Chapter 14: Chapter 14: Euphoria and Dread

Callie

I stared hard at the tablet in front of me, biting my lip in concentration as I attempted to write a signature using my new name. The stylus slowly moved across the screen as I pushed to recall how to write by hand, having grown so used to typing and never having much of an interest in developing a signature with my old name. After what felt like an eternity, I finished writing Calliope and stared at it, feeling like I was still missing something. Seized by an impulse, I erased the dot on the i and replaced it with a little heart. Now that? That was perfect. Cute as a button. 

 

I shivered with joy, still amazed at how even the smallest of things filled me with such glee. Spending so long as someone I couldn’t really be, trying to mask what I really wanted; everything now felt like a new and wondrous adventure. Once I crossed that threshold of admitting I’m a girl, all sorts of mental barriers I’d built up over the years started to fray and fall away. 

 

I could like cute things! Nobody would give me grief over that now! I mean, it was stupid that anyone gave me grief to begin with, but people are cruel. Especially my goddamn parents. If there were any signs present when I was growing up then surely they were buried under the weight of their demands and the trauma of them abandoning me. I felt stupid over how, after meeting Selene and being taken in by their family, it still took me so long to overcome the walls I’d raised. 

 

Oh no, how would the polycule react to all of this? Probably supportive, but what if they were mad at me for being so ignorant? For lying to them and telling them I was a boy? Would they stop talking to me? I couldn’t bear that, what if they left me– beep. I was shaken from my spiral by the sound of the ship’s small fabricator letting me know that it had finished the job I’d started. After my call with Rosa, I had tried on a lot of my old clothes and found that nothing fit anymore. A few items still worked, if a bit baggy, but I definitely needed a new wardrobe. Thankfully, my old outfits provided plenty of raw material to refashion into something cute!  

 

Helping Rosa with her transition years ago meant that I did have a bit of a leg up on knowing what I needed and how to make it. My body was now substantially different and required different fits and shapes that, thankfully, the ship’s archives had templates for. I looked down at my chest as I made my way over to the fab, delighting in the way my new breasts moved and felt. Not too large, not too small, just right for me. Fascinating how the nanites had managed to hit that balance. Gosh, the feeling that something I’d been missing all along was now right where it should be was indescribably wonderful. Speaking of something missing and something belonging, I noticed that after finishing my call with Rosa and a brief nap, the nanites had decided to give me bottom surgery. Which I was truthfully very pleased about, but I had to wonder if the nanites had done so based on my reactions to my changes or if they were following a template. So much of my changes had been things I, in hindsight, had always wanted and it was a mystery whether this was yet another one of those. How far would it go? Would I need to take hormones until I was able to get the necessary anatomy to make my own, like Rosa did? Did the nanites already handle that? What about things like periods? Would I just get the hormonal symptoms or did I have to worry about bleeding now? Gosh, could I get pregnant? Would I want that?

 

Nervous excitement filled me as the thoughts swirled around my head and I resolved to do a thorough body scan later to answer some of these questions. For now, there were cute outfits to try on! Dresses and skirts and leggings and cute tops and so much more, all just waiting for me to wear. The materials I had on hand meant that my undergarments would be rather simple, but I had some flexibility with everything else. I pulled item after item out of the fab and arranged them on the nearby workbench. What to wear first? This was a big moment after all. 

 

My eyes darted from option to option, analysis paralysis kicking in, until I spotted a simple black skirt that would go well with the tanktop I was already wearing. Selene’s wry tone murmured in my mind, “Skirt go spinny!” and I let out a little giggle. I slipped on the skirt and added a nice, soft blouse to go with it and commenced with the spin. It was exhilarating! I spun and spun until I got dizzy and tripped over my own feet before recovering with a shift of my tail to counter my movement. I teetered over to a mirror and basked in my appearance. No wincing, no subtle feeling of disgust when I stared at my smiling face. Just me. Happy. 

 

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I expected to feel more nervous or unsure. There was a little of that given that I still had no idea how Alexis might respond or my polycule for that matter. But there would be time enough for worry and anxiety later. This was Callie time. Euphoria time! I spun again for good measure, joy welling up within me yet again. Callie! That was me! Finally! Not only did it feel good to embrace my identity after so long, but in a small sense I was happy that this was a me that my monstrous parents never got to know. Untouched by their malice and their greed. Hear that, you mouldering relics? I have cast away all remnants of you and I stand here, an adorable catgirl, free to be me.

Well, with all this talk about casting things away, I’d made room for more outfits, clearly. My reflection in the mirror showed my devious little grin as I dove back into the pile of clothes and selected more outfits. A whirlwind of fashion, localized entirely in a lander on the surface of Venus. What would the meteorologists make of this? Dresses, skirts, leggings, even more neutral pants and tops took on new context and splendor with the changes I’d gone through. I tried on so many outfits, imagining Selene commenting on each one, with Alexis smirking behind them. The thought made my face grow warm and butterflies flutter in my stomach. Did I…did I have a crush on Alexis? 

 

Oh. Oooooh. This was a tricky development. Alright, Callie, you aren’t an awkward teen anymore, unsure how to flirt with Selene until they asked you out. For starters, do I actually have feelings? If I think about Alexis…well she is kind and thoughtful and caring and strong and beautiful and she is very sweet to me and…yeaaah, I think I have feelings for her. But would she have feelings for me? That’s a scary thing to think about. Would I be wanted, like this? I’m fairly certain she is a lesbian, but does that mean her attraction would include me? Back on Terra, sure, things are pretty good these days when it comes to trans people. However, Alexis has been trapped on this planet with only the archives selected by a bunch of crypto cultists to inform her views on things. She hadn’t responded negatively to Selene or anything, but would that extend to me?

 

Perhaps it is better to just avoid the question for now. Too many frightening possibilities. Oh, I bet I could be subtle, play off my new name and presentation as a coping mechanism for what the nanites had done to me. Would she buy that? She might. Or maybe see how she accepts that and table any question of attraction? That’s smart, I’m very clever. I don’t have to solve my problems if I just ignore them and avoid them! When has that ever backfired for me in my entire life?

 

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Hours later, after trying on many outfits and thoroughly exhausting myself, I took a nice shower and got to planning on a design for a proxy body for Alexis. It would have to be perfect and my brain was alight with ideas. Alexis had made no secret about how she felt regarding her current circumstances and I got the impression that the closer I could get to human body experiences, the better. Fortunately, a lot of work had been done in the realm of prosthetics and even some theoretical work in complete body replacements. If we could also make more nanites like those that reshaped me…well, the possibilities were incredibly exciting.

I was comforted by the steady hum of the ship as I worked, letting myself get lost in the task. Designing, building, fixing things, this was my realm, my domain. Where I could be useful, not just a burden. Selene would probably chide me if they knew I was thinking such thoughts again. They had always told me that I have inherent worth, that I wasn’t just what I could do for other people. It was hard to break the conditioning of my childhood.

I thought back to the night my parents left me in the streets, setting off to their colony ship and telling me that I was an adult who should pull his own weight and stop leeching off their success. I was fourteen. Selene’s parents had found me fiddling with a vending machine, trying to fool the system into giving me just a bottle of water. They took me in and gave me a home, a kindness I will never forget. Selene took a bit longer to warm up to me, but it made me smile to think about how we finally became friends and how that led to us dating. 

 

Selene had always been fascinated by Terra and the bounty beneath the ground. Precious metals, dazzling gemstones, and even the most mundane of rocks had captured their imagination and set them on their path to becoming a geologist. I had no such grand vision, no driving passion. My parents had instilled only a desire to be useful and productive in a capitalistic sense. I spent so many hours after Selene’s family took me in fiddling with spare parts and building little drones, hoping to somehow repay their kindness. Their mothers kept trying to stop me, telling me it was unnecessary, but it was Selene who realized why I was doing it and instead asked me to help with their projects. I loved them from that very moment. We worked so hard, building drones and growing synthetic gems for industrial use, hoping that we might contribute in even the smallest way to stave off the coming Climatefall. In a way, we failed; the momentum of what was coming was relentless and our generation attained the power to fight it only after it could no longer be stopped.

But we persevered. We survived, we built, and it was the love we shared that enabled us to find joy amidst the devastation. I hummed as I drafted blueprints, thinking back to how often I was ready to give up in those days. Selene was all that pulled me through, helping me realize that there was more to life than labor. ‘You are a treasure as you are, being who you want to be. You don’t have to become someone else to be loved. The Sol I adore is the person who smiles and laughs and comforts me, not the Sol who builds machines. Although, your latest drones are rather cute.’ That was one of the last conversations we had before heading into cryosleep and I wonder if they knew how much it meant to me.

My system beeped quietly as I fed my schematics into a few programs, checking for errors and feasibility. I sat back in my chair and sighed happily. Selene…I didn’t deserve them. Or Celica and Rosa for that matter. Those two came later, after we awoke again and during the years of planning that brought me here. But I loved them all the same, their kindness and sincerity. With a start, I realized I had also been a bit envious of them. All three of them had embraced who they are and lived in ways that I didn’t even dare to dream of. Yet, did they know about me all along? Conversations and memories flowed through my mind, little knowing glances and smiling faces as they would talk about their experiences being queer. The looks they gave me. Maybe they had indeed known and been unable to break through my dense shell. 

There were no signs! I giggled as I realized that the oft repeated phrase they had all used was directed at me, in the hopes I might reflect and see who I really was. Callie. That was me, hidden there all along. I walked over to the nearby couch and fell into it, chuckling and feeling light as a cloud as I realized there had been so many signs, so many little moments where the real me had shown through. Did I really never find it odd that I fit in so well with a polycule of sapphics? My anxiety and doubts over how the others would take the news drifted away as I realized that they had already accepted me, long before I even accepted myself.

Coming to Venus had opened some old wounds, pain I had thought long buried. But how could I not fall in love with this world, this beautiful planet reshaped by human hands? It was only here that I had found myself and realized that I’d been home all along. A precious gift beyond measure. The system beeped yet again and I smiled as I got up and looked over the plans. A gift I would share with Alexis, so that she might know the joy I had found. My fears remained over how to tell her, how to share with her all that I had realized, but they no longer felt overwhelming. Gone was the me, the Sol, who retreated into solitude in the face of doubt. Callie was here and it was a brand new day.