Chapter 28: Chapter 23 – Hug Your Mind

I had been an idiot. A doofus. A complete dumbass. Even with May there helping me get seasonal clothing, I hadn’t gotten environment appropriate clothing. I mean what store do you go to and say ‘Yes I need an outfit for monster hunting’? 

Okay a cosplay store, but those outfits are for cons, not for the Fae Realm! And proper LARP armor that works for forest environments takes a while to make. 

So I was trekking through the forest in my stompy boots I got for my first outfit, a dark green skirt and a brown hoodie so as to blend it somewhat with the color scheme. I guessed I might was well get used to wearing combat skirts all the time... Katka wasn’t wearing stuff that was much more practical than what I was wearing. Black dress, canvas sneakers, a hoodie. She was keeping her shoes safe by flying ever so slightly off the ground. Did all wizards and witches have to be goth, or was that just an aesthetic thing the trans ones did? At least Katka was a much more competent magic user than Leo was. While I was, what, a cat themed fire berserker? An Emberserker? An Empurrserker? Dang, somebody get a game dev collective on the line, I got a new character type to contribute. Oh, speaking of Leonard, for some ungodly reason, he had decided to tag along. Or rather, he had gone to check on me and May right as I was summoning Katka, and she had decided it would be absolutely delightful to have a talk with ‘Lugubrious Lycan’. So let’s do the countdown of who has chewed out Leonard so far: An oni grandpa, a gelatinous cube, an angry lesbian, no wait make that three angry lesbians: a human one, me, and May. And now he’s about to be chewed out by a nephilim changeling trans witch. 

I could see Katka’s grip on Leonard’s shoulder was like an eagle’s grip on the hare it just caught. I think I saw something similar in his folders... 

The trek through the woods wasn’t as exciting as I figured it might be. You’d think the Fae Wilds would just be full of weird magic creatures and plants and floating magic all around. But nope. It was just like walking through any other forest you could imagine. Well there were more woodland critters visible, that weren’t as shy as the ones back on Earth. “I really didn’t think this place would look like a Ghibli movie. I imagined something more…” 

“Alien and weird and spooky?” Katka asked, her focused shifting from Leonard, who looked as if someone just sucked his soul out. At least I knew that’s unlikely. Thanks Satan. “Bunch of giant glowing mushrooms and bugs and such?” Katka did the shaky hand thing when she mentioned bugs. 

“Kinda? Well, yeah, pretty much.” I shrugged, as I said, you’d think that’s what the Fae Wilds would be. 

“Well, that’s not really how the Fae Realm formed. Did May or Leonard explain the thing to you yet?” Katka stopped, and grabbed Leonard’s collar to stop him as he just kept aimlessly walking forward. I tried to think what thing Katka could be referring to. I shook my head to reply. 

“So, it’s fairly simple. The Universe is Cyclical. A pantheon gets a shot at running it, then they have an apocalypse, pass it to another pantheon. The current ruling pantheon has their own Realm or Realms detached from Earth. Like Heaven, Hell and Purgatory for the current boss.” Katka drew a couple circles in the air to help her with the presentation. One labelled Earth, one labelled Ruling Realm, and then crossing Earth was the Fae Realm circle, with Realm of the Dead crossing the Fae Realm one, like a snowman. “When the pantheon passes the torch, their realm goes and merges with the Fae Realm, and their Afterlife merges with the Realm of the Dead.” She had the circles move to show it, drawing a new one where Ruling Realm was before. “And thus the Fae Realm grows. Most Ruling Realms are boring forests and such. Hell, I think the Fae Realm won’t grow when the current fucker passes. Well, if they pass it. Bastard got to have a trial apocalypse with the Flood. And only has afterlife options.”

“Oh so I could like stumble across Valhalla or Olympus around here?” We continued walking after that. 

“Yeah. Well, stumble isn’t accurate. Olympus is obvious if you’re on one of the plains. The Earth isn’t flat but the Fae Realm sure is.” Katka snapped her fingers in front of Leonard’s face to wake him up out of his trance. 

“Buhwuhwah-” He blinked a couple times, shook his head and finally focused. 

“I probably should have just ripped into you in your apartment instead of dragging you out here. But hey, it confirms you’re not a Changeling.” 

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“Fuck. Can you try and Angel me then?” Leonard asked, rubbing his face in frustration. 

“Nah, can’t, only ancestors can do that. And I’m nearly your age and definitely didn’t have any kids.” Katka patted his head condescendingly and kept floating forward, leading us towards a disturbing sound of sobs that was getting louder and louder as we approached. 

 

 I was definitely glad I had woken up from the nightmare when I did. The creature sitting in the valley below us was huge. Easily twelve feet tall. Covered head to toe in course brown hair, head hair long and tangled up, facial hair bushy. Shoulders disturbingly broad, twice as broad as they’d be on a body builder. Hands massive, covering the creature’s tear soaked face. Wearing an awkwardly stretched out version of the outfit I had on in the dream. Voice like a rockslide. If you described gender dysphoria to a cartoonist who actually listened and was supportive of trans people, they’d draw a mirror piece of a plain looking trans girl standing in front of a mirror, and the creature as her reflection. 

And she was my responsibility. My dysphoria personified and manifested. All the fears and thoughts and worries about my appearance, feelings towards the puberty I underwent, exaggerated to ridiculous proportions and sitting right in front of me. Going through the wrong puberty feels like being the victim in a body horror story. Your body not your own, changing before your eyes, your identity disappearing as it transforms, and you can desperately struggle, but in body horror stories the transformation tends to finish. And when it finishes you are left despairing and with no way back. 

It was unclear whether she was going to be violent. Dysphoria, as I decided to call her for now, was just sitting there, crying. Definitely too overwhelmed by everything to do much more. What would she do when she saw me approach? 

I wouldn’t have to wait long to find out the answer to that question as Katka grabbed my shoulder and led me right smack dab in front of Dysphoria. There was a very loud slap sound as May facepalmed. “Sup. You weren’t supposed to get a physical form. Here’s the reason you got one. Talk it out.” Katka patted my shoulder and flew back to the edge of the forest, where she joined May and Leonard. She gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up. Dysphoria stopped sobbing long enough to uncover her face and look at me directly. God, her eyes were red and puffy from crying so much, but they were still decidedly my eyes. Just, dead inside. Yeah, I see what Amy meant with the dead eyed but not like Leonard look she mentioned me having. I reluctantly waved at dysphoria, giving her an awkward smile. She was opening her mouth, as if trying to talk, but every time only wheezing came out. Like when you try to confess to your crush but your brain goes on vacation and no words come out of your mouth, just air. Through a great amount of effort though, obvious from her expression, she did manage to utter a single word. 

“Why.” She was barely understandable. The combination of her voice roughened from crying, of her voice roughened from the caricature of puberty, was not doing her any favors at communicating. Why what, Dysphoria? Why do you exist? Why are you like this? Why do you have to suffer this curse? 

Because of me. “I’m sorry.” I began, slowly and carefully approaching her, my arms open but lowered. “I’m so incredibly sorry for this. You’re all my worst fears rolled into one. I got a chance at escaping you, a chance at not getting close to how you are, and my brain decided I needed to be knocked down a peg. Humbled. Reminded.” Her hands were on the ground, and I was close enough where I had to really look up to look in her eyes. “Of all the pain. I didn’t get to just be a girl without problems. Dad’s specter hangs over me. Over both of us still. His expectations for me scaring me into denial.” I gave her a hug. “But, I get to escape those. We get to escape those. We get to just be Lily. He can’t do anything to us. We can literally set his underwear on fire with a direct enough thought. It’s gonna be okay. We’re never going to end up like this.” I had begun the hug with my arms not being able to reach around her, my face smooshed into her chest, but as I kept holding her and talking, I found my grip tightening. And my face was no longer buried, but instead was being nuzzled into from below. Dysphoria had literally shrunk before my eyes, dad’s effects in the nightmare having had reverted. 

“Thank you...” She let out meekly, hugging me back. It didn’t last long, as seconds later, I was hugging air, Dysphoria having had blown away in a spray of colorful light. And in her former spot, laying in the grass, was a small egg shaped gem, shifting between pink, blue and white, based on how the light struck it. 

“A bit too on the nose, isn’t it?” Katka asked from the tree line, and I shrugged at her, pocketing the gem. “An egg that shifts between trans flag colors, like she could have dropped a flag cape at that point. Dream Constructs, I swear to fuck.” Katka threw her hands in the air. “And worst of all, I can’t make a medical bill for therapy joke, because we got free healthcare!”