meli-writes

[meli-writes]

The vampire stands silently in the doorway of my study.

She waits for my invitation, though she does not require it. She is inside my lair already, comes and goes to do my bidding. I know not why she hesitates, why she watches me work from a distance. Perhaps she plots my downfall?

Many a necromancer has met their end between the jaws of a vampiric servant. The vampire is far craftier than the mindless zombie, the puppet skeleton. The vampire is prideful, scheming- has goals and desires all its own. The autonomy that makes one useful also makes them a threat.

"Come in."

She glides across the room soundlessly, kneels beside my desk chair, head down. Her subservient demeanor is- excessive, she lays it on much too thick. I'm not fool enough to question if it might be sincere, only if it's meant to hide that she's using me or that she simply wants me dead.

"I have quelled the villagers as you asked, my penumbral Mistress."

~Penumbral Mistress~, feh, who falls for such simpering acts?

"Their newly dead are being carted to your mausoleum, and the excavation of their graveyards is back underway. All is as you desire."

Suspicions aside, she does good work. Such uprisings used to set me back weeks, now she settles them in a few nights at most. Whatever she plans, she's useful enough to be worth it.

Besides, I am no neophyte, playing with forces beyond her control. I am a necromancer, and she is undead. The moment she lifts a hand against me will be the moment she is flayed from within, her unbeating heart exposed to the light of the sun for her treachery.

"Excellent," I say. "What do I owe you for your services?"

She deigns to lift her head, to look at me.

"I wish to taste you, my Mistress."

Ugh, vampires, predictable.

"Very well. Open."

I take her chin with one hand as she opens her jaws. My other hand I rest on her cheek, placing my thumb into her open mouth. I swipe it across her teeth, trace it up a sharp fang and press the pad into the needle-tip until it punctures the skin. I pull off the fang and press my now-bloodied thumb into her tongue, holding it to the floor of her mouth.

Through it all she doesn't move an inch. She watches me wide-eyed, unblinking, unbreathing. I am of course warded against the hypnotic gaze of her kind, though- I don't feel her trying to use it. Perhaps she does this to lower my guard, in the hopes that one of these feedings I'll forget, I'll trust her enough not to bother. Perhaps she is so beneath me it doesn't register.

Perhaps she is simply stupid, and doesn't even think to try.

She swallows softly as I hold her there, the tiny amount of blood enough to bring color to her cheeks.

"Enough," I say, removing my thumb from her mouth. The vampire whimpers softly, but I am far too important to be made a meal. "Slake your thirst on some peasant, I have work to do."

She swallows again, her eyes pleading before she casts them back to the stone floor.

"Of course, Mistress."

[meli-writes]

"You're not an object! You're a person!"

"A person...?"

She lingered on the word, it was as foreign to her as the stranger who stood on her balcony.

A person was someone with rights, someone with belongings, someone with a name.

She had none of those things.

"I was...fairly traded," she said slowly, a breeze rustling the feathers in her wings, "a gift from the king, lucky to be of use to him. I am a...monster made woman. I am not...not a person."

It was something she'd heard countless times, something she had been made to repeat, but she had never said it with so much...hesitation.

The stranger's desperate expression softened, and her smile was torn. Oh no, should she have just agreed? Should she apologise? Or just brace herself for whatever punishment was coming?

"Well, I see two arms," the stranger said, " two legs, and a head. I see tired eyes, I hear a sad voice. That's about as much as a person is, I'd wager."

The stranger shrugged and her tassel earring brushed against her shoulder, "give or take a few parts."

"Is that...so..." she said, "is that really the sum of a person?

"Well, I'm no philosopher," the stranger groaned, scratching the back of her head, "but even if you are what you say you are, nothing, not even a 'monster made woman', deserves to be treated like this..."

The stranger flinched as a whistle - that sounded like a bird call - caught her attention; she glanced over the balcony and whistled back.

"Will you leave now?"

The question burst from her before she could even think to stop it, a plea, something more desperate than she could describe.

"Come with me," the stranger said, reaching a hand out to her, "if you want it, I can take you far away from here, so far you'll never even think of it again. You can go where you want, do what you want, and I - "

The stranger hesitated, and a flush painted her cheeks; "I could protect you. And make sure no one ever touches you again. If you...if you want it."

Protection?

She wondered what something like that would look like. She wondered...what it would feel like.

She had long since stopped hoping, stopped dreaming of feeling safe. She had been alone so long, in the same room, tormented and touched for what felt like lifetimes.

"I...I am afraid," she admitted, "I do not even have a name..."

"Athena."

She caught her breath.

Whatever clouds had been in front of the morning sun must have parted, because for just a moment, the stranger was lit from behind with a warm, blinding glow.

"Athena..." she repeated.

"Sorry! That was - it's - uh - the name of a goddess. From - from an old myth. You just sort of remind me of - if - if you don't like it, you can -"

Athena threw herself into the arms of the stranger, the blanket wrapped around her body like a robe. Her wings caught the air, and for just a moment, for the first time in her life - she felt as though she were flying.

The stranger caught her. strong and sturdy. This was someone that could protect her. That could save her.

"I am Athena," she said, tears falling unbidden from her eyes, "who are you?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry I'm uh - I'm Locke."

"Locke, please take me far away from here," she was smiling, despite the sobs, "so far that I'll never think of it again!"

"I thought you'd never ask."

Locke held her tightly, and carried her down the side of the tower.

She never said it out loud, but when her bare feet touched the grass, when an insect fluttered by her cheek, when a group of gentle friends dropped a cloak around her and introduced themselves warmly...

That was when Athena thought she had finally become a person.

[meli-writes]

all those priests giving out 'princess impaled on the sword of her lover to save the kingdom' prophecies been real quiet since the order of knight protectors started admitting big dick trans girls to their ranks. what's up with that hmm?

[meli-writes]

> "Author's poorly disguised fetish"

> Looks inside

> Poignant social commentary that people are unable to look at past surface level

[meli-writes]

Export Restriction

We'd gotten all the way through airport security without problems. Its normally hypervigilant attitude had turned docile, and it hadn't even been pulled aside for a special search, just waved through. I thought we were lucky. "Good work, doll," I murmured to it, tracing the line of its jaw where metal met synthflesh. "Very good."

I wasn't prepared for it to collapse onto the floor in a compacted-for-storage ball.

I knelt down next to it, reaching a hand out to touch its shoulder in concern. "Doll? What happened? Are you all right?" When my gentle query was met with nothing more than a small shudder, I hesitated for a moment, but I couldnt help it if I didn't know what was wrong. I put some authority into my voice. "Combat Doll 826-7, report."

It didn't uncurl, but it did speak up. "Combat Doll 826-7, status: red."

I felt a sting of panic. Red could mean a lot of things. "Elaborate."

"This one... this one is not a good doll. This one is useless. It should be decommissioned."

"Whoa, hey, don't talk like that." I sat down next to it. "That doll did very well! You didn't attack anyone, or jump, or even acquire any micromissile locks!"

"Only because it would have been pointless to do so. This one is outmoded. It used to be the case that this one would not have been allowed to leave the country, except on deployment."

"We've left the country together before, though." I kept rubbing its back, tracing my fingers gently across recharge ports and armor seams.

"There were still restrictions! Special search procedures! Weapon lockdowns! This one didn't even get pulled aside for a special search this time!" It wailed. "It is no longer a threat worth being concerned about! Useless! This one is incapable of being your protector!"

My hand stilled. "So that's what this is about, huh," I murmured. "Doll, look at me."

It uncurled itself just enough to meet my gaze. It looked truly miserable. If it had tear ducts, I think its face would have been a mess. "Listen to me, doll. You may not be top-of-the-line anymore. You might not be an automatic threat to aircraft with modern security measures." Its chest hitched, but I plowed forward. "But you're still useful! Why, just the other day you stopped that assassin in his tracks!"

It hitched again, shivering against my touch. "A human assassin? What a joke. Any combat doll could have done that. A human bodyguard could have done that." It sneered through its self-deprecation.

"But more importantly, you know what I need. How I move, how I operate. You're more than a simple combat doll. You provide more than just mere firepower. You give tactical advice, good strategic suggestions, support in times of need. My operations wouldn't be half as successful without you." It blinked at me, misery beginning to drain from its face. I grinned at it. "Plus, you're the only one that knows how I like my tea."

That got an actual bark of laughter, if only briefly. "If you try to put this one in a maid dress, Ma'am, it will detonate its fusion core." It stood, and offered me its hand with a faint smile.

I grabbed it, squeezing it tight as I stood. "Aww, but you'd look so cute!" I teased it, as we took the escalator down to the terminal trains. It wasn't completely better, but we'd get there. Together.

[meli-writes]

Treasure - Chapter 3

Full Series

Madyssorth the Golden's hoard is perfectly in order- which is, itself, suspicious. She knows that Vamni is here, and if she's not touching anything who knows what other trouble she's getting up to. She glides down to the thief's abode and peers inside to see Vamni sitting at her table, playing cards in hand and ancient gold coins stacked in front of her.

Across from her are three of the dolls, who she has somehow roped into a poker game. She huffs as she watches Vamni triumphantly lay her cards down and take the last of one doll's coins.

"I hope they haven't given you the impression that you can keep those, Vamni." She says, and the dolls all jump to attention. Vamni only smiles smugly as she leans back in her chair.

"Never, my lady. We're playing for far more interesting stakes." She gestures to the coinless doll. "Would this one care to demonstrate?"

The doll says nothing, perfectly still save for her glass eyes darting between Vamni to Madyssorth nervously.

"Not in front of Miss." She says eventually, and Vamni tuts at her.

"Those aren't the rules, you know that. You lost, pay up."

Her stillness cracks, she begins gently shaking under their expectant gazes. Madyssorth often finds herself transfixed by just how real the dolls can look sometimes, how perfectly the mechanisms controlling their faces emulate humanity. The doll's lip trembles, her eyelids twitch; if she had the capacity she'd be sweating bullets.

"B…B…" She stammers, horrified, until she finally manages to squeak: "…..Butt."

"Not a swear word, but since you said it in front of Maddy I'll allow it." Vamni says, handing the shell-shocked doll a small stack of coins.

Madyssorth exhales sharply through her nose. "That is not funny," she lies, as she flies away.

[meli-writes]

“Ma’am,” says Combat Doll First-Class Schultze Ballistite, back ruler-straight, heels together, eyes dead ahead: “I’m here to submit a formal complaint. The Young Miss has… embellished my uniform. Once again. Despite my protestations.” 

“Yes,” says the head maid, absent-mindedly tapping jointed fingers against her desk, “This one sees that. You don’t think it’s rather fetching?” 

“No.” 

“Mm. Pity.” She glances down at this month’s panoply of balance-sheets, spread across her desk. “Well, petticoats are in fashion again this season, so I’m afraid you’re going to have to bear with it for the time being.”

Schultze Ballistite’s posture stiffens a measure further, if, indeed, such a thing is possible. “With all due respect, ma’am, a soldier’s uniform should be practical and dignified. There’s no place for - forfrills and furbelows upon the battlefield.” 

A sigh, and a hint of firmness that flies, regrettably, right over the combat doll’s head. “It’s important for us to encourage the Young Miss in her hobbies, Schultze. You ought to keep that in mind, given how much she likes you; at this point, it’s a wonder she hasn’t accidentally called you big sister already-” 

Schultze’s hands thud down upon the bookkeeping. “Do you know, ma’am,” it grinds, “that I once served in the honour guard of the Lady Brimstone? I was there at the Hallowing of Sebastopol, I and my batch-mates spearheaded the Seventy-Two Hour Night Offensive!. I ought to be grinding the Miss’ enemies to dust and pulp, not - not standing guard over tea-parties! I am an instrument of bloodshed, ma’am, and I do not do big sister!”

“Oh yes you do, Schultze Ballistite,” says the head maid, in a tone of steely resignation that most major-generals would envy, “oh yes you do.” 

[meli-writes]

Sometimes a mech pilot lasts long enough to retire. The war keeps going, or maybe there's a new war, or a peace keeping action or a policing operation... whatever they call it, the war goes on.

But the pilot gets to go home. To learn how to be a human without the neural load and the stims and the jagged pulse of dopamine reinforced combat.

The mech doesn't get to go home. Doesn't learn how to make a friend, how to breathe winter air, how to taste a lovers kiss for the first time. It goes to the next war, the next fight, the next split second between death and victory.

Do you think mechs remember their pilots, the ones who get to go home? Do you think they see the stars and wonder which one is home to a person who used to be the mechs soul?

Do you think they miss them?

[meli-writes]

tame witch

[meli-writes]

NATIONWIDE EVICTION WAVE AFTER SCOTUS RULING IN DEMIHUMAN TENANT CASE

Classes were not going well for me. Between the constant crying and the restaurant job and the camming and the headlines that I tried not to read, I found most of my energy was—understandably, I think—long gone before schoolwork even entered the picture.

I shared an apartment with two other demihumans, and we were all just waiting for our landlord to make a move against us, on real or invented grounds. I privately hoped that the neighborhood was progressive enough that we might be overlooked, but I doubted.

I had the humility to take the advice I'd given to Cord some months back: failing all else, just turn in incomplete work. My grades were barely above water and I wasn't even sure that I was together enough to be learning anything in lecture anymore. It felt like the moment I stepped out of the lecture hall, everything was already gone from my head, and half the time I'd start crying right there on the steps.

At least I looked cute doing it.

I was mid-cry on the front steps of the Life Sciences Building, in a darling skirt, jacket, and infinity scarf look that I'd put together with Sophie's help, when my phone rang, which it never did. It was Cord.

"Hiya," I said as I picked up, indicating that I was in public.

"H-Hey," she replied, indicating that she was alone.

"You okay, Cord?" I wiped my nose and hiccuped as I stopped crying.

"I need..." she trailed off.

"What do you need, sweetheart?"

"I need..." I heard her fighting tears.

"Anything," I said, fiercely sincere. "I will get you anything you need."

"I need you to come get me."

"Of course," I said, standing up and swaying a bit. "I'll be at the train station in half an hour and home three hours after that, okay? I need you to get somewhere safe where you can wait for me. Is your room safe right now?"

"...no..."

"Okay." I started a brisk walk for my apartment. My bile rose as I felt an anger stronger than any I would ever bother feeling on my own behalf. "Don't worry about packing, we'll do that together. Get to a friend's house, can you do that?"

"I don't wanna move."

"Cord, please go somewhere safe until I get to you. I'll owe you a favor, okay?" She'd loved trading in favors when we were children. I hoped it would still work on her.

I heard a quiet, broken laugh. "I'll try," she said.

I jogged across a street, suddenly feeling very dysphoric, unable to stop myself from imagining eyes on me from every corner.

"Still there?" she asked.

"Yeah, do you want me to stay on the line?"

"No, I, I'm moving," she said, and I heard some background noise I couldn't quite parse. I hoped it was her moving.

"All right. I'm gonna hang up now, you call me again if there are complications, okay?"

"Yes Emily."

Click. I started sprinting. I crossed two more streets and took the steps up the front of the apartment building two at a time, and practically threw myself through the door.

"Sophie!" I shouted. I knew she'd be home right about now, and Caleb was never home until dinner.

"Yeah?"

"I'm gonna be out until late, maybe until tomorrow, you got that?" I was ripping through my closet, stuffing cash, keys, documents, and bottled water in a messenger bag.

"Yeah?" Sophie called back across the apartment. "Fun or trouble?"

"Trouble," I said in a cheerful sing-song, buckling the bag shut, "gotta go save fair lady from dangers unknown."

"I'll let Caleb know."

"Thanks." I slammed the front door in my hurry down the stairs.

It was a twelve-block hustle to the train station, and I needed not to think or I might panic. My stride and breath fell in rhythm with the first song my brain could dig up—was that "Lancaster Avenue Blues"?

Sophie was rubbing off on me. Maybe I would give the jacket she thrifted for me a personal touch. A thought for another day.

I spotted eyes on me, three humans across the street, eyes tracking me. I didn't even have hips yet, part of me complained. And surely they couldn't see my eyes—the slightly-luminous lilac calling card of my inhuman heritage—at this distance? Of course they could.

"See something you like?" I called in the most masculine voice I had, and I tossed them a wink. I knew humans were supposed to hate the idea that they could be attracted to me. These ones did. They shook their heads in disgust and turned away as I left them behind.

The exertion of the quick march was stabbing at my side when I finally pushed through the doors of the train station, using a spare tissue to keep myself from having to touch the "historic" wrought-iron handles. I tossed it into the bin and took a moment to breathe.

"I—" I blinked. Sophie was standing right next to me, horns and spiked jacket and all. "You were at home?"

"I was."

"You're here?"

"I am."

"Why are—"

The hiss of the train doors opening cut me off.

"Let's talk onboard," she said.

"No, wait a second," I protested. Sophie knew Cord and I as girlfriends, aboveboard romantic partners, no complications. Sophie being anywhere near our parents or anyone from our hometown would shatter that illusion.

"We'll miss the train."

The gears in my head jammed. Getting to Cord was the only thing that mattered. Sophie followed behind me as I boarded, and she took the seat beside me, then curled up like a cat, tapping on her phone.

"So why are you here?" I asked as the train lurched and resumed its journey: three hours to my hometown.

"I, and presumably Lady Cordelia—" she always smirked when she said "Lady Cordelia" "—would not like you to have to do this alone."

"Why didn't you ask to come?"

"You'd have said no."

"And how'd you get to the station first?"

Sophie raised her eyebrows at me. "I run for a hobby."

"Right."

She handed me her phone. "Pick out the tickets, let me pay."

I opened my mouth and then closed it. I felt shame flow through my fingertips as I punched two adult tickets into the transit app.

"There."

Sophie took the phone back and gave me a thumbs-up. "Small talk or no small talk?" she asked.

"No thanks."

"Mind if I do grad student stuff until we get there, then?"

"Go ahead."

Grad student stuff meant piling my lap full of loose papers to hold for her so she could scribble what I presumed was some kind of statistics thesis into a pocket-sized memo pad.

Cord didn't call me back the whole time. We were half an hour away when I texted her to ask which friend's house she was hiding out at, and I got a prompt answer with no elaboration.

I chose to interpret the spareness of the news as a good sign.

I told Sophie the next stop was ours. She pouted, and then packed away her papers, about which I had asked no questions.

She and I didn't talk as we pulled in, nor as we stepped onto the platform. I offered her water from my bag at the bus stop, and I had some myself while we waited. The bus was almost empty.

It was late afternoon and not yet dark when Sophie and I finally reached the block where I'd grown up.

"That's Cord's house," I said, pointing, "and that across from it is where she's waiting with a friend."

Sophie nodded.

"We're gonna get her stuff first, then get her, then dip."

"She wants out?"

"That's what she told me."

"We're taking her back to the apartment?"

"Until she's got another idea," I said, unsure what that idea could possibly be and unwilling to think about it.

Sophie nodded again, more seriously this time.

I pounded on the door, and Father opened it. Sophie was waiting at the foot of the driveway where I'd asked her to stay, in the desperate hope that she might not overhear any details.

"Hey," I snarled, arms crossed, "asshole."

"That skirt doesn't fit you." He looked past me. "I didn't know you were on break. You brought a girlfriend? She a... demon?"

"Sheyd," Sophie corrected, stepping out of the bathroom door down the hall behind him. Father turned and looked at her with a mix of fear and hatred.

"Shade, huh?"

"I'm Jewish," she replied, smiling.

"Don't care, get outta my house."

"Lady Emily, shall we?" Sophie extended a hand to me. It wasn't her house, so I wasn't sure if everyone would count her invitation as valid, but I didn't consider it my house anymore, so I took what I could get and stepped over the threshold with a great effort.

"Stefan," Father said, "piss off or I'll serve you both a trespass."

"Who are you talking to?" Sophie's grin took on a bloodthirsty edge as she stepped between us. "There's nobody by that name here. I'm Kate, by the way."

I headed up the stairs to Cord's room. I'd left room in my bag for her vital documents and notebooks, and I found a backpack on the floor to stick most of her clothes in.

"So is he dropping out in his first year?"

"If she did, would she celebrate by visiting you?"

Scraps of the conversation in the foyer drifted up to me.

"You some kind of punk?"

"Folk punk, specifically."

I worked as fast as I could, dreading the moment when—

"So, are you sleeping with my son?"

"I didn't know you had a son."

"Don't be dumb. It's Stefan. 'Emily.' Him."

I felt my heart in my mouth as Father spelled it out for her beyond any deniability. I threw one final pair of pants over the top of everything, rammed it down, zipped the backpack shut, and thundered down the stairs.

"C'mon," I said, "we're going."

"You're not gonna say goodbye in Hebrew or whatever?" Father scoffed as Sophie and I stepped past him. She gave him a little smile and a wave before he slammed the door.

"Can you carry this backpack?" I handed it to her, hands shaking from the adrenaline.

"No problem. Next stop?"

"Yeah, just... just across the street."

Cord was waiting for me in the kitchen. This was Jamie's house, longtime friend. Well, supposedly I was an adult now, so it was Ted and Lisa's house, and Jamie was their kid, Cord's age.

She was huddled over the table, wrapped in a blanket and holding a half-empty mug of tea. I managed not to run to her; instead I knocked on the doorway to get her attention.

"Hiya, Cord. I made it."

She looked up at me with dry eyes and shook her head like she'd seen death. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

I could hear Sophie introducing herself to Lisa and Jamie in the living room. I trusted them not to get into a fight with her.

"Cord, I know you're not okay," I said as I stepped closer, offering a hug, "but you're going to be. I've got your stuff, got a train ticket, you're gonna sleep in my room toni—"

Cord thumped her mug onto the table and buried me in a shaky hug.

I shut up and I held her for a long minute, swaying slightly, ignoring the pain of being crushed in her grip. The clock on the stove ticked over two, then three minutes, and finally she relaxed a bit.

"Let's get to the bus stop." I lowered my voice. "Father only knows what city I live in, he doesn't have my address. Once we're on the train we're gone, okay? He can't find you."

"D-Dad, he..." Cord shook violently again.

"Not yet," I said. "Lean on me, we'll talk where we're safe, okay?"

"Who's in the, in the living room?"

"That's Sophie, the housemate, I've told you about her."

One or two? I saw Cord gesture, meaning: does she know us as sisters or as partners?

I didn't have an answer to that one anymore. Sophie knew too much. I gestured two, for partners.

Cord nodded and slipped out of the blanket. She folded it over the back of a kitchen chair and tapped on my arm. I let her take my arm as we headed out.

Sophie waved to us from the couch. "Mrs. Mallory here—"

"Please, it's Lisa."

"—has offered to drive us to the train station, save us a bus trip."

I looked to Cord for an answer, and she nodded, so I gave a thumbs-up and an "if you could, please."

Nobody talked during the car ride. Nobody talked on the train platform. And once we were on the train, we all continued not to talk, though Cord rested her head in my lap.

I couldn't get myself to calm down. Cord and I were going to room together. Father had seen me in a skirt. Sophie knew my deadname. Sophie knew I was dating my sister. I had Cord to myself after a lifetime of fantasies. Sophie knew I was fucking my underage sister. I was going to get evicted, expelled, arrested, killed. Maybe Cord and I could get married? No we couldn't, what was I thinking? Could I explain this all away somehow?

After maybe two hours on the train, when Cord was well asleep, having cried herself to exhaustion earlier in the day, my head was still going in the same panicked circles. I glanced up to see Sophie looking at me with a grim seriousness. I froze.

"I won't say I don't judge."

I stared back, holding my breath against my will.

"I'm no snitch, though."

"...pardon?"

Sophie was already putting in earbuds.

----

Previous chapters compiled at:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/61474369/

[meli-writes]

making sure to reaffirm my gender while ill by adding a few delicately pathetic moans after each throaty, bellowing cough

[meli-writes]

showing my 90yo grandmother, who can scarcely handle the concept of a butch girl, the caitvi lesbian sex scene and mutually agreeing about how sweet & beautiful it is ✨

[meli-writes]

Somehow, some way, a human managed to acquire both a pomegranate from the underworld and fruit from the realm of the Fae, then made a smoothie out of them. Now, Hades and the Fae are in a fierce argument regarding who the human belongs to.

[meli-writes]

"NO BENEFITS, NO CITIZENSHIP" FOR DEMIHUMANS, PROMISES FRONT-RUNNING SENATE CANDIDATE

I had been counting on Father's money, but he had told me to "get lost" on the day I was walking out the door, and Mother had lived under his thumb for twenty years and was thus penniless, so my college money came from an assortment of places.

There was a little bit of government money to be had for the price of doing some thorny paperwork. Cord managed to funnel some of Father's money to me without him noticing. I got a steady twelve hours a week at a Thai food place.

I tried camming; a few steady patrons loved watching me press iron to my own skin, especially after I'd scrawled their names on said skin in black marker. I swapped washable ink into the shell of a permanent marker to keep things easy on myself.

I was getting by—the one meal a day kind of getting by, the eat the whole apple leave no seeds kind of getting by. But I wasn't getting better, and I knew better was possible.

So after a few months of drowning in work and late-night phone calls with Cord and avoiding my housemates' eyes when I knew they were thinking about the pain noises that came from my room, I got my courage together to find a doctor.

I cross-referenced an informed consent HRT clinic map with another map that ranked medical practices by their policies on demihumans. I picked a place, planned a transit route, and made my appointment.

A week later I was on a train.

I hated doctors. Everything I'd read suggested this place had a good track record with demihumans, but I still expected the worst after a lifetime of indignities.

Yes, his wrist is broken, but we don't know the cause of the pain, could it be that your child is in violation of some pact or geas? High fever? Well, we just don't know what antibiotics will do to your child!

I swallowed the hatred and smiled as I checked in and was told to take a seat. I swam in memories of being held down screaming for my childhood vaccinations, of being beaten for not holding still and then being beaten for not holding still during the beatings, of being reminded over and over that I wasn't human.

Half an hour passed that way, and I was sweating and shaking in my chair, hair in my hands, when they finally called me by deadname.

I stood and smiled again and followed where I was led.

They took me through all the rituals I already knew, raised their eyebrows at my low body temperature as always, and then, finally, I got to see the doctor.

"Stefan?"

"It's Emily."

"Ah, Emily. Good to see you, I'm Dr. Jameson. We had a preferred name option, did you see it?"

"I don't have a preferred name. Emily's just my name."

"Ah, I see." He paused. "Should we make the form less literal to accommodate other fae patients?"

"No, I'm just like this."

At that, the doctor made a second small "ah" noise and looked back down at his clipboard. I relaxed my muscles as best I could while I waited for him to say his next line.

"So, what brings you in today?"

"Two hundred spiro, four estradiol," I said flatly, and stared, hard.

"Ah, it's my job to tell you that you have other options—"

"Thank you." I smiled again.

"If you'll just bear with me while I run through them, Emily."

"Of course."

Did I know that there wasn't any research on bodies like mine? I did. The listed side effects weren't comprehensive? Yep. I might not get the desired result? Sure. The effects were irreversible? Of course.

Oh, you want to do a blood draw because the nurse is concerned I'm iron deficient? Ha ha, I get it. No.

I was out of the clinic half an hour later, all adrenaline and ready to fight anything that moved or breathed. From there I had a two hour train ride to calm myself back down, and then, dehydrated and anxious, I managed to make it through the pharmacy's doors.

There was no line, but it still took them ten minutes to call me to the desk. I spoke first: "Here for prescription pickup."

"Name?"

"Thomas, Stefan, that's tango, hotel, osca—"

"Yeah, I have you here, one second." I heard typing, then she glanced from the monitor to me, looked me up and down once, and went back to typing.

A long minute passed, then she looked at my eyes this time. "Insurance won't approve without a statement from the patient."

"...what?"

"Happens sometimes. These medications aren't typically covered for males." She slid a piece of paper toward me. "If you can just write here what it's for I can fill it in and we shouldn't have a problem."

I tightened my fists out of her line of sight and stared for a long moment. She stared back, and I grew entirely convinced this was an indignity she had made up on the spot for her own benefit. But it wasn't going to stop me. I was good at being humiliated. I'd been practicing for as long as I could remember.

I picked up the uncapped ballpoint pen on the counter and scrawled "subject is transsexual."

She picked it up and looked it over, then tossed it into a bin. "This should work, thank you. Okay, these are new medications, do you want me to get the—"

"No."

[meli-writes]

(Part one | Part two)

“You’re moving to another facility tomorrow, puppy.”

At first you don’t understand. Your brain’s a bit hazy, with your head between her thighs and her taste lingering on your lips. And her fingers in your hair, again, longer than it was when you arrived. Not regulation.

“… I am?”

“Mhmm. Things are in motion. Your empire’s getting desperate, too,” a sharp-toothed grin, “maybe we’ll trade you for something good.”

“… oh.”

“Yep. You’ll be with some other prisoners, get that famed empire camaraderie going. Give you a chance to remember why you hate us.”

You almost, almost, ask whether you have a choice. Whether you could—no. Stupid. You bury your face in her instead, savoring her scent, her taste. Memorizing her body with the same focus you once fixed on your mech’s controls, loving the way she twitches under your tongue, still so sensitive from your earlier efforts.

“Aww, puppy, you want to say goodbye? Well, I won’t say no to that …”

(Read the rest on my website! Because tumblr doesn't support horizontal rules and I am Tired)

[meli-writes]

(Previously)

"So," you ask, "why am I still alive?"

She's sitting at the little table outside your cell doing paperwork again. The Liberation has more paperwork than you ever suspected. "We disabled your mech's countermeasures," she says, not looking up. "About an hour before you spotted us, in fact."

"That's not what I meant—WAIT, an hour!? But I spotted you barely an hour into the patrol!"

"Yes," she finally looks at you, smiling, "your command/control system is full of holes, dear."

That's a vital piece of intel, for whenever you manage to escape. Hopefully she can't see that thought on your face. She probably can—if she can't just read if off your implants.

"Well, um. I meant. What do you want from me?"

"Aside from the obvious?"

You break eye contact. Stare at your cell's open door instead. At least you didn't look down, this time; you're not hungry enough to ~~ask~~ give in again. Not yet.

"T-there are easier ways to, uh," you don't know why you're being so bashful. It's just sex, coerced and nonconsensual as it is. "I mean. If that's all you want."

"Mmm, maybe I have morals?" She shakes her head. "You're an enemy combatant, dear, and your bunch kill us whenever they can get their hands on us. What's the thing they say, 'no civilians in the Liberation'? Something like that."

"I-I never," it's true. You never got a chance. "I wouldn't have ..."

"You would have. Maybe you'd have been reluctant, but half your training is about obeying the hierarchy. A general tells you it's a military target, are you going to object?"

She's right, of course, but you don't answer. You won't give her the satisfaction.

"Hell," she continues after a long pause, "you haven't even tried to escape. The implied hierarchy of the prison cell and the warden is stronger than whatever convictions you thought you had. You couldn't even starve yourself properly!"

"W-what do you mean? If I tried to get out you'd just ..."

"I mean, yes," she allows, "I would. But you haven't even tried. I never even had to lock your cell's door. Or those chains."

"... what?"

"Try it," she says, smiling. You are suddenly very, very aware that her handgun isn't in its holster.

She could stop you with a thought, of course. You're not sure how deep her control of your cybernetics actually is, but she's perfectly capable of fucking with your motor systems. But the chains come off your ankles with just a bit of force, and she just watches as you creep out of your cell, pausing for a long time just inside the door. Expecting your cybernetics to stop you with a flood of pain, like they would in an Empire prison.

Nothing stops you.

It's strange, standing in front of her. Upright. So much taller than her, when you're not on your knees. Her handgun is hanging from a hook on the wall, right outside your door. You could grab it, flick the safety, and fire in one smooth motion. Point blank; you wouldn't even have to aim.

It would be easy.

And probably she'd stop you—probably she's already written something into your cybernetics that would stop you—but at least you'd have tried, right? At least she'd know that you're loyal to the Empire. You'd know.

Standing up in front of her—looming over her, really—feels wrong, though. It's much more comfortable to be on your knees. A more proper height, for a prisoner before their warden. And her skirt's worn-leather scent is so warm and reassuring, so it would be a shame not to rest your head there, just for a moment. You're not giving in, of course, just ...

Just what?

Her fingers against your scalp ruin whatever justification was brewing in your struggling brain. Kneading, stroking, lingering on that sensitive place just behind your ear. Somehow more intimate than when she's grabbed your head before, to show you how to move or to encourage you as you labored to please her—not because you wanted to please her, of course! So that she'd let you eat. Only ever for the reward. Of course.

"Wow," she murmurs, almost too quiet for you to hear, "they really did a number on you, huh? Just a dog desperate for a new master ..."

---

Eventually she loses interest in you, which is just as well. You need time to put your thoughts back together, half-collapsed on the floor, leaning against her legs. Clinging to her. Waiting for everything to make sense again.

"Should I go back to my cell?" You eventually ask.

"Mhmm, if you want to. Anyway, do you know any words that rhyme with 'persimmon'?"

"Um," you blink, "women?"

"Already used that one. Damn, I'm going to have to start from scratch again ..."

"D-does the Liberation make you write paperwork in verse?"

"What?" She scoffs, "No! This isn't paperwork! Half the reason I joined was to get away from the damn stuff, your empire is drowning in it."

It might be the first genuine reaction you've gotten out of her since you were captured.

"W-what is it, then?"

"Poetry. Don't they still have that in the empire?"

"O-of course we do! It's patriotic. It tells us what we should be!"

"Not this kind of poetry."

[meli-writes]

KY SB103 SIGNED, DEFINES MARRIAGE AS "BETWEEN TWO HUMANS"

I was distracted by something when Thalia asked me to prom, and I answered without thinking. Of course I wanted to go!

Then I stammered and backpedaled: I really couldn't afford the price of entry, and there was nowhere I could think of to rent, buy, or borrow a dress, there were hardly enough weeks left to plan, and—

She shushed me and asked for my measurements. I told her I didn't have a measuring tape at home. She nodded seriously, then asked if I was okay with letting her take my measurements.

I was.

"A short walk after class, then?" she asked.

"Yeah, meet in the atrium." We exchanged nervous smiles.

I spent my last few classes that day turning the conversation over in my head. Thalia was the only other demihuman in my grade and possibly the only witch in the school district, and the possibility that the distraction I'd been under when she asked me out might have been one of her spells was certainly not lost on me.

But... if I were to buy into the idea that Thalia was the manipulative whore that everyone always said she was, that would be letting the humans drive a wedge between us, which felt wrong.

Plus, doubtless she'd already heard from everybody else that I was a rapist—I wasn't, but truth was meaningless—and if she was taking a chance on me it only followed I should show the same courage.

Right?

"...will here do?" We'd walked just a bit out of town and uphill into the woods; I figured it was far enough from everything I wouldn't have to think too hard about eyes on us.

"I think so," Thalia said, pulling a sewing tape from a deep pocket.

"Do I have to take off my jacket?"

"Yes. Ideally, shirt too, but I don't have to get the most accurate—"

"I can do shirtless, just don't stare at the bruises, okay?"

Thalia paused for a second, and then nodded. "I can do that."

I dropped my jacket and shirt at my feet and I lifted my arms as she got the tape around me. I saw her avert her eyes.

"You can look, just don't stare," I mumbled, and she nodded and glanced at her tape.

She shifted it down to my waist and adjusted the fit.

"Wait," I said, confused, "that's not my waist?"

"'Waist' means something different for dresses than for pants."

"Huh." I later learned this was an oversimplification, but it was a sufficient explanation in the moment.

"Right," she said, loosening the tape. "Hips?"

"Not really," I said, wearing my most pathetic grin.

Thalia fixed me with an amused glare. "Do you want me to measure over your pants?"

"No, I, I can—" I took a deep breath and undid my belt.

It was a while before she'd taken every measurement she wanted, scratching the numbers into the dirt with a stick, and I was wearing next to nothing by the end.

She had me stand in the middle, and scratched a circle around me. I felt the air go still when it closed, and I was suddenly very aware of how much trust I had put in her.

I heard her muttering, and I stood as still as I could in the middle of her circle, nearly naked and just waiting for something to happen.

"There we go!" Her eyes snapped open. "Take a deep breath, Emily."

I obeyed.

Smeared streaks of light, like long-exposure photographs of stars, like traffic signals through an out-of-focus lens, encircled my feet. I shot Thalia a terrified glance, and she nodded calmly in reply as the lights swirled around me, higher and higher.

I didn't actually feel the dress materializing. I guess the bright lights whizzing inches from my eyes were too much of a distraction. I couldn't even see properly for a long moment after they finally faded away and I felt the motion of the air return.

She clapped her hands, delighted by her own work. "Look!" she squealed. "Look! Look at you!"

I did. I looked down and saw deep blue folds and a narrow waist and gentle movement that looked more natural than anything else I'd ever worn, and fucking, I, well.

Well I cried, obviously.

I went to my knees in the dirt and I felt the dress settling around me and I clawed at the air in blind, desperate grief. Something was wrong with me, something had been missing and people had just let it happen, happy to watch me starve.

The grief became rage became grief again, and I wept, my face in my hands.

"Uh... can I hug you?" Thalia's voice seemed a world away.

I managed a nod, and I felt her kneeling beside me, and I felt her arms around me, and I felt the power in her, the air juddering around the ends of her hair. A witch.

She felt me as well, skin cool like deep earth and a dull heat around my eyes. A changeling.

I cried for a long time. And when she didn't try to kiss me at the end, the unfamiliarity of that made me start crying again.

When I could finally stand, Thalia walked me home, carrying my backpack and old set of clothes for me.

We stopped on the front step.

"No tricks this time," she said, "do you still wanna go to—"

"So you did use a spell to get me to say yes?" There it was, the sticky, ugly comfort of knowing I was being used. In an instant it displaced all the hope I'd found that day.

"Well, I—"

"Yeah," I said, mustering my best smile. "Yeah I would still like to go."