The sparring has been going on for about 20 minutes now, they all seem to be getting used to their weaponry. Reggie has been using flat-tipped arrows to test the reactions of everyone, it has been... interesting to say the least. Melina has gotten used to deflecting them with her sword, and the tanks have gotten used to how their shields move around. Inglis and Nabe have started to get the hang of casting their spells, I have only had to help them once or twice. My own practice has just been messing around with a small nova light that high level mages can create, its nice as it lights up the surroundings without being bright itself.
"Alright everyone," Leo says, making everyone calm down and ease up. "lets all take a small break."
He shoots me a small glance, then looks down. He lets out a sigh before walking over, the wolves going on edge again making me calm them once more.
"I'm... Camaella I'm sorry. I was too harsh on you earlier and I shouldn't have touched you. Are you alright?" He looks genuinely concerned, it's been over for a while now though...
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"Are you sure? I realized after that I grabbed you pretty hard and, looking back on it you looked like you were in pain..." He looks to the grass.
"Yes, I'm sure." At least you apologized. "Nabe even got a chance to use healing magic on me, so it worked out."
"Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?"
"You can finally let me get that punch in."
"Fair enough."
He walks over, leaning over in front of me and presenting his cheek while closing his eyes.
Dumbass... It's really not a big deal. I hit him on the cheek lightly, not even using enough strength to hurt a baby, causing him to open his eyes in surprise.
"It's really not a big deal." I smile at him.
"I can't help but feel you are still mad at me..."
Now who's overthinking? "Seriously, let it go, I was only joking about punching you, I never really cared about what that group said." I boop him on the forehead. "Now what you might want to do, is wipe down your face, it's sweaty and kinda gross."
His cheeks go red and he quickly straightens up, using his shirt to wipe off his face, revealing his abs. I can't help but stare for a moment before I feel my face heat up and I quickly turn away. Why... Um... Is this a change because of me becoming female!? But... How do they feel to touch..? I glance back at him as his shirt drops back down and he looks at me. He gives me a confused look and I quickly look away again.
"Um, are you sure you are okay?" He asks.
"Y-yeah, I'm fine." Why the fuck am I finding his abs hot!? This is such a new feeling... I just need to calm down, calm down...
"Hey, you look like you are burning up, are you sure you are okay?" He gets close to my face, causing my heart to freeze in place.
"Eee!" I teleport back about 30 feet, a black mist forming where I was, and fall onto the grass, just barely avoiding landing on my tail. Don't get that close to me damnit! I can barely control myself right now!
"Woah, are you okay?!" He starts to rush over to me.
"Stop! Please, just... stop for a second okay?" I plead with him, hoping that I can fix my thoughts for a second without him doing something that is triggering something else. He stops where he is, almost falling forward. I close my eyes, covering my face as I feel my tail wrap around where I am sitting. I take a few deep breaths, trying to calm down. A few minutes later I have someone touch my shoulder making me shiver. I look up to find Melina looking down at me with concern.
"Are you okay?" She asks.
"I just... I just need a second..." I put my head back down, I can't believe I was thinking about that shit right now! This whole situation just makes me want to hide, just be invisible.
I hear a gasp next to me, I look up and find Melina looking around where I am sitting. She reaching down and touches me, quickly pulling her hand back with a small yelp.
"Camaella!? Are you still here?" She gestures around where I am.
"Um... Yeah?"
"Did you mean to make yourself invisible?"
"What are you... oh, sorry." I force myself to stop the spell, just now realizing I was casting it. "I um... I casted it without trying too, sorry." This totally doesn't make the situation even more awkward...
"You don't need to apologize, but um, are you sure you are okay?"
"Yeah it's just... I um... I was male in real life... and when Leo had his abs out. I um... You know... and it freaked me out a little because I never swung that way."
"Oh..." You could try scrape the surprise off her face with a diamond and it still wouldn't removed it, to her credit, she quickly pivots to a more understanding expression while sitting down next to me. "So um, I am guessing that was the first time since all of this started?"
I nod, putting my chin on my knees.
"Things like that happen with both sexes, it's not uncommon."
"I figured, I had to have a similar conversation with Leo."
She goes quiet for a second, "Right, I forgot Leo was female IRL... the way they act online makes me forget sometimes, it doesn't help that they are actually in the body now."
"I only found out when we were talking after we got here. That's when I told them about me too, I didn't know everyone thought I was a girl."
"Well, when there is just the character to go off of, most people just use that gender so it's understandable. You also didn't really go full horny on the creation like most men do."
"I never understood why people maxed out the sliders on the creation, it just makes the characters look weird. It's the same with the male ones too, like I don't know why people maxed out the muscles on them."
"Probably just trying to play out their 'perfect' body type." She chuckles, "At least you made your character look nice."
"'Perfect' body type is a fantasy, I guess that's why they always do things to the extreme in games like this." I let out a dry chuckle, still not really in the mood to laugh fully.
"True, I like people like you though, I always hated looking at characters with completely broken proportions, like a 4'5 character with tits and ass that would even look huge on you."
"Those people must really hate themselves now."
"Yeah, you at least made your character proportional with the absurd height you got. I saw a graph for the character height algorithm around launch and it was like, a 0.2 percent chance to get a character over 7 foot, at that was only specific races like orcs and dragonkin."
"Then I must have got really lucky with the heights... They were all at least a foot taller than my actual height, except the dwarfs, they were around normal height I think."
"I got lucky with my human height being only about an inch taller than my actual height, so it worked out." She shrugs.
"That's good, I don't want anyone going through the balance hell that I am."
We sit there for a second in silence before Melina speaks up again, "Are you feeling better now?"
"Mhm." I nod.
"You know you are going to have to let Leo know about it, right?"
"Yeah, he warned me about a few things I should avoid doing now that I am female, so I guess I should let him know about that."
"Well, men don't really care as much about having their body showing from what I can tell."
"Well... yeah..."
"They were boyish before, so they probably didn't even think about it, add on top of the possibility that they just didn't think about showing you because their mind still thought they were female and you are female now."
"Weirdly enough, I have been becoming more comfortable with it, it was weird at first, but I didn't really think about it." The weird creeping feeling I had at the start has also faded.
"Might be a thing with the switch, but we might need more cases to confirm that, could be just a you thing too." She shrugs.
"What is that supposed to mean? Oh sorry, I don't mean that in a accusatory way, I am just genuinely asking."
"It's fine, I just mean that maybe you are more okay with it than some people might be. Same with Leo, but if someone genuinely hates the thought of being the other gender and they only played the other gender to gawk at their own character, than they definitely aren't having a good time now."
I chuckle a little thinking about it, "Those people are probably the ones that maxed out the sliders." I giggle a little more.
"Maybe." She chuckles. "Ready to head over and let Leo know?"
"Yeah. I am fine now, still not going to save me the embarrassment of telling him that I got horny because of his body."
"Well, it is probably best you let him know why you reacted like that, he seemed worried that he did something to hurt you more than he did earlier."
"I already told him it's not a big deal..." I let out a huff. She gives me a small smile while helping me up to my feet and walking me over to the others. She sets me back down on the chair and calls Leo over for me. He walks over and she walks away, Leo has his head down and I can already tell that he thinks he did something wrong.
"Leo you didn't do anything wrong, really."
"It really seems like it." He looks to the side.
"Stop pouting and get closer."
He looks up surprise for a second, then slowly starts to walk over. He gets close to me and stops. Whatever, good enough.
"Look, really, you didn't do anything wrong. If anything it was me, um, whenever you wiped your face... you um... pulled your shirt up and your abs were showing... and um... yeah..." I feel my face heat up again.
"Oh... Oh! I am so sorry! I didn't even think about that..." His face gets red.
"No, really, it's not your fault, I am just letting you know why I reacted like that when you got closer, my mind was, uh... racing a little."
"I get it... I guess we are even then." He smirks a little through the awkwardness.
"Guess so."
He walks back over to the group, confirming that everyone is ready to start practicing again. Inglis and Nabe walk back over to me again, sitting down next to me.
"You guys doing alright with your spells?" I ask them.
"It's been getting better, the first activation is the problem for me." Inglis says.
"There hasn't been a whole lot for me to do..." Nabe says, quickly looking up to me. "Oh! Please don't hurt yourself to help me!" He pleads, surprising me.
"Um... I promised Leo I wouldn't anymore, you don't have to worry about that."
He lets out a long sigh, looking relieved by my answer. I guess it was an issue for me to do that...