My Femboy System

We walked.

Gods, did we walk.

The stretch between the wreckage and Ventri was long, cold, and uncomfortably quiet. A day of wind-split hills and dirt paths slicked with melting frost. Every step squelched. Every gust stung. And still, we walked.

Miko trudged beside me with his hood pulled low, the tips of his hair fluttering like a dying moth. I envied his silence. Mine had begun to crack like old porcelain.

"It’s official," I announced to the hills. "This is the longest I’ve gone without getting wine-drunk, propositioned, or stabbed. The restraint is killing me."

Miko let out a slight giggle, glad to see me back to my old self.

We passed a frozen orchard where the trees looked like they’d clawed themselves out of the soil and died standing. A murder of crows watched us from the bare limbs above, which I took as a good omen. Anything involving murder usually meant I was close to something interesting.

And then—finally—on the second dusklight breath of our cursed journey, the city revealed itself.

Ventri.

A beast of a place. A city so vast it spilled over its own hills, coiling with towers and half-sunken bridges like some great, sleeping leviathan. Red mist clung to the rooftops, and the cobbled streets burned with oil-lamps in hues of blood and garnet. Lust. Power. Passion. And underneath it all—secrets.

I sighed, exhaling a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.