#'hey ash. that narrator wouldn't happen to be you by any chance would it?'

[adleryoung]

"We have two days!" I declared. "Time to get ready!"

With a few slight modifications, Burnside's assassin cloak could be made to look like Didelphis's cronely vestments. The forest donated a shillelagh and Burnside began working on her Didelphis imitation, with coaching from Rebecca and Chloe.

"Dagnab that durn Oonagh," Burnside wheezed. "Why in tarnation her pies gotta be so dang tasty? Tain't fair!"

"You've got her gestures down pat!" Rebecca squealed gleefully.

"She wouldn't say 'dagnab' though," Chloe interjected. "Nor 'tarnation' nor any of those other swamp expressions."

"DogGONE," Burnside protested. "This is gonna be harder'n I thought."

"It doesn't have to be perfect," I pointed out. "You just have to get close, and the glamer will take care of the rest. Speaking of which, Rebecca, you need to change to a townsfemme disguise."

"But," she protested.

"No buts! A glamer can cover a lot of things, but you can't waltz into town dressed like a sexy witch and not expect to draw attention!"

"You think I'm sexy?" she asked coyly.

"Don't change the subject!" I barked. "Time to get into costume!"

With helpful suggestions from Gretchen and Petunia, I magicked up some new clothes for Rebecca.

"Uuuuughhh," she groaned. "This is so dull, so drab, so … BLAH! I'm dressed like my mom! I feel so frumpy!"

"Good," I declared. "That's exactly what we want. You must blend in with the crowd so you can discreetly use Elfmind to send Burnside answers if she gets quizzed about things Didelphis should know."

I paused for a moment and pondered: Was this a good plan? Did it make sense? Did it have any glaringly obvious flaws that would bring everything crashing down around me?

Again??

"I feel confident in this plan," Rebecca reassured me. "This is the best way to achieve the best possible outcome from the current situation."

"Were you spying on my thoughts just now?" I asked her.

"You wanted me to practice my Elfmind," she grinned.

"Very impressive," I nodded approvingly, though I was a little disturbed by how easily she had done it, without showing any visible signs of concentration.

"Hey Adl - uh, Yer Lordship," Burnside called as she approached me. "Hey … I can tell that you don't care for Ash one lil bit. If you want, I can bring his sneaky an' sly lil head back on a silversteel platter."

"Do you seriously think you could take him?" I blurted.

"He ain't all that," Burnside scoffed.

"I want to make something very clear," I explained. "This is NOT to be a violent mission. It is your chance to prove that you are more than a mere weapon of mass destruction. You may only resort to violence in the worst case scenario, but you must do everything in your power to make sure it doesn't come to that. You are to impersonate Didelphis with the intention of making sure everyone gets out of this alive, and in Oonagh's case, with her reputation intact."

Burnside looked at me for a long moment, then said, "I promise to make sure this here mission turns out just the way you want it."

"Good," I nodded. "One last thing: If Ash tries to betray me again, like he did when he warded the forest and blinded me to the world, then you will have my permission to kill him. But not until Rebecca, Oonagh, and Didelphis are safe."

"Gotcha," she nodded, then hobbled back over to work on her act in front of the coven members.

I ordered some Ixies to go to Didelphis's hut and extract anything that could be used as evidence against the narrative we were attempting to construct.

And with that, everything was ready.

…

At this point in the story, I need to pause and have a drink. Next, would you like for me to narrate what happened at the trial, or just skip straight to the aftermath?