Chapter 7: Chapter six – A friend, you say?

Walking along the streets of the city of Domene, I marveled at all of the people passing by. Some had weapons, like swords, axes, or bows, along with some stranger ones, like a scythe, a warpick, and even a hook sword. Many had armor on, usually just leather, but some had chain mail, full plate, and one even had what looked like scaled hide as a fauld. Most of the clothes that people had were practical and light, and shockingly stretchy, likely thanks to creation magic or enchantments on the machines giving clothes those properties. There were mostly lighter shades of reds, greens, browns, and even gold -though that was only on the richer people.

I passed a lot of shops in my travels, picking up small bars of metal and scraps of high quality leather for later analysis through my creation magic. Some of the best food I’d had was along the streets, mostly skewers with wonderfully seasoned and roasted meats. Surprisingly, spices weren’t all that uncommon here, most people could afford at least salt and pepper, enough for most meals a year, with just their extra coinage. Speaking of coinage, I got a talk over the world’s coinage, as the history books only went over its creation. There are five main denominations, Kobber, Messing, Sølv, Gull, and Krone. Each one up is 100 of the lesser, with the Krone being 10 Gull instead. Most families can live off of about a half Gull a year, and many inns and taverns take about 50-75 Messing per night, depending on the quality.

Passing an alley, I saw a small kid, likely younger than me, sitting with their knees up and arms crossed over them, head bent down. Deciding to go over, they shifted their body a bit, seeming to try to cover up painful areas. Not wanting to scare them more, I sat down next to them, still about a meter and a half away. I had to wait a long while before they looked over at me. It looked like they had been crying, the stars in place of eyes flickering every once in a while as they are prone to do after a breakdown. One was teal, and the other magenta, the first heterochromatic person I’d seen so far. Upon seeing me, more specifically the skewers I still held, they clenched their jaw, and looked back down. Sighing, I walked over and crouched down across from them, saying “You want some?”.

They stared at me, before making a very small nod. Holding two out, I sat down again, this time across from them. After they finished with both skewers, not a long wait, I asked “What’s your name?”.

They blurted out “Hanna.” in a small voice, and flinched away.

Blinking, I took a second to understand, then said “A chosen name, yeah? Feminine?”

Slowly processing that I didn’t do anything drastic, th-she looked at me, and said “Yes, though no one has ever really accepted it before.” My least favorite thing about this country was the way people treated the rare Av Utsiden that had a gender. Even I hadn’t really opened up fully about my gender situation, though there really wasn’t a reason not to.

Frowning, I said in a much harsher tone “Then that’s on them, gender stuff shouldn’t affect much of anything.”

She stared at me for a moment, shocked, then asked “Are you like me too? And what is your name?”

“No, I’m actually the opposite, and my name is Ikke” I said, only realizing afterwards how strange that would sound. As I suspected, she was confused. So I said “I can’t talk about it here, but you could come to my house? My parents are good people, and they have told me of one of their mutual acquaintances that is like you, so I think we’re fine on that front. Maybe we could even be friends?”

She stared at me, before nodding with a watery smile.

…

An hour later, Hanna was gaping up at my house, and I seriously don’t blame her. It was a large house, right in the middle of the central district of the city. It looks almost like an old gothic mansion, with white stone bricks and a steep roof with wrought iron spikes along the edge. Passing under the outer ring of rooms and into the courtyard, again, her jaw dropped. There wasn’t much in there, but the flower beds there were full of brightly colored flowers and a large octagonal fountain in the center of four walkways. A bunch of windows looked down into the courtyard, all or them pointed with metal bars separating the panes in different patterns. 

Xcero was the first to walk out, and when they saw us, quickly went back inside to get Syn and Nix. A few seconds later, they reappeared and walked towards us. Hanna seemed to get nervous, and went to hide behind me, so I looked back to give a hopefully reassuring smile. “So, you guys know how Jeremy is? This is Hanna.” I said, and stepped to the side. 

You are reading story Verden – Rise in a new life at novel35.com

Everyone paused for a brief moment before Xcero, smiling gently, crouched down and looked at her. Standing up again, they said “Let’s get you cleaned up.”, and walked towards where I knew the baths were. 

She stayed in there for a few hours, getting all of the street grime out, and likely some tears too. When she came back out, dinner was just about to be served, and one of the shockingly hidden maids was escorting her to the dining room. The room was painted a deep, but still bright, blue, and there were gold accents in the form of vines and flowers. Her eyes widening for what I’m sure was the umpteenth time, she calmed down and got into the chair pulled out for her. Asken came in a moment later from just behind her, pausing in the doorway. They looked at her, before speaking to my parents. “Who’s this?” 

Syn spoke up, saying “Ah, Asken. This is Hanna, she’ll be joining us for at least a few days, and probably sometimes in the future.”

They faltered for a moment when Syn said ‘she’, but quickly recovered. After a short pause, Asken said “Like that cousin that came by once, Jerry, right?” Taking their usual seat, they smiled at her, ignoring Xcero’s scowl. Saying to the girl “Hey, I’m Asken, how are you?”

She smiled shyly, looking down, and mumbled “Better than before, how are you?”

After that, conversation started to flow, and being in the middle of it slowly started to break her shell. It fully shattered when I brought up my fluidity.

Huffing out a breath, I got ready to say my piece, and went for it. “So. I have somewhat of a similar situation to Hanna, but my pronoun preferences change every once in a while, could be hours, could be weeks. I’ve always been like this, but for some reason I was still nervous. I wanted to bring this up because I will be making a few different body shapes, and moving through them as I see fit. I wanted you to know which ones are which.” Letting out a slow breath, I waited for a response amidst the slightly dumbfounded stares of my family.

The first one to speak up was Nix, saying “Well, just let us know for the first while. I think we would all like to do this right. Just let us know some defining features, and we’ll try to get them right going forward.”

At everyone’s nods, I sighed in relief, not having realized before now how much that had been weighing on me. “Okay, I’m going to go revel in relief for a bit.” I said, before heading out to escape to my own room. Just a few minutes later, I hear a knock on the door, and sense someone outside in the hall. Walking over, I hear Hanna's voice, and let her in. She just came in and hugged me, not saying anything. We stayed like that for a bit, before she finally got out “I’m so happy to find someone like me…” in a small voice.

Apparently, Refur had been watching, as he decided that now was an opportune time to intrude. Seeming to pop into existence, he trotted over to the bed, and by the looks of it, asked her to join him. She does, then pats the spot on the opposite side of him, looking at me. So, fifteen or so minutes later, Nix comes in, finding the scene of us both petting Refur, and him seemingly in bliss. Sighing, they say “Come on Hanna, we have a bedroom prepared for you, and you have looked like you needed to rest your whole time here.”

Snapping out of her fur induced trance, she followed after Nix. I close the door once they get out, planning on going to bed myself.