AAHHH! IT'S THE FRICKING SNAKE LADY AGAIN!! Fiona sat in her room holding a block which she banged against the floor repeatedly. What does she want with me? Is there something special about being a stolen soul other than the obvious? I mean it's not like my soul was that special to begin with…
She thought back to her past life. Average grades and average accomplishments. Really her greatest accomplishment being just managing to get an ok white collar job in the sh*t-show of the 2020s. There's nothing special about me. I know how to do paperwork and show up to meetings whoop-ee. Is there some magical reason that makes me special? I suppose that's kind of a trope for isekai stuff right? Some super-cheat skill? Do I have one and just not know it yet? Fiona pondered looking pensively at the block in her hand.
Welp, no use thinking about it too hard. Maybe I'll get the answer tomorrow, who knows? For now, I'm tired. She rubbed her eyes.
"Are you tired, Miss Fiona, do you want to go to bed now?" The maid on duty asked her.
"Yeah, can you go get Emee? I want her to tell me a bed time story."
"Very well," the maid smiled and went out of the room.
"There you are you little stinker." Emily came in rubbing her eyes. "You should know better than to call me in on my night off." She yawned.
"Sorry Emee," Fiona said sheepishly. "It's just you're the best at telling stories."
"Well I'm glad you think so. But you shouldn't get too used to abusing your position or else you'll become one of those bad nobles who don't care about the people they're supposed to protect."
"Yes, Emee." Fiona settled in under her covers, and Emily took up her position on the side of the bed.
"Alright, what kind of story do you want to hear tonight?" Emily asked, her hand smoothing the covers as Fiona settled in.
"Emee, have you ever heard of the Snake of Time?"
"Hmm, Snake of Time you say?" Emily pondered going over the stories she knew in her mind. "I think I might have a story with a creature of that name, but what brought this on?" Emily peered at Fiona in suspicion.
"Ah, I…" her eyes darted around. "I heard about it from Father. He mentioned something or other about it, and I got curious."
"You could have asked him about it." Emily pointed out.
"Ah, well… It wasn't a good time!" Fiona blurted out.
Emily laughed. "You should see your face, little sprout! You need to get more used to lying or else you're going to have a hard time of it in this world." She paused, and then her expression grew more fond. "Well, wherever you heard it from, I suppose it don't matter much to me. Sure, I can tell you the tale I know with a Snake of Time in it, though I don't know how much it will help you."
She let a silence lapse as she straightened in her chair, preparing to enter the mode of storyteller. "Once upon the Evermoon, there was an ordinary farmer. Year after year he had plied his trade honestly through the heat of summer and the blinding colds of winters. He knew the earth and its colors, the rich black of its fertility, the hard brown of its stiffness, the green, red and purple of its giving life. And he had long learned how to match the earth in her phases, so that he could bring to pass the best harvests.
"And yet, one silver moon, his crop harvest failed. Perplexed, but used to the whims of the earth, the man persisted, and another year passed and another silver moon came, and again he found his harvest failed. Now by this point, even the wise and farsighted farmer was running out of food, and he didn't know how he was going to get through another year, nor what would come if he did and the harvest failed again. And moreover the crop failure perplexed him, for it seemed neither frost nor rain nor drought nor disease had done the crops in. One day they were fine, the next they seemed to wither from the inside out.
"So the farmer packed his bags and decided to travel to the wise woman of the mountain, for it was said in all the counties surrounding that for anything mystical or magical, the wise woman of the mountain was all-knowing.
"And so the farmer departed, heading far to the north where it was purported that the wise woman of the mountain lived. But along the road the farmer met with robbers. And the robbers beat him and stole what little he took with him. Undeterred, but greatly weakened, and without enough food to go on, the man stopped at the next house he found along the way, banging on the door and crying out for shelter.
"The man heard noises coming from inside the house, but even after several minutes nobody came to open the door. Perplexed and without the strength to go on, the farmer knocked on the door again crying 'Help! Help! Bandits found me and beat me, and now I am within an inch of my life.' And finally after all his banging and crying the door opened, and a timid woman stood in the doorframe.
"'Please go away!' She said. 'This house belongs to a monster. And while he is currently out at the moment, the minute he returns he'll spit you up and roast you over the fire!' The farmer shook and was terrified at what she said, but remembering his state, and how he really couldn't go any further, he replied.
"'Monster or not, if I leave I'm dead anyways, just take me in and give me some food, perhaps I'll recover by the time this monster comes home.' And the woman was very reluctant, but seeing the truth of his words in his injuries, at last she relented and let the farmer come inside her house.