Ryn of Avonside

I wanted to stick around and play with my new ferret grove tenders. They were so cute… even when they were causing mischief. Honestly, it seemed like mischief was pretty much the only causal effect that a ferret could produce, but I knew next to nothing about ferrets so only time would tell if that hypothesis held true.

Anyway, I was unfortunately called away on prior business. I had another batch of magical hrt to deliver.

Popping out of my grove and into the mundane world was second nature by now, but for some reason I managed to botch the job. Don't get me wrong, I appeared out in Avonside just fine, but goodness the transition was wobbly.

Avonside was a hive of activity these days. Former students laughed and joked as they remodelled buildings to suit the new needs of the university-turned-settlement, while others tended the magically bolstered fields. I could even see a pair of obrec consulting with some professors near where the foundation for a stone wall was being dug. Exciting times!

I don't know why, but seeing so many people working together happily fulfilled a deeply innate part of me. Like… a significant portion of humanity, past and present, was awful, but we could also do amazing things! Actually, I guess I should broaden that idea a little to include all the new cousin species we had. The obrec had different psyches in many ways, but they regardless still held that fundamental spark of goodness that the English language labelled as ‘humanity’.

As if to put an exclamation mark on the idea that humanity had its flaws, I spotted Rhea speaking quietly to a quartet of folks near the LGBTQIA+ club building. She spotted me as I approached, and for a moment it looked like she might try and start something.

With a wave of my hand and a flexing of mental might, I summoned a small illusion around my hand… and flipped her a glowing neon finger. Whatever plan she'd been building in her head vanished into stunned indignation, and I strode past her into the building.

Score one for fiesty smols!

…Unless this little encounter was going to come back and bite me in the butt.

Suddenly, my bravado squirmed and fled, replaced with doubt. Had such a flippant and rude display really been the right move there? Knowing her and people like her, I might very well have given her more ammunition with which to turn people against me.

“Cat!” Lily’s towering beanpole figure appeared in the inner door of the entryway, and she gave me a beaming smile. “Is it HR-Tea time again?”

I rolled my eyes when I realised she'd enunciated the T into Tea. “Yes. It's HR-Tea time.”

“I'm kinda sad you didn't keep going with the soybean thing,” she said, taking the heavy back of tea bricks from me. “I could do with some fried tofu.”

“The soybean thing?” I asked, tilting an eyebrow quizzically up at her.

“Yeah, Ryn mentioned that the boys were getting ginseng tea and we were getting soybean stuff,” she nodded as we moved further into the hideout for the Circle of Queers.

I continued to blank on the soybean thing for like five whole seconds until it finally clicked. “Oh shit. I forgot about that. Maybe I'll look into it again, just for you.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful… I'm sure I can find a way to… pay you,” she said, her demeanour switching from cheerful to outrageously flirtatious in the blink of an eye.

I gaped at her for the entire time it took her to open the transgender room door. Where in the heckin’ ring had that come from?

“That was a joke… by the way,” she said, a little sheepishly.

“Oh, I know,” I laughed quietly. “I'm just not used to people, uh… I don't know. Guys don't get that kind of…”

I trailed off, unsure how to even make the point that was swimming around in my head.

Blushing now, Lily grimaced and shook her head slightly. “Me and my defective filter…”

“Are you two going to come in, or just keep flirting awkwardly in the doorway?” Cris asked, interrupting the two socially catastrophic messes that were wedged in the doorway.

“No, no,” Amara said from the sofa. “They're being entertaining. Let them keep going.”

Lily groaned, breaking the deer-in-headlights spell that hung over us as she pushed into the room with the tea bricks. “You're lucky I need the HR-Tea or I'd be coming over there to sit on you, and not in a fun way. My ass is really hard.”

Amara snorted and waved as if to shoo the comment away. “Your ass is great, especially after all the foraging work we've been doing.”

The banter continued as they got to brewing some tea from the fresh bricks. I sat and watched from the overly worn and comfy sofa. There weren't a whole lot of us trans folks here in Avonside, but we were fast forming a cute little supportive group. In a strange and roundabout sort of way, Rhea had helped facilitate that by giving us a reason to band together.

“Any news about a magic fruit alternative?” Amara asked, bringing me back into the wider conversation.

I shook my head. “It's slow going.”

She gave me a dejected frown. “How come?”

You know what. Maybe they deserved a bit more than just, ‘it’s hard’.

“The biggest obstacle is the natural barrier to magic that is around every organism. We have several ideas for the actual mechanics of a full magical transition, but they're all so invasive that it requires completely removing that barrier somehow.” I explained, miming it out with gestures as I went.

“But… you mess with plants all the time?” Lily said, then shook her head at herself. “Sorry. That isn't the important part… I just got confused when you said all organisms had that barrier.”

“It's weaker in plants, and the Nameless Garden has a special affinity with plants anyway,” I said. “We actually can't alter fungi and bacteria, so it really is just plants for us.”

“Have you looked into how those magic fruits work?” Amara asked.

The tiniest spark of irritation flared inside me at the question, because like, of course we had. I doused it in an instant, though. She was just curious.

“Yes, and honestly… we're not comfortable going that route,” I winced. “The mage fruit dissolves you. That's how it gets around the barrier. It turns you into magical goop and then bam, you're part of the fruit and it can make whatever changes it wants. We are not nearly confident enough in our skills as mages to do that to any of you.”

“Shit,” Amara sighed, slouching slightly into the sofa with her cup of tea. “Sorry for putting you on the spot like that. I've just been having issues. I was halfway through getting laser for my facial hair when all this happened. Half of it has grown back and my razor is blunt as hell now…”

“...With no replacements in sight…” I finished for her. “Damn, that su— huh.”

An idea had just popped into my head. A really… a really interesting one.

“Huh?” She asked curiously.

Hair was actually really easy to deal with, compared to a lot of other things that were required for a transition. Like… technically speaking the hairs were actually outside the body.

I hopped up from my seat on the sofa and stepped quickly over to Amara, lost in thought.

Grabbing her chin in one hand, I relaxed into my plant form and felt around her skin with my fingers. Now… if I'd been a little less focused on my idea, I might have noticed how surprised and alarmed she was. Really, it wasn't very cool of me to just jump on her like that, but I've got a bit of a one track mind when I have an epiphany like that.

“Can I use that knife you always have on you?” I asked distractedly, and then I finally realised how bad I'd just violated her personal space. Quickly, I stepped back. “Oh! Crud! I'm sorry!”

“I am now severely horny,” Amara blurted, eyes wide. “Why do you want my knife?”

My face was holding a huge party, but only blood cells were invited. Holy moly, I was embarrassed! “I… um… well… uh, Ryn once got around the barrier problem by stabbing people and I was thinking of, I could… fuck me, I could stab you a little…”

“Wow,” Lily chuckled from the armchair in the corner. “Good to know that you didn't become entirely perfect when you were turned into a plant mage, because holy fuck it's like I'm watching a social train wreck. The awkwardness we had earlier is nothing compared to this!”

It was all too much. I had to retreat!

Wrapping myself in the energy of the Nameless Garden, I disappeared in a flurry of autumn leaves that existed for just the barest moment.

Holy fuck, what did I just do? A strange emotion that was half panic and half amusement bubbled and fizzled in my stomach. That was so awkward!

Agh! I couldn't let my idea vanish into the aether! What did I need?

Hair was just keratin, right?

To test, I plucked one of my own hairs from my head and… ah. Maybe I shouldn't use my own, since I was a weird bush girl.

I popped back into mundane reality almost on top of a rising Amara, and she fell backwards into the sofa again with a squeak of surprise.

“Can I have one of your hairs?” I blurted, cringing at how utterly strange I was being.

“Um… sure?” She answered, blinking in startled confusion.

I plucked one of her facial hairs with a twist of telekinetic power and vanished as she gasped in pain. Oops.

Immediately, I began weaving a new spell plant. This one was complex and would require some sort of shrub style framework, so I copied a previous design and stripped out all the functionality aspects. Once I had the basic energy collection and channelling mechanics by themselves, I added a flower.

The hair and everything unique about it was placed into the bud of the flower, as it was the target of my spell. From there, I worked backwards. The complex sap routing mechanisms of a normal plant were twisted to suit my needs—Seek, Dissolve, and Cauterize.

I have no idea how long I twisted and tweaked and prodded my new plant, but it felt like it happened in the blink of an eye. I planted the finished seed as soon as it was ready, and seeing a ferret in the distance as it attempted to fight a rock, I realised I didn't even have to make it grow.

Reaching out with my magic, I plucked the bouncing noodle up out of the grass and yoinked it over to me. “Grow this,” I demanded, and plopped it down in front of the seed.

It sniffed at it with suspicion for several moments, then looked up at me as if to say, “Bitch, you better ask nicely or I'm just gonna eat this thing.”

“Sorry,” I said, replying to my own personification of the little tender. “Could you please tend this plant while I pop back over to my friends?”

The ferret huffed and I swear it rolled its eyes, but thankfully the little critter raised a paw and began to massage the seed with growth magic.

When I reappeared once more in the transgender lounge, Amara was very carefully sitting to the side of where I'd left. “Welcome back…?”

“Thanks. So, I had an idea for a spell. It has two parts, and one of those parts requires me to stab you a little. Is that okay?”

She stared at me with her eyebrows up in her perfect bangs. “Um… that depends on what the spell does?”

“Permanently destroys your facial hair follicles,” I said proudly.

Her eyebrows maintained position, but the expression below them was one of extreme interest. “Really? How does it work?”

Reality—or maybe a crippling lack of self confidence—reasserted itself, and I rubbed at my arm self consciously. “Uh… I mean this is a new spell, so it might not work, but basically I put a small hole in your skin and through that, my spell can seek and identify all the hair follicles in your face. When it can see them, it'll immediately spike a tiny bit of heat into them and burn them. It's like magical laser.”

“Will it stop at just her facial hair?” Cris asked pointedly from the tea prep bench.

“Yes!” I nodded. “It should. It's fairly localised. I'll be careful though, and I do have control over it. Spells aren't fire and forget code, we can twist them as they happen.”

“Okay, then yeah I'm ready,” Amara said, although her hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists.

Much more carefully and consciously than last time, I stepped in front of her and touched her face. Gosh, people's eyes were so expressive. Hers were a dark brown with flecks of hazel, and— No, bad Cat! Concentrate!

She placed the knife in my outstretched hand, and I floated it up into the air from there. I did not trust my hand-eye coordination enough for this.

Wait, should I stab fast or slow? Probably fast, right?

With a display of mental control that I was rather proud of, the knife flicked forward and knicked her cheek. She winced but kept silent, and I was able to place a finger over the little bloody hole.

Closing my eyes, I reached back into my grove and selected the newly grown spell plant. It answered my mental touch with a simple and eager excitement.

Then, I pulsed magic into the structure and turned that intent through the small wound in Amara’s skin. The magic worked quickly, identifying the hairs that it was designed to find, but thankfully skipping the smaller fuzz ones. I was watching in case it went for her eyebrows or something, but it didn't.

When the identity phase was complete, it sat and waited for my command. I gave it. All over her face, just below the surface, tiny spikes of intense heat appeared and vanished.

Amara flinched, and the room was suddenly awash with the smell of burnt hair… but it was done! I think? We'd know in a day or two.

Stepping back, I grinned at her. “I'm pretty sure it worked!”

Her expression was so pure and hopeful when she asked in a small and still slightly pained voice, “Really?”

I nodded. “It worked perfectly! The crispy hairs are still there, but they should fall out now.”

She let out a little, hiccuping laugh, and suddenly there were tears rolling down her cheeks. On wobbling feet, she stood up and pushed past me, heading for the door.

I watched her go, but she turned at the last moment and waved for us all to follow. Goddess, my heart… the look on her face…

We all trouped out through the door, down the hall, and into one of the solo unisex bathrooms. There, she grabbed a baby wipe from a dangerously empty packet on the sink counter and rubbed at her face.

I hadn't really focused on it earlier, but she wasn't joking when she said she was having issues shaving. The stubble on her jaw had been depressingly rough and ragged.

That same stubble was just wiped away like it was nothing more than dirt on her face. Honestly, seeing it happen like that was extremely humbling and uplifting. I did that. I helped her, just like that.

As if we'd been thinking the same thoughts, she whirled on me, abandoning the wipes to pull me into a warm, desperate hug. “Thank you Cat. Thank you so much.”