As Zaria quietly read on her bed, she was interrupted by the sounds of cheerful giggling followed by a door slam. She looked up to see her blonde roommate slowly shedding both her lab coat and her public persona.
“Oopsie, silly me! I guess I don’t know my own strength, hehe,” Eva said far too loudly to be only talking to Zaria.
Zaria closed her book. “What’s wrong?”
“Not yet,” she hissed before continuing to yell. “Oh, I’m doing absolutely, positively fine! I must’ve just not been paying attention.” She pressed an ear to the door, waiting to hear her guildmates walk away before stomping over to Zaria. “Fuck you.”
“…sorry?”
“Uh, you better be. You never told me you were going to tell Gemma and Starlight about… you!” She sat on the edge of her bed as she took off her shoes. Her grumpy ramblings sounded more mumbled to herself than at Zaria. “Those two came up to me like, ‘hey, stupid little girl, did you know this thing about your roommate—the person that’s supposed to be your best fucking friend your whole fucking life? Because we do, and for some reason, we doubt that she’d tell you before us.’ The fuck do they think?” She punctuated her question by throwing her shoes onto the floor. “And the fuck were you thinking? It took you years to trust me with this shit, but you told them after knowing them for not even a month.”
“I don’t know… It just seemed… okay.”
“Well, it might’ve not been okay. You should’ve talked to me about it first.”
“I wanted to last night, but you had so much you needed to complain about that there wasn’t a chance to.”
“Whatever.” She walked over to her dresser. “Anything else you need to tell me then?”
“Oh yeah!” Zaria swapped her book for a journal on her nightstand. “Remember how I started messing with transmutation magic the past few weeks?”
“Sure.” Eva only somewhat listened as she sifted through half-folded clothes looking for sleepwear.
“Well, I’m recording the process here. I also sketched how my body looks now. It was… maybe a bit uncomfortable—” Zaria quickly skipped the page with her illustration. “—but I wanted to properly keep track of these things. Not that anything seems to have changed yet… I keep feeling a bit of pain in my chest, though, and the guild’s doctor couldn’t detect any ailments. Maybe changes are coming soon?”
“Yes, that sounds great. Is that all?”
“Um… I guess.”
“Cool, then lemme get changed. You won’t fucking believe what the idiots in the lab did this time.”
The next day, Zaria was studying psychic magic in her room. It was always quiet during the day since Eva always left to go work in the labs or revel in the attention of her “guild fam.”
As her transformation continued, psychic magic became more intuitive to Zaria, but that wasn’t enough for a wizard like her. She wanted absolute mastery of every concept, spell, and technique in her repertoire.
An aid in her pursuit of perfection came from the demonic books on magic that Alice began sharing with her. While most of their spells were unusable to Zaria since she wasn’t a demon (yet), lust demons had far more developed literature on psychic magic than most mortal cultures. The nuances of casting psychic spells, considerations when interacting with different kinds of consciousness, etc. were all laid out in detail for Zaria to discover. Combined with her work ethic, her progress was staggering.
Alice joked that, at this rate, Zaria was bound to surpass her within a few months. Yet, despite every stride in Zaria’s abilities, the succubus’ powers still seemed beyond Zaria’s comprehension. This only motivated Zaria even more, knowing—or rather, not knowing—what unimaginable heights could await in her future.
Her work was interrupted, however, by a knock at the door. “Azariah, your father is here to visit,” a voice said.
“Thank you, um…” Zaria regretted she couldn’t recognize who it was; she knew this person delivered messages to her door often. “Yeah, I’ll be down right away!”
With a practiced efficiency, she shelved away the research she was reading, then stuffed her notes in her personal bag. She used to only carry a small notepad to remember ideas to revisit later; her mother taught her that magic is best saved for time that can be dedicated solely to it, i.e. working or studying. But now that her notes included demon magic, it seemed better to keep everything closer to her chest.
Zaria swapped her slippers for boots, grabbed her bag, then rushed out the door. She doubted her casual attire was presentable enough to leave her room in, but it felt more important to not keep a parent waiting too long.
Benjamin could easily be spotted in the lobby. In any other place, his dull-colored button-up would blend into the masses, but contrasted with the eccentric fashion of Shimmerforce adventurers, it stood out like a sack of potatoes in a candy store. Of course, Zaria had an equally unassuming wardrobe outside her wizard gear, so her father immediately spotted her as well.
“Hey, kiddo!” Benjamin ran over and pulled Zaria into a one-armed hug; his other arm was conspicuously hiding a box behind his back.
Zaria pretended not to notice, hugging with her arms as high up as possible. “Dad! I miss you and Mom so much. I’m sorry I haven’t written or visited or anything.”
He patted her back. “It’s okay. Your mom and I felt the same way. That’s why I brought, uh, a present. I wish I could wrap it up nicely, but… You’ll see.” He stepped back and presented the box.
Inside, sat a red crustacean with an artificial seashell protecting half its body. The shell resembled a snail’s, whirling about an axis, but a magic glow would appear every few minutes. Three pairs of claws tapped rhythmically at the floor of the box.
Zaria recognized the creature immediately. “A magiwave crab!”
“Is that their name?” Benjamin asked. “I always just call them social crabs.”
“Yup. Magiwaves are what we call the, well, magic waves they can transmit to talk to each other.”
“Oh neat! When we went to buy this little fella, I wanted to get you the thingamajigs that help you send and receive telegrams with their… waves? But your mom said you’d be fine with just the crab.”
“Yeah, I took a class on magiwave telecommunication, so I learned Morse code. As long as it’s a trained magiwave crab, I can just use my own spells to tell it what to do. Well, maybe I’d want some paper so it can just write down any coded transmissions it receives.”
“Well, I think we might have bought you some. I had this whole big bag of crab stuff with me, but some friends of yours actually came by right before you. They said they’d bring it up. It was some nice elf guy and dwarf… lady? I think? Sorry, I don’t wanna assume—”
“Gemma’s a woman.”
“Got it. Cool. Sorry, I just didn’t know. I mean, I’ve met dwarf women before, but some have beards, and some guys don’t have beards, but—”
“It’s fine, Dad. You don’t need to, like, make a big deal out of it.”
“Right. So anyways… That’s the present! We already registered its magic signature with the city, and you know the one for the crab at our house, so feel free to send a message anytime. No pressure! Mom and I want you to just have fun and focus on what you need to.”
“Thanks! I’ll send one tonight so I can thank Mom, too.”
“She’d love that!” He put down the box. “Well, I gotta skedaddle if I wanna make supper before Mom gets home. One last hug?”
The two embraced. “I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, too, Azariah.”
Zaria frowned. “Oh, um, actually…”
“Yes, son?”
“Oh… Actually, I forgot what I needed to tell you.” Zaria forced an awkward laugh.
“Well, if you ever need to tell me anything, I’m just a telegram away now.” He hugged her tighter. “I love you so much, Azariah.”
“Love you, too…”
Enjoyable story so far. I like her character, and I know how hard it is to tell family, I was over 30 when they found out I was Trans. So I totally empathize with her. Plus where are these lust demons... seriously I need to sign that contract.
Communicator crab! I love it!
?????????
Really enjoying this though Eva reminds me of a few 'friends' I had when I first came out.
Minor error: I think you call Eva 'Brandi' in this once
OOPS. Good catch.
Yeah, I agree, she seems kinda toxic.