Blood Lily

I stared blankly at her for a moment.

"Ah, I'm a transgender girl, to be specific. In case you misunderstood," she quickly added.

I shifted awkwardly, rubbing my freshly healed hand.

"Um, what does that mean?" I asked.

"Oh. You don't know," she said realizing my ignorance. "That would explain why you didn't think much about my conversation with Millie..."

"Sorry," I said again, feeling the remnants of guilt.

"Don't worry about it," she said sticking her tongue out at me. 

With a finger over her lips as if shushing someone, she took a moment to consider her next words. Her eyes slowly darted between me and the bottom corners of her eyes.

"Well," she started, "I suppose I could explain it about myself, but I think you'll understand better if I use you as an example."

"M-me?" I asked feeling quite like I did when I first met her and Millie.

"Yup, you," she confirmed.

For a moment, she seemed to hesitate with the next question.

"Even though your body is female for the time being, you're still male on the inside."

"...Right?" she added after a moment of silence.

"...Right," I said after a small delay. It's not as if I've looked inside myself before.

"Well, that's being transgender; when the body you were given doesn't match how you feel on the inside," she said. "As a very simple explanation, at least. It can be more complex than that."

"Oh." I felt I was starting to understand what she was saying.

"Mhmm, so, when I say that I'm transgender, I mean that I was not born as a girl," she said.

"Then..." I said as the gears in my head started to turn. "You were born as..."

"A guy, unfortunately, yes." she finished for me with a sigh. "I was never truly happy until I embraced how I felt, it was as if a weight was placed on me at all times. The one and only thing that could lift that crushing feeling of wrongness was just being me."

My mouth was wide open.

"B-but, you look so..."

"Feminine? Girly?" she said with her strongest smile yet. "I know, I take pride in it."

Wow, I was pretty speechless. I mean, I had no idea people like this existed, or even could for that matter. Well... maybe I should have at least considered it since I did wake up yesterday as neither human nor male. As speechless as I was though, I felt happy for her. It sounded awful to have your mind and body in conflict like that. If I've learned anything from yesterday, it's that everyone deserves a decent standard of living, like having warm food and a warm bed, even me. This sounded like another one of those kinds of things.

Admiration and reflection aside, I was growing curious.

"How though?" I asked.

"You already know. The elixir," she said rather plainly.

"Oh, right. But, what exactly is the 'elixir' anyway?" 

"That's a good question and a bit complicated since I don't fully understand it either," she said. "When I say elixir, I refer to the specific elixir that is capable of permanently altering your body's sex. Elixirs, in a broader definition, mix the use of both magic and science. Magic alone might be able to temporarily alter one's body, but only as long as you have the mana for it. Science alone is what humans use, and while it does a decent job it simply can't compare to the speed and quality of elixirs."

"Ohhh," I oh'd.

"Combining magic with science is known as alchemy, one of the strongest and most applicable uses of magic," she said as if repeating a thoroughly ingrained fact. "Geez, I'm starting to sound like an elementary school teacher..."

"You would make a good elementary school teacher!" Millie teasingly shouted as she finished collecting the mirror fragments.

I grinned seeing Amber give her sis a pouty stare, but I was also wondering if...

"Is that mirror a kind of alchemy?"

Amber gave me a rather surprised look.

"It is! Technically. It's not that obvious though, what made you realize?"

"Well, mirrors are pretty magical themselves, I mean you can see yourself in them! But, if humans use them they can't be magic, I realized. Instead they have to be science. But I've never heard of a mirror that can reflect something that... isn't there?" 

Saying those words made me wonder. Was it reflecting something that wasn't there... or was it reflecting what was on the inside? Why did it suddenly decide to reflect what I used to look like anyway?

"You're on the right path," Amber said, interrupting my thoughts. "The mirror is a kind of alchemy called an 'Enchantment.' Its magic works off of the science behind a regular mirror."

"Oh." I enjoyed guessing right.

"This mirror in specific," Amber began to say as she glanced over to Millie's collection of shards, "works by showing the attuned person whatever form of themselves they consciously desire to see. It works as a normal mirror for the attuned otherwise."

I came to realize it probably changed to reflecting my old appearance when I fell asleep trying to imagine what I looked like... but what did the other part mean?

"The attuned person?" I asked.

"The person the mirror is connected to," Amber said. "Only one person can be connected to it at a time. Millie and I only see endless dark when we look at it, since you're the one attuned."

Oh, probably from when I couldn't resist poking it...

"Yup, poking it would indeed attune you," Amber replied.

D-did I really mumble that out loud? Dang it, I thought I was doing better...

"All done!" Millie suddenly said with glee as she laid a heavy sack containing all the fragments on the floor nearby.

"Good job, sis," Amber said. She then looked towards the rays of light beaming in from the window. "It's probably about time we show you around, Lil'."

"Oh! Right! I almost forgot about seeing the house," I excitedly responded.

I drew my eyes towards the sack of mirror fragments, feeling guilt gnaw at me once again.

"I'm sorry about the enchanted mirror..."

They gave each other a quick, light smile.

"Don't worry Lil', it's nothing a little bit of magic can't fix," Millie said.

"We'll have one of our colleagues replace it with a regular mirror until it's fixed," Amber said. "Unless you don't want it back, which we would understand."

"Oh," I said with no small amount of relief. "And... I think I do want it back, if that's ok."

Would it be weird to say I felt responsible for it? If it was attuned to me, it was kind of like my pet. It felt cruel to just toss it aside and forget about it when it's my own fault for overreacting, no one deserves that.

...Even magic mirrors.

"Of course," they said in unison.

Millie opened the door, eliciting a firm ker-chunk.

"Just one moment, I'll be back before you can count the days til' the next full moon," she said before rushing out.

I wondered what day it was anyway, actually. All I really knew was that it was a few days after Thanksgiving, which meant it was the cold time of year. Though, now that I think about it, the trees I saw outside were lush with lea-

"Back!" Millie said as she handed me folded clothes. "For you."

She startled me out of my train of thought. That really was fast.

"Oh, and put this on before the shirt," she added, handing me another item. "It's a binder, it'll be a bit tight but you won't have to worry about your err... well you won't have to worry about anything."

She gave a nod towards Amber and they left the room, shutting the door and allowing me to get dressed.

I looked down at the items in my hand. More clothes, huh? 

My eyes drifted towards the dark underside of the bed, remembering what I had placed out of sight.

I hope the experience is better this time...