The story that followed (which included significant additions and commentary from Lilith) was a bit more of an emotional gut punch than she’d been ready for. Gr-Golnar and Lilith were apparently both orphaned during the Qalhati Civil War. Being the older cousin, Lilith had taken charge of keeping the pair fed and sheltered until humanitarian workers had found them. The Emir’s forces, backed by American drones, had apparently done far more damage to the civilian population than she had ever heard. Sure, she’d not ever dug into the specifics, there were just so many wars that the US was involved in, but that served to hammer home to her how much more damage it must have done. 

After being processed by the aid workers, Lilith had been taken to live with her father’s family in Canada and while Golnar was sent to live with her uncle in Melbourne. It also turned out that Golnar’s hearing had not been damaged in the MMA ring, but by the shockwaves of the bombs. Part of why she had been so into fitness and martial arts was from that, being a hard of hearing girl who barely spoke English, she’d gotten into lots of fights with bullies as a kid.

After having been separated for several years, it seemed Lilith had decided they were owed some vengeance by the world. As such, she’d become a hacker and had managed to bankrupt a number of mid-ranking military and governmental officials who’d been involved in the war already.

“Your father hiring aliens for cybersecurity meant we had to take a more in person approach, though,” Lilith explained. “It’s taken me over two months of probing to finally break in... once this is done I’m bragging about that, though. There’s very few hackers who’ve managed to crack alien systems. And, if you’re excluding Kobaroic stuff, the only one I’ve heard has done it is my old mentor Popcorn.”

“Pop... corn?” Johnathan asked.

“It’s a username. None of us know each other’s real names,” Lilith replied.

Nodding, she then moved on to the subject that affected her family more. “So, um, had you known the Emir would be coming?”

“Nope. That’s just a happy coincidence,” Golnar replied, before diving into the last slice of her beef and olive pizza. “We’re trying to figure out what to do about it... but, anyway, we still need the physical in of my coming to train you and I get an impression your old man wouldn’t be thrilled about me ‘turning you’ lesbian. So, it really sucks to say this, but can you stay in the closet, Nat?”

“I was terrified of telling my--wait. ‘Nat’?”

“There’s a ‘Nat’ in ‘Johnathan’,” Golnar replied. “Technically. More a ‘Nath’, but... I wanted to try to call you something feminine.”

Repeating the name mentally, she found she liked it. “Yeah. Yeah. I can do Nat. It’s sporty...”

Growing lost in the feeling of having a feminine name now, she found herself smiling and staring off vaguely.

“Not to interrupt your gender euphoria, but... you have no issues with us being about to try to ruin your father’s reputation?” Lilith asked, sounding slightly suspicious.

“Do I--you haven’t had to grow up with him. Everything must go exactly his way. The rest of the family are just accessories to make him look better. The only reason I was able to talk him into letting me do art was by purposefully flunking math in 11th grade so he worried I couldn’t be trusted running any part of the company... er, not that I’m great at math, but I’m not as totally hopeless as I made him think.

“So... yeah,” Nat said, after taking a moment to breathe. “If anyone offered me the chance to give him some egg on his face I’d be happy to help. The fact it’s Gr--Golnar, that just makes it like a dream. Especially now that I know why you want to... I always knew the family ran on blood money, but I’d not stopped to think how much of it was civilian.”

Before she could say anything more, however, her phone buzzed. Pulling it out, she saw it was from the family’s security personnel. Right. The discussion had distracted her from the flow of time, and she now needed to phone them back to explain where she was. Which also led to her realising just how late it was... it had been after dark by the time she’d arrived, and it was now close to 8pm. 

“Hello, it’s me,” Nat said, not really sure how else to open.

“You missed your check in. Is everything alright?” the security director asked from the other side of the call.

“Yes, yeah. I’m fine. I just went to see... to see Grace and lost track of time,” she explained.

“Well, you need to be more attentive. It makes your father worried if we don’t know where you are,” the guard replied, to which Nat rolled her eyes. 

The only reason it made her father worry was because of how poorly it would reflect on the company if anyone got kidnapped. As she was trying to remove the annoyed tone before replying, Golnar leaned in with a grin on her face.

“Why are you on the phone? You should come back to bed,” she said in a playful and seductive voice that left Nat stammering hopelessly.

“Oh,” the security director mumbled on the other end of the call. “We’ll... we’ll leave you to it and send you a car in the morning, sir.”

The morning? Spending the night left Nat a little flushed, but she couldn’t exactly say no, so she thanked him and then hung up. Only to then stare at Golnar and Lilith, feeling a little embarrassed.

“Well... apparently I’m sleeping over. Sorry to impose on you,” she mumbled.

“Ripper news!” Golnar said with a grin. 

“W-why?” Nat asked, not expecting such positivity to the news.

“Because you’re not going to be sleeping over,” Lilith muttered, before standing up. “Now where did I put my noise cancelling headphones?”

Blinking, Nat turned to see the large grin on Golnar’s face. “Well, to keep up everyone’s cover they do need to think we slept together, so... shall we?”

“Oh,” Nat mumbled.

It turned out Lilith had not been joking when she said Nat wasn’t going to be sleeping. Not that Nat was complaining. It had never occurred to her that she could be using that body part and still be left feeling incredibly feminine at the end. It had been eye opening. 

Despite her inexperience, Nat had also tried to give back what she could, and hoped Golnar had enjoyed the process at least half as much as she had.

Unfortunately, as eye opening as the night had been, it left Nat struggling to keep her eyes open on the ride back to the Preston home that morning. The drive wasn’t long enough to get much of a nap in, but she managed a few minutes of shut eye before getting home and finding her father waiting for her in the foyer.

“Good morning, Johnathan,” he said with a smile. “I knew that woman would help make a man out of you.”

Nat couldn’t help but grin at how wrong her father was, and was glad he took her smile very thoroughly the wrong way. Or, well, from a survival standpoint the right way. He clapped her on the back with a small laugh.

“Glad to know you have the Preston charm. A bit different of tastes, but the charm all the same. Maybe there’s something to your taste, as well, judging by those bags under your eyes. Did you get any sleep at all, son?” her father asked.

“Uhh... a little in the car?” she offered.

“Haha,” he replied with another laugh. “Should have realised you were thinking about endurance all this time... well, do get some shut eye.”

Hiding her gender understanding from her father the next week or so was easy. Especially because it mostly involved just not telling him anything, hiding some of her new clothes that looked a bit more feminine, and keeping a sports bra on to compress everything. Even normally she barely got a chance to tell him anything, so it was pretty well business as usual.

Her sister was similar. They barely spoke, Judith having seemed to always envy her for getting to be the ‘heir apparent’ and then had somehow taken Nat’s efforts to escape that role as something to dislike her for even more. It wasn’t hard to guess that she’d take Nat’s being a girl as another thing to hold against her.

So, in the end, it was mostly just her mother that it was awkward to keep it from. Sure, the two of them also didn’t talk much, but they usually had a few short conversations during a week. It left her feeling guilty, and she was glad that the nonsense of the coming party helped keep their conversations down to just a few words.

An extra reason to stay hidden in her room was Nat’s decision to prepare for any eventuality. Golnar hadn’t told her what was happening with the actual plan for the party (there weren’t really any chances... they barely had a chance to kiss outside of training) but had decided to focus on martial arts training. Wanting to be as helpful as possible, Nat had then decided to turn to online videos for added training. Specifically, training in kendo because, well, it was cool and there was the sword her great grandfather brought back from the war. It was sitting in her father’s public facing office (the one guests were actually allowed in).

She wasn’t planning to unsheath it, but it seemed a good boost to range to be armed with it. Plus, she wanted to impress Golnar by showing some initiative. A little poking around on the internet had revealed ‘sword lesbians’ were a thing and she rather wanted to be one. And so she spent the week getting as little sleep as she could manage while cramming as much sword training as possible in her waking hours.

Of course, she had no idea if she’d get the chance to use it, but... it would be cool if she managed to. It also distracted her from wanting to jump into gender euphoria with both feet just yet.

The night was upon them. Being officially a couple, Nat was able to invite Golnar, and Nat found herself bouncing nervously as she waited for her to show up. The Emir wasn’t due for another hour, because ‘Grace’ was considered a part of the family that had to be in place before he arrived. Making matters more stressful, both of Nat’s parents were waiting with her.

As such, she got to see both their responses when Golnar stepped out of her car in an impeccable rented tux. One that had a gold tie and other golden accents to match Nat’s own.

“That is certainly an... interesting choice of outfit, Ms. Xanthopolous,” John III said, his eye twitching slightly at an imperfection appearing in his attempt to display the perfect family.

“Ah, than--oh. You’re not happy,” Golnar said, having initially read it as a compliment.

“Women are generally expected to wear dresses as Preston family events,” John Preston III replied.

“Y’see, that’s fair, but... when a sheila’s 6ft2 and muscular she usually has to choose between something that leaves nothin’ to the imagination or a suit, and Johnny did say the dress code was ‘modest’,” Golnar replied with a grin. “So it was the best option in my size.”

The face of disappointed defeat that Nat’s father made in reply was such a sweet appetizer to whatever the Azar girls were planning to do that evening.

“Very well,” her father muttered, before heading off to deal with other matters.

“I think you both look very cute together,” Tecla said with a smile, before heading off. 

Being left alone for a second, Nat had two things on her mind. One was probably more important, but she couldn’t help but ask the other one first.

“You know, with the talk about dressing modestly, it does have me wondering why you don’t... y’know,” she said, vaguely attempting to mime out the process of wearing a head covering.

“Lots of women don’t wear them. Heck, some Muslim countries banned them,” Golnar whispered back.

Nodding, Nat then moved on to the second question: “What’s the plan for tonight?”

“We’re playing it a little by ear. Lilith has a plan A where everything works out perfectly, a plan B where almost everything works out, and then refuses to tell me anything further because she thinks that will jinx us,” Golnar explained. “I just hope one of those other plans lets me punch someone.”

Considering what had led her to that night, Nat could not blame her for that desire. 

Being forced to dodge maids and cooks (and her mother shouting at both in rapid fire Spanish) as they managed last minute preparations for the party was almost definitely not going to help Golnar’s mood. Though, Nat hoped they’d be able to eat before the plan started. Having Golnar be grumpy from her hunger was surely not going to help them out.

Having been busy dodging staff, greeting other more minor guests, and barely getting a chance to speak to anyone about anything, Nat was left surprised when the Emir’s convoy pulled up the driveway. There was one oversized stretched SUV in the middle with a more normal sized SUV both before and behind it. 

“That’s going to be a lot of extra security...” Nat muttered under her breath as the three vehicles pulled up to the front entrance.

Watching the doors of the main SUV open, Nat had to blink in surprise to see a female Kobaroian step out, pushing 7ft and dressed in a suit with a simple hijab tucked under it (folded slightly to let her horn stick out). Most of her tail was also covered in something of a third pant leg. The rest of the guards were human men, however. 

“Big,” Nat mumbled, noticing that Golnar’s eyes were also sparkling at the sight of the alien woman.

Was that just excitement about getting to see an alien, or did Nat have reason to worry she might be dropped for the new hotter option? It was hard to compete with a Kobaroian.

“Your majesty!” Nat’s father declared as the Emir walked in. “It’s such a pleasure to have you visit my humble home. Please, any request will be my pleasure to fulfill.”

“It’s a nice place,” the Emir said. “I’m glad to see all my money has been going to someone with taste.”

“Don’t worry, most of your money goes into ensuring the next round of Preston Aerospace products are even better than the last... but, let’s not talk business tonight. There’s food waiting and I would like you to meet my family first.”

That was everyone’s cue to line up. The Emir offered praise to how elegant Nat’s mother and sister looked in their dresses, as well as noting that Judith was single at the moment. There was a spark in her eyes when the Emir mentioned he had a son about her age, and Nat suddenly understood that the one thing better than a corporate executive in her eyes was to become royalty. Though she’d likely shop around for a prince in a nation with somewhat better women’s rights first...

“And this is my son Johnathan IV and his girlfriend,” Nat’s father said.

“Hello your majesty,” Nat managed, despite the judgement in the man’s eyes.

“G’day,” Golnar managed, barely managing to pretend she was smiling instead of baring her teeth.

“Quite a lot of woman,” the Emir said, his gaze making Golnar’s skin crawl, though she did her best to hide it. The Emir leaned in a bit closer to Nat, to whisper an addition. “The tattoos, though...”

“Tattoos are beautiful,” Nat replied, loud enough that Golnar could hear.

And, to her surprise, Golnar blushed, seeming embarrassed by the defense.

It raised an eyebrow from the Emir, but Nat’s father was able to swiftly slide in to lead the man off towards the long dining table. 

“I’m not surprised he’d criticize my tattoos,” Golnar said in a hushed tone. “He’s Sunni and they’re a lot more strict about them.”

The specificity of her statement left Nat feeling curious, but she knew it would raise eyebrows if ‘Grace’ started explaining specific subsets of Islam to her. Instead she and Golnar headed over to the table, taking their seats partway down. The meal was served soon after, with multiple courses of fine cuisine. There was a mix of Qalhati dishes and Tex-Mex options, which was apparently thrilling to Golnar. Both for the nostalgic foods she hadn’t found in years and the ability to grab whatever sort of tacos or fajitas were presented with zero question about whether they were halal or not (as John III made sure to emphasize to the Emir and his entourage that everything was good for any of them to eat). 

It was only after the had meal ended that the lights went out.