Lotus17

Hey y’all! I was looking through the chapters and noticed none of the italics I added were transferred over to Scribblehub, so I’ve gone ahead and fixed that. Sorry if it made any part of previous chapters confusing.

The office of Margaret Lovell was not a place generally fit for family meetings. Bookshelves were filled to the brim with legal books, documents, and files. Her desk was prim and proper, designed almost to a T to be without distraction. The wood flooring and white walls, too, did nothing to add any vibrancy to the place. The chairs were reasonably comfortable, but they too felt like something you’d see at her legal practice. What truly made the room feel unwelcoming to most, however, was the complete lack of windows. In their place was a single painting of a nobleman, though the plaque with his name had long been destroyed.

Mom set aside her laptop so that there was nothing impeding our conversation, and motioned for me to sit. “Have a seat, Ollie,” Mom said in her usual motherly tone. 

I listened, though anxiety still filled me. I wasn’t quite sure what she wanted, and the anxiety of it all was beginning to make the fire within me begin to flare. She was still saying the name I wanted her to use, but that only barely lessened the fear I felt.

“What’s going on, Mom?” I asked, with a waver in my voice.

“We’ll get to that, I promise. But first,” she opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out a small cookie tin. The delicious smell of fresh baked cookies wafted through the air, it was almost too powerful to resist. “Sugar cookie? I know you didn’t eat enough.”

With a nod, I took one and quickly tore into it. She had so many enchantments designed to make food always taste fresh, but cookies were always the best offerings she had. 

By the time I finished two, she finally began to reveal the reason she pulled me aside. “Ollie, do you know how old I am?”

I didn’t. I knew all of my parents got together in the 1700s, but Mom never talked about her life before that. I remember asking as a kid, but she always turned the subject away from such a discussion. Eventually I figured it was just a sore spot for her. When I realized she was waiting for an answer, I shook my head.

“Five hundred and sixty-seven, as of this year.”

My eyes widened. I had no idea she was that old, Baba was barely five hundred, and I knew Papa was a bit younger still. “Okay. Why are you telling me?”

“I was married before I was turned. You even had siblings, though of course they are long, long lost to time.” If she still mourned them, it didn’t show in her tone. “But I wasn’t whole. There was an empty place in my heart, one I filled with things like ‘honor’ and ‘chivalry’,” she laughed to herself. “I was an idiot.”

Her words confused me for a moment. What I understood of chivalry, especially back then, was that it was a primarily masculine quality. What was she trying to get at?

Mom didn’t wait for me to sit in my confusion. “I was a devoted knight to my friend, a good soldier, and a nobleman of some renown for my time.” 

What?

What?

I stared blankly at my mom, and then beyond her. To the portrait of a young nobleman behind her. He looked the same age as Mom did, dressed in the finery one could expect of someone with that much money. His hair was the same color as mom’s, as well. I couldn’t make out better details — it was a painting, after all — but that alone was enough to make me look at her in a different light.

“Mom, what does… What are you trying to tell me?” there was a hint of desperation to my voice. This mattered so much to her, enough that I could tell she was more than a little nervous about this conversation. What it meant for me I did not know, but I was rapidly coming to understand.

And that understanding shook me to my overheating core.

“I am not a man, Ollie. I never was. But for a great many years, until I was faced with the idea of eternity in the body of one, I thought I was. I did not realize there was any other choice,” she admitted, but there was something else in her tone. She wasn’t just telling a long held truth about herself, it almost sounded like she was making an offer.

My silence must have been seen as permission to continue, so she did. “These days, the term is ‘transgender’. For when one’s soul, their innermost being, does not match the body they were given at birth. The day my sire turned me, and I woke up in a body that fit me better than anything else ever could, I knew who I was. That emptiness inside of me was gone, even in spite of my sudden craving for blood.”

I knew the answer, and yet I asked anyway. “I… Thank you for telling me, Mom, but what does that have to do with me?”

“Sweetheart, I have one question. Whatever you tell me, I swear I’ll respect it, and none of it will leave this room without your permission. Okay?”

I nodded. The fire threatened to swallow my entire body from the inside. I hated it, despised so much of this body I had been cursed with, but in that moment it was the fire that was always threatening to consume me that I despised most of all.

“Did anything I describe resonate with you at all? Again, no matter what you say I will support you.”

There it was. The ultimate question, the big one, the one that I had no idea how to answer. 

No, that wasn’t true, I knew exactly how to answer it. But the answer itself terrified me. Because the moment I brought it to life, the second it left my lips, it would be reality. There would be no more hiding behind ignorance. My heart would be torn open for what felt like the entire world to see, and when that happened I could not take it back.

What I wanted, more than anything in that moment, was to open my mouth and tell my mom that I was just like her. That there was an emptiness that made so much of my life play out in shades of gray. That I was so jealous of everything she got to do with her life, that I was desperate for someone to offer me the same choice she was given. 

And just as much, I wanted to tell her that I’d rather be made human than live for another minute with the fire that burned inside of me. That these ruby red scales just weren’t me, and that I was so tired of being defined by them. Red dragons, even more feminine ones, were always seen as powerful and large above all else. Neither of these sounded anything like what I wanted out of my life, even if it meant turning away from the heritage of both of my other parents.

Mom was the most patient woman I knew. When she saw how obviously I was struggling, she gently took my hand in her own. The inner heat that threatened to burn anyone else contrasted with her cool touch, and that touch at any other moment in my life might’ve been enough to calm me down.

But in this instance, it simply couldn’t compete with the anxieties and fears that were burning me alive. I had to give an answer, but every answer I thought of felt so unbelievably terrifying.

Without any light shining into the room, there was no way to know how much time had passed before I finally spoke. It might have been minutes or hours. All the same, Mom’s gentle touch and calm demeanor were enough to keep the rising panic from overwhelming me. 

I still wasn’t sure if this was the right choice. Maybe it was, or maybe it would only leave me with more heartache in the end. But I had to make this choice, it was the only way I could ever stand to look at myself in the mirror.

“Mom, I think I’m like you,” I finally admitted, and suddenly felt as though the weight of a planet was taken off of my shoulders. “I think I want to be a girl.”

She was silent for a moment, before her grip on my hand tightened. In that moment I swore I could never forget the smile she offered me. Tears threatened to roll down my face. 

“And does my daughter have a name?” She asked, and suddenly my entire world felt whole.