Secret Transfic Autumn Anthology / #16

Witchness Protection Program

by

When someone needs to go into witness protection in a magical universe, sometimes that just means unexpected things come to light.

A fluffy short story for just a little bit of comfort.

 

I carefully inked the last rune of my True Name, and set down the pen.

“Thus is our pact sealed,” intoned the judge, his hands carefully steepled upon the table. With a nod of his head, the folder closed itself. “Your name shall be kept for any future need, but for all other times, let it pass from memory. You are not the one they are searching for. You are simply yourself.” He turned to the attendant witch and beckoned her closer. “When you are ready, O Witness, you may drink the vial. The door shall lead you to your new safehouse, and you may proceed through it, again, when you are ready.” With these words spoken, and their work done, they filed out of the room, leaving me alone with the little potion which would guarantee my safety.

I had blown a whistle on the abhorrent behaviour of the largest magical transportation and warehousing conglomerate, and the revelations would probably land at least a quarter of the richest family on the planet in legal hot water.

So I was being given safety, as best as anyone knew how. A secret identity, and a new face to show the world. I had definitely heard of such a procedure, I’m pretty sure I had even helped transport one such potion before. But the level of secrecy shrouding the whole affair would have satisfied even the spookiest of Old Gods.

And I was nervous. Not helping matters was the fact that I could never really take the flavour of magical potions seriously. The everpresent combination of bubbles and purple was just hard to swallow properly for me.

But also... I couldn’t wait to see how this worked. How it felt, how it acted.

So I took up the vial, carefully broke the seal and worked free the cork, and steeled my nerves as best I could. And then I drank.

I sat, eyes closed, feeling for every moment of the effects. And I was not disappointed: it felt like stepping into a warm room after too long in the snow; it felt like a lovely soup on a stormy day. And yet it also felt like running for a bus, and catching it, like dancing to the perfect music, your every step in sync with the beat. It felt like a waterfall of freedom from some nameless curse, every scrap of lurking evil being pounded out by the unforgiving flow.

I shuddered, and it was done.

I opened my eyes, and there was nothing I could think of which felt different or wrong, nothing like what the simpler form-effecting potions usually caused. In fact, I felt amazing. I felt like there was a little glade of rabbits and deer in my heart.

This... this wouldn’t be so bad.

Then I moved to get up, and I realised something was weird.

I looked down, and I saw that I was now in a girl’s body. Slight flare at the hips, gentle curve at the waist, tidy pair of breasts sitting pretty under a lady’s shirt. Unquestionably a girl.

But that didn’t make sense. That was supposed to be one of the worst things a guy – no, anyone – could feel. A potion to give someone a body of the wrong gender was practically against the law... but only practically against the law. And, I guessed, it would be very unlikely for anyone to guess that my secret would lie in that direction, so this meant I was very safe in this form. Unless I went and made it obvious. So, my mission now is to make it as unobvious as I can. Just... try to act like a girl. Perfectly normal thing to have to do as a guy.

I grinned. Yeah, this was going to be fine. I slipped forward off of the chair, noted that I had apparently lost a lot of height, and brushed out my skirt to make sure it was sitting nicely around me. And with that all done, I took up my staff and hat, and made my way the short distance to The Door. The magical door that would take me to the safehouse assigned to me, without anyone knowing all the details of where exactly I was coming from or going to. One step through that door, and I would be the only person who knew where exactly that one whistleblower guy had gone. Though the arcanocryptography would be stored securely under a three-way True Name hash. But my True Name would be one of those three, and so, if I wished, nobody else would ever know.

Okay, I get it. Normally people shouldn’t find these sorts of weird applications of magic interesting, but come on, they literally had to invent a whole new branch of magic for just this one situation. And sure, they went on to use it elsewhere too, but they made it for this. For the thing I was living!

I made sure my hat fit securely on my head (and, for the first time in my life, that no long blonde hairs were annoyingly held in place right in front of my eyes), then took a pinch of salt from my bag and threw it against the door. I grinned. Computers usually just use random data for their cryptographic salts, but I’ve just done the real thing.

I shivered in-place, doing a little dance to psych myself up for this moment. And then before I let my brain panic about anything, I firmly grasped the handle of the door and swung it open to find myself entering a small, hewn-stone chamber, perhaps a relic of some monastery or just someone’s personal experiment down those same ancient lines. The light was from a dozen or so candle-mimicking spells, and seated in the centre of the room was a woman in beautiful flowing robes, staff held perfectly level and an air of extreme concentration very obvious even to me standing behind her.

I waited patiently, trying not to make a sound, knowing that even the slightest tap against the stone floor would resound in the vaguely oval chamber. She had the air of someone who really wouldn’t be very put out by a surprise distraction, but I’ve also just always been the type of person to try and help others, occasionally to the point of causing problems for myself in the process.

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When I put it like that, it sounds like I should try to help myself at least as much as I help others. I guess if I can see what others’ problems are, but can’t see or won’t allow myself to see my own problems, it does make total sense. But again, when I put it like that, well… Maybe I should try to figure out whatever my problems might be.

I tried to think through anything that came to mind, but my thoughts were still weirdly stuck around the effortlessness of my adjusting to such a massive change to my body. Something wasn’t adding up.

With a sudden motion, she spun her staff upright, and struck it upon the ground, and the entire room was filled with stars, the candle-lights extinguishing in the same moment.

With a groan, the woman stood, looking around at the starscape, slowly nodding. “I think that has it, yes,” she said, visibly relaxing and rubbing her eyes. “Now just to make sure I can scribe it, I guess.” She chuckled, and turned to face me.

“Oh!” She jumped. “Here you are!”

“I’m here,” I nodded.

“Well, welcome, welcome. I’ll get to the more important stuff in a moment, but what do you think?” She gestured at the stars filling the room.

“It’s, well, it’s beautiful. But from my experience, making a field of stars isn’t as hard as it looked like you were working?”

“Ah, but this is not just a field of stars, young lady.”

I blinked rapidly at her calling me that. It reminded me of how I looked, and how much it was supposed to hurt. And how much it very much wasn’t hurting. But I pushed that very dangerous-feeling pile of thoughts away for the moment.

“-a roughly accurate map of the local stellar neighbourhood. Now, of course, it is only as accurate as we already know, but given that this is for a sci-fi writer to mess around with, I only need it pretty accurate.”

“W-wow.” I looked around the room again with a newfound awe at the starscape.

“But!” The woman rolled her staff between her hands. “That is business, and it may wait for another day. It isn’t just any day that we are chosen by the Door to house another wanderer. And I haven’t even introduced myself,” she chuckled. “I am head of our little house of the craft. My name is Matilda, though please, call me Tilde. I know this may be a little bit of a... sensitive question, but who might you be?”

I stared at her blankly, my mind racing. A thousand names and nicknames went sprinting through my head, but at the same time I knew exactly what I should call myself. A name I had stumbled across as a young gir- kid, and held onto lovingly ever since. I guess I had always hoped I would meet a girl named such and love and cherish her forever. But I guess being that girl instead sounded cool too...?

“I’m Clarissa,” I said, and I felt a smile splitting my cheeks.

And that’s when it clicked, properly.

This was the problem I hadn’t let myself see. This was the giant pile of questions that I hadn’t ever let myself think about - that I had been so scared of that I simply devoted my existence to quietly helping others.

I had always been Clarissa, but had never realised it. 

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“I-I’m Clarissa, and I’m very happy to meet you.” I said again, feeling a tear trickle down my smiling face.

“Oh dear,” Tilde laughed. “I know that expression. Well, Clarissa, I just want you to know, if you have any questions, you can ask nearly any of the girls here. A fair number of them were smiling, and crying, just like you are right now when they got here, and I’m sure they’d love to help you figure anything out.” She gently put a hand on my shoulder. “I said it before, but again, welcome here.”