Chapter 27: Chapter 22 – Ghost

“So, where do you want it?” Mint was sitting on a stool, putting on a pair of gloves after washing her hands. 

“How big is the mark?” Holy shit, I’m disrespecting dad in so many ways now. A trans lesbian that’s about to get herself a tattoo. 

“Eh, it’s a small thing, about the size of an Estrofem container.” I raised my eyebrow at Mint, making it clear I had no context for the size of HRT stuff. “...It’s slightly bigger than an Oreo.” 

“Oh, uhm… here then? Like, where the neck curves to the shoulder?” With one quick point to the spot, Mint replied by patting down the tattooing chair for me to sit on.

“You’re lucky about the pain tolerance, that spot is one of the more painful ones. If we were at my parlour I’d show you the poster with pain intensity marked out.” Mint took out four cards and showed them to me. “Right, the basic symbology is consistent between all of them, and the ink is mixed and enchanted for it to work. Doesn’t mean we can’t get creative with it.” The cards did have the same base shape on them, but the additions differed. Like one making it look like a chip, another like plantlife, there was of course just the plain one. 

I started thinking about what I’d actually want to represent me, on me. I wasn’t getting a trans symbol now, that would be painfully obvious. Plus, it wasn’t my only trait. Hell, I still had weeks of coping to go through after finally accepting this part of me. After allowing myself to be a girl. And figuring it out through a magical mishap. 

Wait. That would work. “Could you style it so it looks like something out of Sailor Moon?” I turned to Mint, who let out an excited ooo.

“Oh that sounds fun! Really fun and cute. Why go for it?” Mint’s voice had shifted, it still sounded like her, but it was more energetic and high, resulting in me having a shocked expression. “Sorry! Should have explained. I’m Pepper! Me and Mint asked Katka to make us a charm or something that makes it more obvious who fronts.” Pepper tapped her throat. “So, voice changes! I’ll go draw up the design while you elaborate on it.” I shook myself out of my confusion. 

“No, I’m sorry, haven’t really met plural folk that are out as plural. So the voice shift spooked me. As for why, well, I’m literally a magical girl, aren’t I? I even have a transformation sequence… I definitely don’t want to go to my baseline form though.” 

“Is it that much different from your current one? Besides the demonic bits, I mean.” Pepper was working on the stencil off to the side, having moved to a table that materialised with the necessary tools. I guess a witch’s house can do that. 

“Yeah, it is. It hurt having to go back to that form. It’s gonna hurt even more if I have to go back to it again. The dead eyes, the perpetual frown, the facial hair, the weird physicality of it.” I looked at my hand, graceful and feminine but still strong enough to sucker punch someone. I quickly hugged my tail, nuzzling into it and sighing slightly. “You don’t realise how bad dysphoria can be until you’ve experienced euphoria, or a lack of it.” 

“Ah, gotcha. Well, you can ask Katka for a prescription to make your baseline match your glamour.” Pepper moved back to the stool, moving my hair to the side to disinfect the area and apply the stencil. 

“Prescription? Not like, a one time potion that does it?” Why not just insta-transition, it seemed more convenient.

“It would be weird for most people to see a drastic change that fast, and I don’t want customers shitting on regular HRT.” Katka was resting on the doorframe, looking in. “Don’t worry, I’ll hook you up. What flavor you want the potion?” 

“Uhm… vanilla?” I shrugged, and then Pepper grabbed my shoulder and got to work. Katka left her to work on me with a giggle. Oh, a succubus who likes vanilla, veeeeery funny. Sure, I’m nowhere near as lewd as Leonard, but… oh wait that was another dysphoria thing. Ah fuck, how many signs were there?! And I kept denying myself the possibility of being a girl while scared of dad! He wasn’t even mom’s husband, he was the sperm donor and only living relative when mom got hospitalised, so I got placed in his care! I hadn’t even met him until then. 

And wow, I was really zoning out on the tattooing. It felt like a fly was walking on me. Annoying, but tolerable. Which really shows how hard Victor must have hit me for it to hurt that much. 

“Right, done with the black outline, so that means the spell is done. Now to figure out what colors pop on coke can red. What’s your regular skin color?” Mint wiped the tattoo tool and started switching bits. 

“White.” I turned on my glamour for a second and then quickly switched it off. “This shade specifically.” Mint gave me a thumbs up and continued her work. 

Having to sit and wait really leaves you with not much to do but think. To think back on stuff. I stopped myself from giggling, remembering my grandparents had somehow preserved subtitled VHSes of Sailor Moon for me to watch, 80 years later. I got the intersex butch lesbian dating her girlfriend, instead of cousins. Pretty sure the censor was from a small southern town with a specific culture to it. 

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Really wish they hadn’t passed away shortly before mom. By all accounts, I would have ended up in their care, meaning I’d have access to their stash of old storage media. They had the original Star Wars trilogy on Laser Disc. Laser Disc!!! And I watched them on that! Hell, thinking about it, I liked their house a lot. It was like living in a museum every time we stayed over for the holidays. Oh wait, fuck. They were both grandmas. They had been married for years, and I know for a fact, since mom told me, that they were both her bio parents. And I never stopped and asked how that would be possible! Oh Lily you clueless idiot! Now I know for sure I wouldn’t have been a mess in denial due to dad’s emotional neglect and huge expectations had I lived with my grandmas! One of them was trans! 

I ran my free hand down my face in frustration as I groaned. Peppermint raised their eyebrow, before speaking. “What’s running through your head?” 

“That one of my lesbian grandmas was trans and I never put two and two together. And that I wish they were still alive. I also wish mom was still alive but, you know. They were the good family I had for ten years, before him.” I would have done better in foster care, possibly adopted by a loving family, without having to wait nine years for the one good remaining family member to appear in my life. 

“Shit dad, huh?” Mint put away her tools, starting to clean the area and putting on some gauze to cover it up, protect it from light and infection. “There, that’ll do it. No more than warm water, no scrubbing, and this soap.” She handed me a small bottle of liquid soap. “You can take that off in about three hours. Hope you like it.” 

“Thank you both for your hard work.” I got off the chair, shook Peppermint’s hand, and returned to the main room, where May was doing some light reading. 

“I’m excited to see how it looks when the bandage comes off!” She lifted her half drunk bottle of coke in the air to cheers me. 

And then there was a loud noise. A wailing roar, like a bear crying its eyes out, loud enough to shake the house. “What. The fuck. Was THAT?!” I yelled out, my arms in the air, my tail nervously straightened up like a spear. Katka peeked her head out of another side room. 

“Oh, right, yeah, that’s a situation I need to talk to you about.” She walked to me, holding a small plastic bottle, by the looks of it repurposed from a yoghurt drink. “Any nightmares recently?” She handed the bottle to me, and I took it, confused, before I turned it around and saw the instructions written on the back: Drink with a meal, gives three months worth of HRT effects, collect second dose and have it a week after the first. 

“Yeah, had a pretty serious one a few days ago, haven’t really had it in me to properly sleep since then.” I pocketed the bottle on my jacket, as Katka nodded. 

“And said nightmare, what was it about?” 

“I was ten again, mom was alive, I had socially transitioned, I was in my childhood home. And then I was at dad’s place, and he got angry at me being a girl, and forced me through a rapid puberty that left me as a caricature, and then I woke up.” I pulled my tail into a hug again. “That was really when I realised I wasn’t a guy, but I wasn’t allowing myself to be a girl yet, because of how I expected dad to react.” 

“Okay, so dysphoria denial nightmare, got it.” Katka stood there, letting the silence hang for a bit too long, the pause a bit too awkward. “That roar is a physical manifestation of your nightmare, as far as I can gather, which is not a thing that’s supposed to happen. Nightmares as Fae are little fuckers responsible for sleep paralysis. They don’t manifest because people have nightmares, they cause them.” She walked over to a window, opening it and looking out. “So your nightmare being so powerful and impactful that it physically manifests here is… dangerous, let’s say.”

“Wait, dangerous, how?” It was a bad dream, it couldn’t do much, could it?

“Imagine someone dreamt of the apocalypse and their dreams would come true. We’re lucky you just had a dysphoria denial dream. It means you just need to confront it.” Katka waved her hand in the air, causing three circles to form and intersect, which turned into a portal showing me my apartment. “I’ll prepare stuff for the trip, you just go sit your tattoo out and change into something more appropriate for monster hunting.” She turned to May. “It was lovely to see you again you bougie bitch, now kindly join your granddaughter. I need to help a system clean up their temporary studio so Kyblík can un-grow it.” May got off her chair at that point, giving Katka a headpat as she passed her and entered the portal. 

“Why did we have to go through Wisteria Way if you can just make portals like that.” I gestured to it, Katka shrugged. 

“I can make them to the Realms, with generic entry points. Always at the gates of Heaven, always at the Ziggurat in Hell, always on that one spot on the field of Purgatory. I need someone familiar with a place for specific points.” Katka threw me a coin. “You hold this and ding it, I can make the portal again. See you in a couple hours.” She winked at me, and with a shrug I crossed the threshold, standing in my room as the portal closed, Katka waving on the other side. 

“The jacket works for monster hunting, but you should change the rest.” May commented, already working on finally putting the purchases in my wardrobe. So I went to help her, right after I had put the coin on my desk along with the bottle.