“I’ve been thinking, with the addition of Ryn to our group, we might want to get our hands on so of the local literature, if we can,” Troy said to the group gathered under my new tree. “Wait, can you read Anve as well as speak it?”
It was pleasantly cool in the hollow space under the branches, just as I’d predicted, so we’d chosen to talk about our next move here.
“Yeah, I can,” I nodded.
“Good, good,” he nodded, then continued, “Our plan was to visit this city since we heard it was a major trading hub for this region, then figure out our plans from there. Now though, since we’ve been exploring, we’ve seen a lot of that magic technology stuff around. I reckon we should get our hands on so, as well as so books on the subject.”
“My ntor told a little about that,” I supplied, trying to rember the broader lessons I’d gotten on the subject. “They use a few different magically charged minerals, crystals, and tal— even so weird wood— to get power. Kinda like uranium and those other radioactive elents, but this stuff doesn’t kill you by proximity. It does give off magical energy though, I can feel it sotis when I’m near the stuff.”
“Ah, that’s good to know,” Troy said, going quiet as he began to think.
While he was thinking, Grace asked, “Well, we ca all this way for a trading capital right? What if there’s also like, a magical tech capital around sowhere?”
Troy looked up, staring at her for a mont. “Yeah, I like that. Since we have Ryn around, we might also be able to get a concrete answer on the subject too.”
“What do you an?” I asked, confused.
“He ans that none of us speak the language around here better than a two year old. We’ve had more than enough issues getting lost and mistaking directions, shit like that. With you around, our job just beca a hell of a lot easier,” Adam said with an appreciative smile. “I’m glad we found you, Ryn, we’ve all missed you.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling embarrassnt rising all over again.
I felt like they shouldn't actually care that much about . I wasn't the life of the party, that's for sure.
“Well, now that we know what we’re doing, let’s head back into the city before it gets dark and they close the gates for the night. This grove— can we enter it anywhere we won’t be observed?” Troy asked with that ever serious expression of his.
“I’m… not sure. It leaves a mark out in the real world, but only other mages can see it. I’m pretty sure they might be able to sense it even through walls,” I said cautiously, because in truth I didn’t know. The only mage mark I'd interacted with was Esra’s, but I'd been fleeing for my life and hadn't paid attention, so I didn't know what a mage mark looked like.
“Understood, we’ll use the inn as we’d planned then. We'll need an extra bed, now. Ah, we'll get a new room— put you and Grace together, give you girls so privacy,” Troy decided, already moving to leave the shelter of the tree.
“Uh, boss? This chick was a guy— you sure you wanna put her— him? With Grace?” Jas called after him, then added under his breath, “What kind of fucked up weirdo isn't freaking out about turning into a girl?”
My arm moved quickly to wrap around Grace’s bicep in an attempt to keep her from smashing the shit out of the dude. I had questions though, his words made it sound like Jas had known before… but how? I certainly didn’t recognise him.
Troy turned back slowly to stare at Jas, and there was a light in his eye that chilled to the bone. “Jas,” he said quietly, nacingly. It was just a na, just a simple word, but the cold, raw anger in his tone was more than enough to get the point across. Holy shit, Troy might seem like a calm dude… but what was that?
Jas wilted under the stare, and after a microsecond glance in my direction—expression softening as he did so—Troy turned and started to walk away, but then realised that there wasn't anywhere he could physically walk to, to leave. They all turned to stare at expectantly.
We left my Grove and made our way back into town. The sun was still a ways up in the sky— I figured we had a few more hours before sunset. Halfway back to the city though, Troy pulled back out of range of the others.
He seed calm again, but I was worried and wary now. Grace was sending anxious glances as Troy and I slowed our paces to get out of range of the others.
“Um, what's this about?” I asked, a slight tremor in my voice.
“When I offered to co out here. I had… ulterior motives. Motives I didn’t want to disclose to anyone,” he began quietly, and my gaze snapped to et his when I heard his tone. He sounded… worried?
“Um?” I was unable to manage any more than that.
“I worked hard to get to where I am now, to make it through… the military, and all the garbage that entails. I was lucky to get out before that… before the— before he started shit. I might not have gotten my scholarship if I’d waited a few more years,” he told , his worry turning to a hint of anger.
“Who started what shit?” I asked, curious now. Why was he telling these things?
“The president,” he spat, like actually spat on the ground. “Fucker started shit about transgender service.”
“Wait…” I blurted, really staring at Troy now. “Y-you?”
He was so… manly. Sure, he was a little shorter than pre-fruit, but he was jacked and he… I guess I'd never actually seen or spoken to anyone I knew was trans man, so what did I know?
“Yup,” he nodded, taking a deep breath to calm himself. “Which is why I’m interested in you.”
It took a mont to realise what he was talking about for a second, and then it hit .
“Wait, if you’re here on the ring now… you can’t get any more ds!” I gasped, the blood draining from my face.
That was horrifying. I’d known vaguely what the options were for transitioning, and what it entailed. I couldn’t go through with anything because of raw terror and an empty bank account, but I’d been aware. I was surprised that it was this effective though, he looked… well, like more of a man than pretty much every guy I’d ever known.
“Correct again,” he responded. “To make matters worse, I have had all… useless parts of my body removed long ago, which ans that once I run out of my supply, I’ll begin to weaken. Health problems will start to manifest in various ways. Even the way I think, and my energy levels— they'll take a hit, too.”
“Crap, crap, crap,” I frowned, thinking hard. Could I help him?
“It’s not just either, there’s others back at Avonside,” he said, blowing out a weary breath.
“I could try and find sothing with magic… but I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m a complete novice… I’d need like, books and stuff,” I told him, trying to think about what I knew was possible with my plant magic.
I could follow up on the strange ever-changing plants of the void in the Naless Garden, that might help. They had almost looked like spell plants when I was observing them, but I still needed a little theory to help along.
“I figured,” he sighed. “I’ll see what I can do to help out on the magic front, as well as keep Jas off your back. In turn, can you look into my problem for ?”
“Definitely!” I said emphatically. “I um, guess it’s… obvious about ?”
“You would be a hell of a lot less functional if you hated what had happened to you,” he shrugged. “It isn’t hard to connect the dots, for soone who knows what it’s like.”
“Well… okay,” I sighed, already trying to think of so way I could twist a plant into being helpful.
Maybe I didn’t need a magical solution, but a scientific one? I could essentially custom design plants with incredible speed and ease, so what if I figured out a way to like, magically engineer a plant to create the hormones that Troy needed? Shit, I could do that with other, more mainstream dicines too!
“You look like you’re having ideas,” Troy chuckled, watching as I spaced out— journeying into the realm of thought.
“Yeah… I am, but I’d need to be back at Avonside to make good on any of them,” I said distractedly, my mind still whirring with possibilities. The knowledge in the library would be invaluable.
“Right. We’d best get our objectives completed quickly, then.”
The rest of the walk back to their inn was quiet. I handed over so more coins I didn’t know anything about to help pay— it just seed like the right thing to do. At so point I’d have to ask if they’d figured out what everything was worth. Troy got a second room rented for myself and Grace with the money, and we all hung out in the guy’s room until it was ti for dinner.
It occurred to at so point during the ti where I was sitting against the wall watching the rest of them play cards, that we could use English to stop anyone understanding us. When I asked about why we’d wandered out into the middle of the forest to talk, other than transfer into my Grove, the answer was just as simple. They didn’t know how magic worked. I was pretty sure only the magefruit could give the gift of language, so tentatively, Troy gave the all clear to talk about matters vaguely, so long as it was in English of course.
We ate our dinner down in the common room, but it was a quick affair. I think the others felt uncomfortable around the ring’s native population. Probably sothing to do with the fact that a bunch of them had attacked Avonside, but… these weren’t the sa ones. The Anves, from what I had seen, were almost welsh in the way they did things. Their language was certainly a ss of consonants that shouldn’t belong anywhere near that close to each other.
“You ready to go up?” Grace asked quietly from beside , as I spaced out thinking about languages and cultures.
“Go up where?” I blinked, trying to play ntal catch up with whatever context she was speaking through.
“To our room,” she said, giving a playful smile and a nudge with her shoulder. “What were you thinking about that had you so spacey?”
“Oh uh, just dumb stuff,” I shrugged sheepishly. “Typical um, I don’t know... stuff?”
“Oh yeah totally,” she nodded with mock seriousness. “The fate of the world, alien races, the geopolitical landscape— that kind of thing?”
Once again, my cheeks were flushing red. She hadn't hit the bullseye, but she also wasn't too far off the mark, either. “How did you know?”
“It’s a very Ryn thing to do,” she chuckled, then patted my shoulder companionably. “Co on.”
I pushed myself to my feet and followed behind her as she said goodnight to the rest of the group. We’d already dumped our bags in the room, so when we arrived, there wasn’t really much to do. It was a small room, hardly large enough for space to move around, two single beds sohow cramd into it. There was barely a foot and a half of room between them.
As soon as we were in and the door was closed, I was kicking off my boots and throwing off my coat. My pants followed quickly after, and I was just taking off my top when I heard a strangled gasp from behind . I turned to see Grace staring at , her face flushed and her armour very much still on her.
“Uh, Ryn?” she asked hesitantly.
“Yeah?” I asked right back, trying to figure out what the hell I had done this ti. My shirt was halfway up still, held there by frozen, confused hands.
With a tone so low it was almost a whisper, she said, “Fuck, that tattoo… You rember I’m a lesbian, right?”
“Yeah?” I was still pretty confused by what was going on. Was she going to like, ask to sleep with ? Where was this going? Oh gosh, what if she actually did? What would I do then? Would I say yes? She was really cute, and pretty, but I was definitely sure she wouldn’t be interested in , even if I might be a little interested in her.
“You’re stripping,” she stated, waving an erratic hand in my direction. Her eyes were down near my navel as she spoke.
It was embarrassing how long it took the gears and wheels in my head to turn. Then when I realised that yeah, I was getting naked just, casually right in front of her— oh.
“Um, sorry!” I said with a breathy squeak, trying and failing to figure out where to hide my half naked body. I settled for crouching behind the bed, my head poking up over the top in wide eyed embarrassnt.
“Oh my god,” she said with a nervous, hiccuping laugh. “Get changed, I’ll turn my back. Just… rember next ti, if you don’t want seeing you naked, I an.”
She did as she’d said, turning her back on to face the wall.
“Right, sorry,” I mumbled, rushing to take off my shirt and bra in the sa jerky motion. Well... I tried, but this dieval bra was laced tight, and in the process I managed to pull all the knots into an almost locked state.
“Shit!” I muttered, struggling to bend my arms into a position where I could get proper leverage on them. It was.. Well, a failure. My fingernails were well trimd because of my ti spent helping Esra in the garden, which ant I couldn’t get any sort of purchase on the knots. “Fuck, damn!”
“What? What’s wrong?” Grace asked quickly, almost turning around before she rembered not to.
“The knots in this damned bra are too tight! I can’t get… I can’t get them off!” I whined, staring down at my almost naked body in frustration.
“Wait, the knots on your bra?” she blurted.
“Yeah, the bras I was given… they lace up the sides, like shoes or whatever, but I tried to take it off without untying them and now it’s all… tight,” I said, my voice strained as I continued to struggle with the knots, only succeeding in making it worse for myself. “Grace… please can you help? You’re allowed to look, I guess.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, her voice sounding weirdly breathy.
“Please,” I begged. “Get this bra off , it’s starting to cut into .”
“Alright, alright,” she agreed, turning around. “I’m coming.”
Her eyes when she saw my barely covered body were… I watched her visibly swallow, then move over on unsteady legs. Lifting my arms up to allow her to get at the laces, I watched as her hands hesitantly went for them. Her expression was one of intense control and concentration as she fumbled with the laces.
“Fuck, you really pulled these tight,” she gasped after straining at it for a mont.
Our eyes t as she looked up at from her hunched over position, and I just knew my cheeks were colouring. This was an exceedingly embarrassing situation, and worse, I could tell that she was making a heroic effort not to sexualise … despite, well, a bombshell body to look at.
As if to avoid looking at directly, she went back to worrying at the knot, until she finally gave up with a groan. “We’re going to have to cut it.”
“What? But… I need my bra! I don’t have many!” I said mournfully.
“Okay, well… I’ll give it another go, I guess,” she shrugged helplessly.
Her hands went in again with determination, pushing and pulling at the knot and by extension, my body. I was jerked around slightly, her long, strong fingers pushing and brushing against as she tried to get the knot undone. I was beginning to feel strange, the bra must have been cutting off circulation or sothing, because I felt so warm, especially in my stomach. It was the weirdest feeling, but also very oddly pleasant.
“I got it!” she exclaid triumphantly, and then… my bra fell off my shoulder, exposing a boob in the process. “Oh fuck!” she exclaid at the sa ti that I squeaked and pulled it back up.
We stared at each other again in mutual, wide eyed embarrassnt. Like, we stared and stared and stared. I felt like I was going to lt into the ground all over again, and damn but she was close. I could feel the warmth coming off her, and my whole body tingled with the sensation.
“Uh, I’m going to… um, go and get changed… over there,” she said, pointing to her side of the room, which was a whole whopping four yards away.
“Right, uh, good luck,” I nodded, my head still spinning with about every emotion I was capable of experiencing.
“Thanks, I’ll... yeah,” she nodded, then promptly spun on her heel and retreated.
I dove for my pack like my life depended on it, fishing out a fresh shirt to sleep in and throwing my bra off. With the shirt on, I dove for the covers of my bed and burrowed underneath them.
I listened, my back turned as Grace went through the sa motions I just had, extrely, excruciatingly aware of the fact that she was probably half naked behind . Far out, how was I going to survive being repeatedly rood with her in any inns we stayed in? This was going to drive insane.
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