Heartworm

The Docile Dominion of the Determined Debutante was an obnoxious read, but as one of the few non-fiction books I had in my isolation, it was a frequent re-read. The girl in the story was pitiable. In the end, things had worked out perfectly for her, but I couldn’t help but feel like she had given away too much of herself to obtain that happiness. I always wondered if she was even the same person at the end of the book. On top of its message of ‘Empire knows best’, it felt like a slap in the face to be given a book about a beautiful debutante learning to accept the place that others had carved out for her. I was told by Dr. Rectin, that the feelings I had towards women were distorted by Vyra. That somehow my attraction towards women had become muddled in a kind of envy for women. It conflicted somewhat with what he had previously said, but he didn’t seem to care. It was the narrative that he was currently following, and doing his very best to get me to follow as well.

I did follow, naturally. What else was there to do in isolation but follow and obey. It would allow me to return to classes sooner, and with my parents expecting a quick graduation, I needed to act fast once I was let out. Disappointment on their faces the next time that we met would crush me.

I had been here for a year at this point. Almost 13 months, in fact. It was a melancholy stay, but that was good. Demons apparently feasted on emotions. The less I felt, the faster Vyra’s influence on me would fade. The longer I thought about it, the more this all seemed to make sense. Isolation with very little ways to pass the time might seem dull, but it was really speeding up my recovery. It might have been the reason why the rewards they gave me were few and far between. It was such a dull day to day experience, that the knock at my door truly shocked me.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Sylberith, it’s Dr. Rectin, may I come in?” I wondered why he asked for permission. He was in charge, and I was in no position to refuse his request. Was it to be polite?

“Of course, sir.”

He moved into the room, stopping only a few steps inside, the magical paper that kept his notes floating at his side. “I have some good news for you today, Xavier.” I paused and waited. I had gotten into the habit of saying nothing at all when nothing immediately came to mind. The only words I spoke aloud on a daily basis were my answers to his questions at the checkups.

“It seems things are progressing well. I have been in close contact with the Council, as they oversee discharges of this nature. Greater demons pose incredible threats, as I’m sure you know. They have seen fit to give you a kind of test, a way to determine if the influence has truly left you.”

“Will I be let out if I pass?”

“Why of course, Mr. Sylberith. You would be free to return to your classes. It’s a rather simple test, and one of the Council members has the availability to come down to proctor the test in a week. You’ll be a free man soon.”

“What happens if I fail?”

“Don’t fret yourself over such things, Xavier. You have made excellent progress in your time here, I have no doubt that you will pass with flying colors.”

* * * * *

Almost to Urden. Thank the Gods. My feet were sore, but the main thing that was gnawing at me was the dream that I had the previous night, and the tension I felt while we journeyed. I was tense, because I knew what I wanted to say to the rest of the group. I wanted to tell them everything. Everything about my identity, that is. Lilith was a secret for another day, given that Sebil and Lucas were able to accept this first part. I honestly wasn’t sure why I was so concerned about the idea of discussing it, but my nerves were heightened, like it was going to be the hardest conversation I’d ever had.

‘You have yet to explain to me why you are teetering on the brink of insanity.’

It’s a hard fucking conversation! I’m still trying to figure out exactly who I want to be, how am I supposed to explain my identity to others!

‘Your identity is what you make it. I have lived for centuries, little morsel, change is inevitable and painless if you let it be.’

Well it’s never been painless for me. The last time I almost let everyone know…

‘I saw, little morsel. You need not remind me. Things didn’t go so well the first time. I do not give a shit. Do it again until it works.’

Is that seriously how you think of things? You think I can brute force my way through anything by trying enough times?

‘I never said brute force. I simply told you to try again. It is how I have overcome many hardships in my life.’

If you’ve had to retry things, it means you failed once. Do you mean to tell me the great and powerful Lilith has failed that many times?

‘You don’t live to my age without making mistakes. Get over yourself and tell them already. If they were smarter, they’d already have pieced it together themselves.’

You say that like it’s obvious.

‘It was to me.’

You can read my thoughts, see my memories. That’s cheating, as far as I’m concerned.

‘Please, little morsel, you think too little of me. I knew before I had to rely on thoughts and memories of yours. Like I said, I’ve done a fair share of changing in my life as well, it’s easy to spot the desire where it lies.’

Fair share of changing? I wondered what exactly Lilith meant by that. She was a Deathless that had lived for over 500 years. There was so much that she could mean by change. She had explained to me before that a Deathless’ form changes to shape its identity, and if identities can change, perhaps she was referring to her Deathless form changing? Perhaps she too had experienced a dysphoria of some kind that she had since remedied.

‘I would urge you not to speculate on my secrets where I can hear them.’

Right. Sorry.

“I need a disguise.” I spoke the words aloud for the group of Bandits. I didn’t have a specific person that I was trying to address, and since it was the first time someone had talked in around 10 minutes, everyone turned to face me. Once I had gotten that attention, I continued to speak. “For the nose, the ears, and probably the eyes too. I don’t want the people in Urden to be scared when we get there, and we’ll arrive in the next couple of hours.”

“Afraid of people seeing you for what you are, beast?” Lucas took the opportunity to jab at me with his words. It was good to hear that he hadn’t mysteriously lost his voice. He had been as quiet today as he had been the previous day.

“I am afraid. I’m afraid of scaring them, which I have no intentions of doing.”

“I could getcha the disguise you used earlier at the manor!” Phern said, reaching into her bag to rummage around.

“That might work, yeah. That way they won’t have accurate descriptions for the Council if they come looking behind us.” Cecelia replied.

“Let’s do the disguises once we get close to Urden then.” I set our plan, and with those words, the group returned to silence. I watched Lucas drop another rock that he had been fiddling with to the ground. I heard Sebil once more grunt and mess with his right arm to release the odd scent. It was the same thing that the two of them had been doing intermittently and seemingly randomly along our walk.

“Can I- uh. Can I get everyone’s attention?” I asked, already regretting the fact that I had said the words out loud. It had locked me into the conversation already, unless I could come up with something else to chicken out and return to the silence.

“Is something the matter, love?” Sebil called back towards me, stopping in his tracks, and thus stopping the group from his forward position amongst us.

“No. I mean- yes there is something. It’s not a problem, though. I mean I guess it is a problem, but not one that’s gonna hurt anyone.” My heart was racing. It felt like I was standing in front of my dorm room wearing Vyra’s uniform, hyping myself up to walk out of my room and throughout the academy. When I looked back up from my feet everyone was staring at me. Phern and Cecelia both seemed to understand what I was about to reveal, and they flashed comforting smiles my way. I wished the smiles were doing more to set my nerves at ease. Lucas and Sebil looked far less comforting. Lucas, despite not needing to face me to ‘see’ me, had still turned his body towards me, but I could see the slight anger resting on his lips. Sebil looked… concerned. I could almost swear that his right hand was clenching as he talked.

“Is something hurting you? You know that you can tell us if there is, love.” Again, I could see his fist tightening before he moved his hands down to his side, obscuring his hand from my view. Why was he resting his hand on his belt? Did he think I was about to attack him?

“I need to tell you about who I am. Or-rather who I want to be.”

Cecelia and Phern moved a hand towards each other, and though they were hiding it from the other two, I could see the two of them gripping each other’s hand. I couldn't tell if it was excitement, anticipation, or fear that compelled their actions. It looked as if Sebil was about to pull some sort of gadget from his belt as I spoke.

“I’m not Xavier.”

“What are you telling us, love? If you aren’t Xavier, then who would you be?” Sebil spoke calmly, but I had spotted that he had already unlatched some kind of gadget from his belt to hide behind his back. I started to fear my own confession. I realized I had made it sound a lot more scary than it was by phrasing it the way that I did.

“I’m not Xavier, because I don’t want to be a guy. He is everything that I hate about myself, the shadow I can’t wrench free from my body. But he is not me. I’ve felt this way for a long time, and it’s been a lot harder to hide lately given recent… changes.”

“I want to make sure I’m understanding this right, Xa-um… Bandit. You don’t want to be that guy? Or you don’t want to be a guy at all?” Sebil asked, the tension in his right arm suddenly becoming a lot more relaxed as he spoke.

“I don’t want to be any guy. I wished that I was a woman for a long time. Long enough that this feels rather silly to be doing now. There were some… interruptions along the way. In all honesty, I’m still trying to understand a lot of these feelings as we speak. But for the same reason that I already told Phern, I do not want to die and be remembered as Xavier. If you’re going to continue travelling with me, under the threat of death, I want you to know who I am.”

“It’s also weird to call you Bandit if we’re all bandits now.” Phern added, getting a small laugh from me. I had thought about how confusing it might be given the recent name of the group.

“Then what do we call you, love?” Sebil asked.

The ever beating, ever throbbing mound muscle in my chest was thumping against my body. I had told them all the hard part, yet the name itself was becoming difficult to form in my mouth. Only one person had truly come to know me by the name Ester, and I had gotten them killed. How could I be certain that I wouldn’t repeat the same mistake? Cecelia had moved towards me to wrap both of her hands around my right hand. My chest hurt from all of the throbbing my heart had gotten up to, but Cecelia soothed it with her presence. It felt easier to work though the terrifying feelings in my gut when she was by my side.

“Ester. That’s what I used to-” It felt odd to say that it was just what I wanted to be called. Sure, it was what I wanted. But it wasn’t because I was going around and asking everyone. I wanted people to call me that because it was my name. “Because it’s my name. Ester.”

“It is lovely to meet you, Ester.” Sebil moved forward and outstretched his hand to shake mine. I accepted the offer, and shook his hand with a smile. The name still felt weird to come out of other people’s mouths. “I believe I have met one of your kind before.”

“Her kind? You already told us you met other Deathless before.” Cecelia stated plainly.

“No, not Deathless, love. Individuals who have changed their gender, as such. Transgender is what they are called. At least, the one that I met.”

‘The sparkplug must be using new terminology. I have not heard of that word before. I had always called them Soulspoken. Though that was centuries ago…’

“You grasp at everything you can touch. Do you think pretending to be a woman will throw the Empire off of your trail, Baehevar?” Lucas had finally spoken his mind. I wasn’t incredibly surprised by his reaction, but it didn’t make the use of ‘pretend’ sting any less than it had when I was in isolation. He was so focused on hunting this Baehevar that he would perceive anything I say and do as an underhanded tactic of some kind.

I was struggling to even come up with a response for him. He was clearly distrustful of everything that I said. If I assured him that this wasn’t some tactic of mine, it would only make him more certain that it was. Before I could come up with a good response, Cecelia had stormed over to Lucas, and with a fast and firm punch to his face, landed him squarely on his back in the grass.

“You had more than enough chances to watch your tongue, pondscum!” Cecelia spat down at the Marked man, who made no effort to retaliate. I found that odd. He was usually ready to antagonize and attack for many lesser things. A punch to the face should have sent him over the edge. I wondered if our Lucas had somehow been replaced in the middle of the night as he picked himself off of the ground and turned away from us, making no effort to engage with us, both positively and negatively.

“Gonna go silent now, prick?!”

“It’s fine, CiCi, just let him sulk. I didn’t think he'd accept me anyway.” I did my best to help her anger subside, instead turning back towards Sebil and Phern to continue my conversation. “Like I said, I’m still trying to figure some stuff out, but if you don’t mind, everyone, I’d like to take a couple baby steps with you.”

“Of course, love.”

“YOU HAD ME ON THE EDGE OF MY SEAT!!!”

Cecelia, Sebil and I all looked to Phern with confusion. Her strange, possibly meaningless expression aside, I was glad to have things off of my chest. Well… feelings off of my chest. I most certainly had other things on my chest now. It was reassuring to know that I would be able to remove the bandages that restrains my breasts for the following days of our journey.

It was an odd feeling. A good feeling. The words had been spoken aloud, and no longer weighed upon my heart like calcified stones. It was a journey, and while it was far from being complete, I had finally opened the door to continue along my path. I could be Ester now. I wished that Vyra could see me now.

With the distant sight of Urden, the rest of the Bandits and I had picked up our pace. As much as everyone wanted to find a nice place to stay in the small fishing village, Cecelia assured us that it would be much more efficient to secure passage on a ship, and sleep during travel. It was definitely the better plan when being pursued by the Council, but it hurt to lose out on the possibility of a nice warm bed with a cooked breakfast in a restaurant of some kind. If the village had that, of course. None of us knew much about the place. I knew it existed because of a book, and Lilith had supposedly been there centuries ago, so the information we had going into this place was far from complete.

“So. What if I told everyone that I hypothetically, theoretically, conceptually lack the resources for my disguise ritual…?” We were only a few minutes walk away from making it to Urden when Phern spoke up. Groans emanated from every member of the group.

“Why didn’t you check before?” Cecelia asked, her voice obviously laced with agitation.

“It’s been hard to keep track of! I’ve gone through a stupid amount of ingredients in the past two weeks! I could refill if we had a chance to stop, but we never do!” Phern squeaked, voicing her frustration to every member of the Bandits. She had attempted to shop in the past, but each time she seemed to get interrupted by a new threat. Or two.

“How do we smuggle in our floppy-eared friend then?” Sebil asked, looking towards me to examine my growing features. I thought that I might be able to conceal them with magic, but I was still new enough with the practice that I wasn’t sure how well I could maintain the spell under stress. If our options had run out, it was likely I would have to give it a shot. Each passing day accentuated the features that I could not conceal subconsciously, something which bothered me endlessly. I thought Deathless could blend in with humans!

‘You can, little morsel. It was easy for you when you had little to hide. Now that you are growing more, it isn’t so simple to hide your features. It takes practice. Calli-someone that I knew was very good at disguise. She had mastered the act of concealing all of her inhuman features and maintaining it even in the toughest of situations. We will certainly need to hone those skills so that you don’t walk into towns covered in shadows, looking like the children’s worst nightmares brought to life.’

Another thing to learn. I suppose I’ll add it to my growing list. It was like I was back at Varenthell, without the trauma.

“I’ll make do. We can’t wait another day or the Council will descend upon us. If I need to wear a bag over my head to get us a ship, then I’ll do it.” I addressed the Bandits with as much confidence as I could muster in my voice.

‘Mental pen and paper ready, Ester? You’ll need a quick crash course on disguise in the next few minutes. A slut for education like you should have no problem with a pop quiz.’

I’m not a slut for-

‘Quiet, little morsel. The lesson is starting…’

Yes Ma’am.