"There's a degenerate on your right, darling," Robin heard from behind him. His wife was currently blasting their enemies with fire magic, while he was busy in a swordfight with a duelist in red. Robin had to restrain himself from laughing at her comment. He loved his wife to death, but sometimes her overly large vocabulary threatened to murder him with laughter.

As he replied to his opponent's thrust with a parry, he replied, "Honey, I understand we're fighting them to the death and everything, but why do you have to call them degenerates?"

She rolled her eyes at that. "Robin, my dear, these brutish thugs are dressed in the most ridiulous battle wear I've ever deigned look upon. I mean really, what's the point in them all wearing red and black? Where's the individuality? Where's the chi-" Before she could finish he comment, a blast of lightning crashed through the sky, cast by an enemy sorcerer not far away. The bolt hit her in the chest, and before he could finish turning around her body fell onto the ground, her head crashing into a rock with a wet thump sound.

Robin's heart stopped beating. He rushed to the ground, picking up his fallen bride in his arms. "Maribelle?" he asked, not daring to believe what he senses were telling him. "Maribelle?!" he beseeched, only wanting her to open her eyes, to come back to him. "Maribelle!" he screamed, the terror of reality crashing into him just as the blood spilling from her head wound fell onto the silver pocket-watch Robin kept around his neck. His vision went red, and that was it.



Out of the blackness, there was the sound of snoring. Robin found the whole idea quite odd, considering his wife has never snored for as long as he had known her. He was grateful for the noise, insomuch as that it woke him from such a dreadful dream. If he never had suffer such a nightmare in his life, it couldn't happen too soon. To think, Maribelle, dying. The idea of it was truly grim, and he hoped he was never reminded of the experience.

Well, he realized, there was no going back to sleep now, not after a fright like that. He turned to look at his darling wife, perhaps the snoring was the result of a cold of some sort. If that was the case, he'd have to get something for her first thing in the morning. He opened his eyes, and looked upon his own unconscious body. Now that's quite odd, he reasoned. I'm right here. He looked around, it certainly was still the same tent he slept in with his spouse. It was at that moment a lock of blonde, curled hair fell into view.

Ah, he realized. If that's my body sleeping next to me, then I must be Maribelle. He looked down to see Maribelle's body in pajamas, a common enough sight recently, but not usually from this particular angle. He curiously lifted a hand to touch one of his breasts, it felt that same as Maribelle's. The sensation was arousing, though the sight of the breasts themselves wasn't. Odd.

He took a deep breath and prepared himself to answer the last and most important question: his gender. He reached a hand to lightly pat the pelvic region of his nightgown, so as not to be rude, you understand. There wasn't anything there that should be, instead he could lightly make out the indentation of a slit. So, it was true then, Robin realized. He was a woman now. And not just any woman, she was her own lady wife.

Robin was beginning to fret at this. It just doesn't do to wake up one morning as your significant other, and see yourself sleeping next to you. She turned to her old body next to her, only now noticing how...dashing she had been. Sure, her previous form hadn't exactly been a sculpted prince, or a cunning rogue, but she'd had a simple, kind charm to her. She moved her hand over to the sleeping man's face, tracing the cheeks with her fingers. She could understand why Maribelle agreed to marry her, now.

While she had once been a heavy sleeper, it appeared that Robin hadn't been so thick as to not awake when someone began groping her face. His eyes blinked open, looked around, and met Robin's. "Wait, what am I doing over there?"

Robin rolled her eyes at that. "I'm sorry dear, but I am, or rather was, Robin. It seems we've switched bodies, or something to that effect. Try to keep up, darling."

Maribelle raised an eyebrow at that. "Robin, is that really you, in my...my body?" He looked down at Robin's chest, and blushed. "Wow, I look really good from this angle. I'm start to-" A look from Robin stopped that sentence dead in it's tracks. "Wait a second, Robin, why are you talking like that?"

"Talking like what?" Robin asked. "I'm talking as I've always talked, as you well know."

Maribelle shook his head. "No, you called me 'darling', and you're using much more abstract words than you usually do."

There was a pause. "I do believe the right word you were looking for is 'obtuse', but I understand what you mean. Now that you've pointed it out, I've even been thinking in this elegant way since I awoke. And you aren't talking like a lady, but more like that simple husband I once was."

The corned of Maribelle's mouth turned up at that. "Oh, 'simple' were you? You do remember you're trying to describe yourself, don't you?"

Robin started to respond, heat in her voice, but then she stopped, and thought about it. He was correct. Up until some number of hours ago, she had been Robin, the tactician of their group and a brilliant fighter and mage. She remembered everything since waking up in the field, up until the battle where his wife perished. And yet, as she ruminated on it, she couldn't seem to formulate a strategy to save her life. Nor could she precisely remember sword grips, or how to respond to different attacks. Regardless of her memories, she now had the skills of her wife. And the quite lovely body. Though, now that she ruminated on it more, she realized that she wasn't attracted to women anymore.

Of course, that made sense. A lady wasn't attracted to other member's of the fairer sex, or at least not this lady. Robin's femininity, grace, and vocabulary came as naturally to her now as swordplay once did. She could try and pretend she was still that man, but she only need look at her bosom to see she wasn't him. She was Maribelle: healer, wife, mother, lady. Who she had been really didn't matter, in the larger scheme of things. "I suppose, I can't keep up the illusion that I'm still who I once was, darling. I am Maribelle, even if I wasn't yesterday. Just as you are Robin, regardless of your previous gender."

The look that came over Robin's face was one of confusion, of turmoil. Part of him knew that his wife was right, that he couldn't deny who he was now. But another part couldn't let go of who he had been, of his memories. "You're right, honey. But we can't forget who we were. Let's move forward with our new lives, but never lose who we were."

Maribelle smiled. "Well spoken, dear." She looked down, and was surprised to see something stiff poking out from her husband's pajamas. Her face turned sour. "Really, Robin?"

He laughed. "Oh, come one! Tell me you aren't interested in what it's like, having already done it from the other side of the proverbial fence."

"Well..." Maribelle wanted to disagree, to say it disgusted her, but that would be to deny the growing arousal she herself was feeling. "I suppose we can try it. Just this once, do you understand?"

Having said the same thing to his husband before, Robin knew exactly how turned on his wife was. She was putty in his hands. "Yes, dear."



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