I’d pretty much given up on trying to convince myself I wasn’t trans by that point. I was still trying to convince myself that a girl body, whether human or dragon, was a “nice to have” rather than the burning need it had soon become once I’d started thinking about it.

Now I had a label, and Meredith’s permission to use it. I wasn’t sure if I liked the fit of it, but it certainly sounded a lot nicer than what Nathan had called her last time he and Dad were gossiping about her.

Wings

part 1 of 62

This story is set in dkfenger's Trust Machines universe and is a sort of sequel to my Pioneers, though I think it stands alone tolerably well. Thanks to dkfenger for opening up his fascinating universe for other authors to write in.

Thanks to ChiriVulpes, clancy688, dkfenger, Nicole, and Rellawing for feedback on early unfinished drafts.

Thanks to clancy688, dkfenger and Fiona for research help.

Since Devi didn’t come through the portal speaking Zyuni anymore, because the cabinet was in an apartment whose residents only spoke Stasari, Nidlaya had loaned her a language talisman, a gold necklace with a ruby pendant, which enabled her to speak and understand Zyuni.

“This is my mom and dad and grandma and my brother Karsan and my sister Ami,” Devi went on. “Everybody, this is Zindla and her mom Syuna. They run the shop where I first came to this world.”

“We weren’t entirely truthful last weekend when we told you that Davey couldn’t remember what had happened during the months he was gone,” Carson said. “Davey told us where he’d been and what he’d done, but... until a few days ago, we didn’t believe him, because we didn’t have evidence, and his story seemed pretty far-fetched.”

“We can sell it as a retirement package,” Carson said. “An eighty-year-old man might think it’s worth the... inconvenience of becoming a woman if he can be forty again.”

He didn’t dare go through it himself. He’d seen how Devi grew into a ten-year-old boy and Sashtun aged into a woman into her forties; if he went through, he could be well over a hundred, too feeble to walk back through under his — or her — own power, and prone to dying of old age at any moment.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

 

“I don’t know,” Davey said. “Are you going to believe me? Mom and Dad didn’t.”

 

“I promise I’ll listen,” Dr. Menendez said.

She jumped out of the bath, hastily threw on a robe, and rushed to the room where the portal-cabinet was stored, carrying a towel. She was overjoyed to see the portal still open as she entered the room.

“The winner of the auction must promise to allow Devi to go home through the portal as soon as they figure out how the cabinet works.”

“Do you want me to show you how to sew?” Pasyala asked. “Or has your mother already shown you?”

 

“No,” Devi said at first. “Girls do sewing and knitting and stuff.” But then he reflected: People go into other worlds to learn valuable lessons and have adventures and stuff. The portal made me a girl, so maybe it wants me to learn about girl stuff before it will let me go home and be a boy again? “I guess I’m a girl now, so I can learn how to sew and stuff.”

“Odd, though. You don’t look like you have a transformation spell on you. Or any kind of spell, really. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a transformation, but I think I’d recognize it. Must be some kind I’m not familiar with.”

The person who used to own the house until she died was an artist. She’d painted murals in every room. Davey could hardly believe that Dad was planning to paint over the battle scene in the living room and the mural in his and Mom’s bedroom, which he hadn’t let any of the kids see. Davey’s big brother Carson had snuck in to see it, and he wouldn’t tell Davey or Amy what it was; he just snickered when they asked him about it.

“Too much pillow-fighting?” he asked with a grin as we walked back toward our van.

 

I swatted him on the arm. “I’ve been to two girl sleepovers so far, and neither involved a pillow-fight.”

 

“Man, you got cheated.”

“So, Meredith,” Julianna said, plopping down on Sophia’s bed, “dish! Sophia’s told me about you, and I heard some stuff from girls at school, but I want to hear it from you. What do you like best about being a girl? Is there anything you miss about being a boy? Is there a boy you like? Or a girl? Are there girly things you haven’t tried yet that we can initiate you into tonight?” Her eyes gleamed with joy and enthusiasm, and even though I found her prying questions a little uncomfortable, I couldn’t resent her.

“Statistically, there’s got to be at least a couple more trans kids at each of our schools, and another hundred-plus trans people in the county as a whole... but at our age, most of them are probably closeted or in denial. That might change once more people knew about the machines and how easy it is to transition now.”

“Congratulations on your new body. I’m pretty happy about mine, but I’m sure you must be absolutely ecstatic.”

As embarrassing as it was, that incident pretty much put a stop to the girls in P.E. grumbling about me changing and showering with them.

She went to her room and came back with one of her sports bras, and I tried it on. It was definitely a lot tighter than the one I’d borrowed from the lost and found, but I thought I could live with it for an hour at a time until I got something that fit me.

“For science!” Sophia exclaimed, and went into the other booth.

It was early September — far enough into the school year that the teachers weren’t holding back on the homework, early enough that we still had some pretty nice weather. Which I was missing out on because I was sitting in my room doing homework, that Saturday morning when the world changed and only a few scattered people noticed.