“Very well, princess. Agreed. I will allow you to return to the Ward manor freely and we will discuss electronics at a later date. In the meantime, we shall work with the lady of the house to mitigate the issue we are facing. Lyris, pack some things, you will go with Morgan for now and be my liaison.”
I felt the tension drain out of me. I was going home, and I didn’t need to worry about getting ambushed or kidnapped by elves for the moment. Lyris smiled and left the room to get what she needed. Taliornen continued to marvel at my phone for a bit, and experimentally tried typing some questions to the AI.
“Uh, do you know English?”
“Yes, but I’m a bit rusty. Your grandmother taught me.”
“Huh… what was your relationship with… my grandmother, if I might ask?”
“Nothing untoward. She wished to survey the lands on this side of the portal, and I accommodated her in exchange for some lessons.”
“You didn’t try to capture her or whatever this was?”
He smiled and shook his head, sipping his tea. “No, she was more powerful than I, and more clever. That would not have ended well.”
Eventually Lyris came back from her packing and we proceeded back through the teleport glyph and to the portal crystal.
“So, why do the symbols on this sigil look different than the one on my side?”
“Ah, you are quite new to this, aren’t you? You are aware that those with male bodies produce different mana than those with female bodies, correct?”
I grimaced, recalling why I was currently a girl. “Yeah, I’m aware.”
“This different mana must undergo different manipulations to produce effects in the world. The sigils look different due to this. A witch cannot channel mana through wizard sigils, and vice versa. You can’t open the portal from this side, and I can’t open it from the other. But that doesn’t mean our spells can’t produce the same results. Your Control Flame spell was originally a wizard spell, but is simple enough to translate.”
I was suddenly very glad I’d gotten his cooperation. Even if I knew where the portal was, being unable to open it would be a surprise, though maybe Sable could open it from the other side like he’d done for Lyris earlier. He then approached the portal and placed his fingers at specific positions and appeared to channel mana through, opening the portal.
“Princess, it has been lovely having you here. I will enjoy spending time with you for our lessons in the future.”
Saying my goodbyes, I entered the portal and emerged safely into the cave on Earth, and Lyris soon followed. We found our cockatrices safely where we’d left them, still guarded by the dog-like familiar. It wasn’t until I hefted my bag that I realized I’d forgotten an important detail. I was still wearing the cute dress.
“Lyris, where are my pants and top?”
“They were still wet so I left them. We can pick them up another day. I did pack your other equipment, though.”
Well, this was mildly embarrassing, but I was pretty sure Sable already had a look at this through my eyes, so it couldn’t get much worse.
It got worse. When we arrived at the barrier gate, Sable snapped some photos of me wearing the dress and going through various emotions: embarrassed, angry, grumpy, resigned.
“Aww, that’s my good kitty princess, pose for your ‘big sister’.”
Lyris might not have understood exactly what was going on, but she seemed amused by it. “Ah, is she recording portraits with her electronic device?”
“Yes… and I’ve never worn a dress before so she’s pretty excited.”
“You have never worn a dress before?”
“Uh, we can talk about that later. For now, Sable, if you're done acquiring blackmail material, how do we get Lyris through the gate?”
“Oh, just hold hands and walk through. Those with Ward family magic or an appropriate token can pass the barrier, and Ward witches can escort someone else through.”
“I assume that’s based on my mana?”
“Yup, you might not have the name or the blood but as far as magic is concerned you’re a Ward. And hey, we can work on the name later.”
She gave me a mischievous wink and left me to ponder the meaning of that without explanation. Lyris seemed confused.
“What does she mean by that?”
Choosing to give her a fairly straightforward answer at this point, I finally showed my hand. “I’m not related to the Ward family. I’m a witch but from another line. I’m Morgan Owens, not Morgan Ward. I’m not a ‘princess’ of the Ward family, just an employee.”
“But you have Ward mana?”
“Long story, but yes. Let’s handle some things first. Sable, where does this bird go?”
“In the coop. Come through and I’ll show you.”
I tentatively held out my hand to Lyris, and she accepted it. Her hand was only slightly smaller than mine, but smooth and warm. I could, however, detect a number of calluses on her hand and fingers that I could tell she worked hard to conceal. Compared to my unblemished hand, which hadn’t known manual labor, maybe she had good reason to think of me like a princess.
I pulled Lyris through the barrier and Sable led us over to what I could now identify as a large chicken coop with a barrier around it. I freed the cockatrice into it as directed and verified it had food and water.
“Why did we catch this thing anyway?”
“Secret project. You’ll find out. But I need cockatrice eggs for it.”
Leaving the bird to get comfortable, we headed inside and Sable started giving a tour of the house. I’d only been to a few rooms so far myself so this was useful for me. We came to my room, still bare since I hadn’t had time to move in yet, and Sable apparently felt the need to show Lyris.
“So Lyris, will you want your own room or do you wanna stay with your new wife?”
I was taken aback by the question, but Lyris answered before I could protest. “My own room, please. For now.”
“Then you can have the next room there. Alright you two, you’ve had a busy day. Morgan, I’m clocking you out. You should try to get your stuff moved in soon, and while it would tickle me silly I doubt you’ll want to do it wearing that.”
“Yeah… I agree. On both points. I’ll change and move my stuff in the evening.”
“Pfft. Still afraid to leave the house during daylight hours? Live a little, campus is pretty much deserted at this point anyway, and anyone not moving out of the dorm is probably out enjoying their brief summer break and more likely to be back after dark.”
I suppose that made a certain amount of sense. I didn’t want to be seen at my dorm, but I had to go out eventually. “Okay, fair. I’ll get changed and go.”
Lyris went into her own room to unpack, and I went into mine to get changed. With my shorts hanging on a clothesline in another reality, I’d have to consider something drastic. I didn’t have a lot of clothing yet, after all, but after wearing this damn dress the idea seemed a lot more reasonable. I changed into the skirt that Sable had offered me the other night, and wore my t-shirt over it. I kept the stockings Lyris had provided with the dress on, kind of enjoying the way they felt and looked in this outfit.
Satisfied that I looked reasonably normal, I knocked on Lyris’s door and she came to the door.
“Thank you for lending me your dress, you can have it back now.”
She looked down at the bundle I offered her but didn’t accept it. I felt something like pity flow across the link. “You keep it. I have other dresses, but you do not, right? It looks good on you. I insist.”
As if to render the matter closed, she smiled and shut her door, leaving me standing in the hall, the proud new owner of a pretty dress. At least it fit… and looked nice, I guess. I hung it in the wardrobe in my room for the moment and left the manor, driving back to the dorm with trepidation.
Sable had been broadly correct, the parking lot outside the dorm only had a few cars, none of which I recognized. I kept my cool and walked in, taking the stairs and walking down the dorm hall. Everything was going well when a door opened ahead of me. It was… not anyone I knew. Someone I recognized as living on this floor, but hadn’t engaged with. He locked his door and walked past me. I could feel his gaze checking me out, but he didn’t stop and harass me. I suppose in retrospect it wasn’t that unusual to see a girl on this floor. None of them lived here, of course, but guys had girlfriends and family visit them. I didn’t really stand out.
Reaching my dorm room, I unlocked it and went in. It was in a fairly tidy state, as I’d already packed up a lot of my stuff in preparation, and my roommate had already left. Finally getting back here after a few bizarre days as a catgirl felt pretty strange, as though I’d thought I’d never see anything from my old life again. But here was all my stuff. My laptop was still sitting on my desk, plugged in, patiently waiting. My books and baubles and game console were packed into a few cardboard boxes. The mini fridge still had some leftovers. I took a deep breath and started getting everything packed up and hauled out to the car. Just as I was about to haul the last load out, the door opened.
It was my roommate. David. David who had said he’d already gone home for the summer. David who was standing there checking me out, a look of curious recognition on his face. I stood there unmoving, like I’d just stared into a cockatrice’s eyes again. He spoke first.
“Morgan?”
Shit. Need something fast. Sister? Yes.
“Uh, no, I’m his sister. Obviously. Sabrina,”
”Oh, right, he mentioned he had a sister. You helpin’ your bro move?”
“Yes, he’s… uh, not feeling well, I’m moving his stuff for him.”
”Aw, that sucks. But nice of you. I’m David, his roommate. Have you seen an AirPods case around here? I think I left them behind and they were a bit pricey.”
“No, but you’ve got an iPhone, right?”
”How’d you guess?”
”Uh… you wouldn’t have bought AirPods if you didn’t have an iPhone, probably, right? Anyway, use the Find My app.”
“Oh right, that’s a thing.”
David pulled out his iPhone and started messing with it. Shortly, a chirping sound came from the top bunk where David had slept, and he fished around in there a bit before pulling the errant case out.
”Sweet, good idea. Need any help carrying that stuff?”
I glanced down at the stack of objects I was carrying. ”No, that’s okay, I’m stronger than I look.” I exited the room, wanting to get away from this scenario as quickly as I could.
He started following me. ”Alright, cool. But I’ll at least get the doors for you.”
It seemed like he was going to tag along regardless. Well, at least he believed I was my sister. Having a little help with the doors was kind of nice since I’d tried to carry all the remaining items out in one trip, but overall I wish he’d let me be.
Finally we got to the car and I started loading stuff in. David stood aside, apparently respecting my desire to do it myself while he tapped on his phone.
”Message from David.” Shit. I hadn’t turned off the voice announcer from earlier. “Bro, your sister is fine as hell peach emoji.”
I thought I probably would have turned red at receiving this message about myself but the blood was draining from my face too quickly, so maybe it balanced out? Either way, I looked at David, mortified.
”Oh shit girl I’m sorry, why do you have your brother’s phone?”
”I… needed to show his digital student ID at the dorm office for checkout.”
”That’s right, you do need to show that… anyway, I’m sorry about that, I meant it as a compliment you know?”
”R-right, thanks I guess.”
Not sure how to proceed from there, I finished packing the car in silence and walked off to the dorm office. David didn’t follow, sensing that he’d screwed up.
There was a girl I didn’t know at the front desk looking bored at her phone. I walked up and put my key down. “Checking out. Morgan Owens, room 305.”
”Okay, let’s see here… 305… show me your ID?”
I opened the school’s app and showed her the ID card. She seemed to notice the discrepancy between my face, my ID photo, and what floor my dorm room was on, but she smiled and didn’t comment. Probably assumed I was transitioning. I suppose if you check a lot of ID cards you would see something like this more than once or twice in a year. College was a time of self discovery for a lot of people, after all. Just generally not in the way I was doing it.
Satisfied that she was going to accept my identity without bringing up the topic, I waited for her to complete the procedure, and she gave me a move-out form to sign, which I did. That out of the way, I walked back to the car and was happy to not find David there. He’d apparently gotten back in his own car and left. I was glad I didn’t have to continue that interaction. It was time to drive home.
As I drove, I couldn’t help but think that I was identifying less and less with men, despite being one just the other day. A few days ago if I’d gotten that text about some other girl from David I’d have laughed and asked him to send pics. I wasn’t sure if I was more angry that he was checking me out or that he’d have the gall to check out my sister and tell me about it.
“Message from Sable. Please stop at a grocery store and pick a few things up if you can. Get a receipt and I’ll reimburse it.”
Well, I could do that at least. Armed with a little extra confidence in my catgirl disguise, I did the shopping at a nearby store. I was only interacting with strangers, so after I got over myself, it was fine. Mostly vegetables, a few canned goods, spices, a few varieties of ice cream.
I took the groceries home, and Sable and Lyris helped me unload them and my luggage into the house. I handed Sable the receipt.
“Thanks Morgan, I’ll get this reimbursed into your first paycheck. Be sure to complete your payroll setup, by the way, or someone at the home office will have to ship you a physical check. We’ll finish the dinner prep, so why don’t you do some unpacking?”
While I felt guilty about not pitching in, I reminded myself that doing the shopping counted as pitching in and unpacked a bit before setting up my laptop.
After processing the usual assortment of notifications and mailing lists, I found one I wasn’t looking forward to, but needed to handle. It was from my mom, asking when I’d be home for the summer. I’d picked up this job to begin with as a last ditch effort not to go home. I’d grown up in a single-parent family, and during high school I’d started to notice some definite favoritism for my younger sister Sabrina.
Hell, come to think of it, my mom’s friend circle probably gave me more parenting than she did.
When I had come home for the summer during my freshman year, it felt more like I was a guest in my own home. I spent those summer months feeling like I was imposing on her and my sister’s happy mother-daughter life, and tried to spend as much of my time outside of the house as I could.
I hadn’t really been all that into outdoorsmanship until then, really, but I had a lot of time to spend by myself that summer, and spent a lot of it hiking and camping. Overall, learning to enjoy the outdoors was a positive experience, but I didn’t need to make a nuisance of myself by going home for the summer to do it. And with not much time to spare, I’d gotten this messed up job and didn’t have to resort to going home… assuming I kept at it.
While I could technically quit if I wanted, I didn’t think that was a realistic possibility in the short term. Between the deal I’d made with Taliornen, my bond with Lyris, and whatever the hell was wrong with the portal, it didn’t seem like I’d really be at liberty to quit for a while. I also had to consider the new opportunities I had available. Magic was real, I had superhuman physical capabilities, and I was a witch. I could do magic, explore an alternate world, and who knows what else? The only real price to participating in this world of magic seemed to be my gender, and if it meant having access to literal magic maybe that wasn’t such a bad price after all.
A tiny voice inside also wondered whether my new form wasn’t actually a total upgrade, gender and all. If I ever quit this job, I’d probably miss being able to jump twenty feet in the air and cast magic, but there was a very real possibility that I’d also miss looking like this. Feeling like this.
Regardless, I felt like I had a pretty good answer to my mom’s mail about when I’d be home. I wrote back:
“Staying near the campus for the summer, got a part time job. Here’s my address,” and included it.
That was all I needed. I didn’t need to explain myself or justify staying. I was technically a grown-ass adult and didn’t need permission to do things, especially when I was handling my own finances. Besides, mom seemed to prefer messages to get to the point.
After sending that message off, I opened mail from Sable containing copies of my employment documents and instructions to set up my benefits and payroll. I spent what little was left of the afternoon and into the early evening handling those before I got a telepathic communication from Lyris about dinner being ready.