluttered through my ears, but my brain had trouble focusing on them even as the woman's screams started up once more. Attempting to focus, her voice died down only to give way to the wailing two newcomers, babies if I wasn't mistaken.
As some semblance of clarity slowly trickled back to me, I belatedly realized that one of those voices actually belonged to me and quickly ceased my caterwauling, which seemed to have a ripple effect as the other one gradually ceased their crying too. Thus, this allowed for me to finally pick up on the other voices in the room, unfocused as my mind was.
"Oh Jude! They're absolutely flawless," the woman was cooing, voice breathless and full of warm love. She sounded close-by and thankfully seemed to be done screaming too.
"You did wonderful dear," a man said, his voice just as tender and filled with something akin to awe.
Struggling a little, I did my best to force my eyes to open, wanting to get a look at my new environment. But oddly enough, all I could see were blurry shapes.
"Jude, look! She's opening her eyes!" the same woman gasped with breathless excitement, speaking softly. My vision was blurry at best, but I could just barely make out the halo of gold surrounding the angelic face smiling down at me. She looked stunning. "They're so beautiful."
"Just like their mother," the deeper voice, the man, Jude, said softly. He spoke in an equally tender voice like the woman but with an almost reverent tone in it.
"Oh stop it dear! I look like I just tried to run ten miles and am covered in sweat. Doubtless, I am hideous right now and you know it."
They bickered lovingly some more though their words were lost on me, distant and distorted like the fluttering of butterfly wings through my ears. Still, you could hear the love the two had for each other in their voices, and it...made me happy and yet nostalgic at the same time.
I think I tuned out a little after that. My attention span was the equivalent of a knat's, and every little sound that I picked up with my new, limited hearing drew my interest.
Luckily, I focused back on the conversation in time to hear the most interesting part.
"What are we going to name them?" the man, Jude, asked softly.
Names? Them?
Then I remember the other voice I had heard earlier, similar to my own cries, but it had quieted down when I had stopped crying.
"...Lucy? Like the guild where we first met 'Love & Lucky'?" Jude asked.
Oops, looks like I lost track again.
Layla laughed softly, and Jude soon joined her with his own deep baritone. The two of them sharing a fond smile.
"Perfect. And the eldest? What are we going to name her?"
With my poor eyesight, I felt more than saw his gaze on me as I wondered briefly if they were talking about me.
Layla seemed to think about it for a moment, then she said, "Lenore. We'll call her, Lenore, because she and her sister are the light of our lives."
"Perfect, Lenore and Lucy Heartfilia."
And that was the beginning of my new life as Lenore Heartfilia, twin sister of Lucy Heartfilia. Now if only I could figure out why all these names sounded so familiar...
—
This is just a secret between you and me. See, the truth is that I'm a rich heiress hailing from the kingdom of Fiore. The name's Lenore Heartfilia. But really, really I'm an American high school student, Ophelia Beaumont. That's right. It's embarrassing, but I'm one of those 'reincarnated into another world' people.
I was always an ambitious, overachiever. When it came to studying, sports, art, chess, talking with adults, I was a bit of an oddball. Top of my class, extra credit, all that; I was a bit of a wunderkind. Everyone had high hopes for me...far too high. I definitely stood out. Which of course translates into I never had a single friend. All I wanted to do was gossip after school and gush over cute boys with my peers. I wanted to live like a normal girl, not some freak placed on a pedestal above the rest.
Oh! But my family was great! My parents were both honest and kind people, and my little sister, who was always such a lively person, all loved me very much.
But one day, on the exact day of my high school graduation...
It came for me! The famous "reincarnated into another world, out of control" truck! Okay, not exactly literally, but you get the point. There was just this little girl trying to cross the road, who was about to be struck by a truck. Time almost seemed to freeze for me at that moment. But for some reason, everyone just stood there, watching.
Why didn't anyone do anything? Someone standing closer should've had more than enough time to save her. Yet no one else moved to act.
So, I took it upon myself to do something about it if no one else would; I rushed across the road and pushed the kid out of the way, ignoring the passersby's comments about my bravery and how I was going to be the one to save her. The last thing I saw and heard was the resounding screech of tires as the huge vehicle just began to brake and the shiny metal grating on the front of the truck as it struck my body, shoving me to the ground.
So, I died.
No, I legit died. Crazy right?
In any case, the next thing I knew, I woke up in a beautiful arching room with colorful stained-glass windows and almost heavenly light pouring in to complete the serene setting.
Sitting up from the oddly comfortable stone dais I lay on, I listened to the gushing of a nearby fountain as I examined my oddly beautiful surroundings.
"Where am I...?" I wondered aloud, taking in the unfamiliar room. It looked like some kind of sacred temple, like the type you see in things like Zelda games which usually housed some important artefact.
"Miss Ophelia Beaumont?"
I turned to see a young man standing quietly beside a lovely circular fountain. He was actually pretty handsome with blonde hair and blue eyes, wearing a white semi-formal yet foreign-looking suit, with a serene smile adorning his features.
There, I met a god-type person who regretfully informed me of my demise.
"I do hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I am sincerely sorry to say that you are dead."
I blinked. "I see."
He peered at me with his inscrutable gaze, seeming to be looking for something.
"You are...taking this surprisingly well Miss Beaumont," he commented, head quirked curiously. "Most would be panicked or demanding why this happened to them, yet you do neither."
I shrugged, reaching up and beginning to twirl and twist a lock of hair around my finger. It was a habit that I had trouble getting rid of. "While I honestly would have liked to have lived a little past the age of seventeen, I'm still a dead girl talking. Quite frankly, I'm having a hard time believing this is even real. Still, what's done is done. No use pointing fingers over it."
"That is a rather philosophical outlook."
It was quiet for a few seconds, before I decided to ask the big question: "So what happens next? Heaven or hell, which way are you sending me?"
The man barked out a laugh, a warm sound that made me feel as if I had done something really right. "Goodness no! You see this place is what is known in common parlance as 'Purgatory' or heaven's waiting room of sorts. I suppose, by that same token, I would be called 'God.' Though I'm not entirely sure that is an accurate description." He sighed tiredly. "But that is beside the point. To tell you the truth, the reason I summoned you here to this place was to offer my thanks."
I blinked in bewilderment. "Thanks...?"
He nodded. "We have put a number of guidelines in place to protect this fragile world. I personally granted my knowledge to a specific individual in order to prevent this world's collapse. However, that individual was in danger of perishing. There was nothing I could do to stop it. And then, you stepped in to save her."
With relative ease, my quick mind easily connected the dots for me as he spoke, eyes widening in recognition. "That means..."
He nodded, seeming to understand what I had managed to put together. Well, he was 'God' after all. "Yes. You see, one day, the achievements of the girl you saved are going to leave an enormous impact on the development of humanity."
My heart soared at the words as I smiled in genuine delight, feeling some sense of quiet satisfaction. Even though I never accomplished anything myself, I was still able to make a difference. My life, my existence, did have some meaning after all.
Then he dropped the most unexpected information bomb of all.
"And so, Miss Beaumont, with the deepest gratitude in my heart, I would like to grant you a new life. What I mean is this: you'll be reborn with all of your memories intact," he informed me happily, leaving me a little bug-eyed and gaping like a fish at him.
I mean things like this happened in anime and video games all the time. In fact, I was probably so familiar with the reincarnation trope that I'm surprised that I wasn't sick of it yet. But for this to actually happen for me of all people out of all my wildest dreams? It was truly amazing.
Though if this were a video game, I thought at the time, heart light with excitement. This would only just be the beginning of a great adventure.
But that wasn't all either. According to this god-type person, not only was I going to be reincarnated, but all of the expected bonuses would be included, of course. Plus, one other thing:
"So that you may live unhindered in a world whose society is somewhat behind your own, I would like to grant you some manner of enhanced abilities. Is there anything in particular you desire that may be within my influence to grant?"
My reply was immediate.
"I don't care! I just want the ability to make friends and find people who care about me. Even if it's only once in my lifetime, even if I never find that one person I want to spend the rest of my life with, I want to be able to make friends and live a life full of color and adventure because of them. Understand me? This time, I want to live like a normal girl and earn my own happiness. As far as powers go, I don't care what I abilities I have so long as I can use what protect those precious to me!" my voice grew quiet as I remembered all the pain from my previous life. "That way...I won't be lonely anymore."
A drop of water splashed across the back of my hand as my fists shook in my lap, fingers clutching the loose fabric of my dress. I looked anywhere but at the godly figure in the room.
"I understand."
Surprised, I looked at him again. After all, wouldn't most deities laugh at something so...trivial in their eyes? But he did none of that, for which I was extremely grateful.
"As I mentioned briefly before, the world I'm sending you to is slightly less technologically developed then your own though it does have several similarities. However, the prime dissimilarity you will find is the existence of magic in the world. It exists within each individual in this world and can be found in every corner of the land but only a select few choose to utilize it. It is a world governed by swords and sorcery—overseen by a council in attempts to keep the magic users in line though that task is not always easy.
"In fact, I think you'll find this new world rather familiar," he added as an afterthought, blue eyes twinkling before focusing back on me. "Now let us start the reincarnation process."
He raised a hand, that serene smile in place once more.
"Please...Live a good life...and remember that happiness can be found even in the darkest of times."
—
And there you have it. My life story, or previous life, life story if you want to be specific.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
"Wwwaaaaaahhhhhh!!"
Now if only I could get my younger sister to shut up.
Her crying intensified.
'Good grief, Lucy! Shut up!' I wanted to yell, only for equally annoying baby screams to come out of my mouth instead, sounding just like her. Pretty soon, we made a pretty decent ear-grating chorus trying to outdo the other with our cries, that had our new parents scrambling tiredly from their bed to calm us down.
My name is Lenore Heartfilia, the elder twin sister of the famed Fairy Tail Celestial Spirit wizard, Lucy Heartfilia, and this is my story.