Finding Family

by Kristen of the Coven

Chapter 2 Content Warnings

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Scene 2.1:

Content Warnings: heavy mention of abusive parents, age regression, dissociation, panic attacks, abusive process in a dissociative system

 

Scene 2.2:

Content Warnings: none yet suggested

 

Chapter 2: Redemption Dream

 

___________________ ღ♥ღ ___________________

Emma

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[ - the present - ]

 

I was having really bad dreams.

 

Content Warning: mention of abusive parents

 

My parents were yelling after me and I was running away from them. They were angry, big and terrifying! It felt like it had been a really long time since I’d seen them? But I couldn’t remember why.

 

They were behind me now, reaching out to grab at my long blonde hair. I tripped on a root and fell hard to the dirt path. I curled up instinctively and waited for them to pounce on me like they used to. I remembered what happened when they caught me before. It had hurt a lot. And usually I just... left? Left and let someone else stay here in our body, dealing with the pain. I remembered we kept getting more and more distant, they and I. A little further apart each time I left them like that.

 

Now though, we didn’t separate. Because no beating came. I stayed on the dirt trail with scrapes all over my legs. I could barely even feel that other part of me.

 

Our parents still hadn’t grabbed us, which was weird. I realized I felt very distant from my body, like when you’re in real life but everything feels like a dream. I turned and looked behind me, towards where I’d been running from, and found a girl standing in the middle of the path, blocking the way with a long spear. She was sticking it at the elongated looming shadows that were my parents, yelling at them in a strange language that I only barely registered with how disconnected from my ears I was. I got to my feet, watching myself frown at her back, confused. Something in me knew I wasn’t safe yet. I had to keep going. So I turned and ran. I couldn’t bear to let them get me. I didn’t know if the other girl could keep them away forever.

 

The specters of my parents caught up with me again further into the woods. But I caught flashes of the other girl running behind us, too. Every time Mom and Dad grew closer to me, every time they reached for me, the girl would leap in to knock them away. There was a little energetic doe and an angry chattering squirrel helping too, corralling the shadows on either side so they couldn’t slip past the girl. All three of these strange saviors knocked and bit and hit the shadows away when I fell down again, freeing me to get up and keep running.

 

End content warning

 

It seemed really weird to me, that I got to keep running and running and running from my parents like this. I felt like I should have been made to stop already. Like I wasn’t supposed to make it this far? Usually nightmares like this ended when I got caught. But even so, I didn’t want to be caught. I wanted to get away, to be free.

 

And somehow I made it! I ran all the way to the thick wall of hedges, the edge of my parents’ big estate. I squeezed on my belly beneath the trimmed bushes, in a space that only my tiny body could fit through. Before I knew it, I’d done the impossible: I’d escaped into my neighbor’s woods. Which was weird, because I stayed there. This sorta felt like a dream, but it wasn’t ending? It was sorta starting to feel more real instead. I felt like I’d just woken up running in this forest. Like I’d been sleeping for a really long time before now? That didn’t make any sense.

 

Another part of my mind, the part that used to push me away to safety while they turned and dealt with our parents, was starting to wake up a little. They were pretty grumpy. They thought this whole dream was stupid. That our parents were long gone. They felt different from how I remembered them? Like they were older. And foggy, distant from me. I felt weird about them too, like there was pain between us I didn’t remember. But my heart pounding in my chest was much more real to me at the moment, and so were the angry shouting moans of the parent specters back behind the hedge getting louder. I wasn’t keen on seeing them again. I couldn’t stay here. So I picked myself up and started running deeper into this side of the forest.

 

I ran deep into the neighbor’s huge acres-big estate with my heart pounding in my throat. I knew there was a stream not too far in with a little red arched bridge over it. I’d gone there a lot, sometime in the distant past. I spent hours looking down into my reflection in the gentle stream below and wishing I could change it. My feet knew the path instinctively. I ran with my long blonde hair flying in the wind, picking my way to the river and following it upstream. The bridge was right were I knew it’d be, and I arrived gasping at my usual spot in the middle of it. I leaned heavily onto the railing, trying to catch my breath. When I looked down into the water, I saw... me.

 

A smile spread slowly across my face, and the girl down in the water below smiled back at me. Long blonde hair framed her face, and her tired purple eyes looked exactly as I’d always imagined them. This was the me that my parents hated, the me that they said was wrong, sinful, bad. No wonder they’d been chasing me. They’d yelled at me so much for wanting my hair long like this, and the echoes of that memory sent tremors through my body. I ran my fingers through the hair. Through my hair. It felt calming, right in a way that I'd never even known was possible.

 

This was turning out to be a really nice dream.

 

I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and glanced to my right. The little spotted deer was walking out of the forest with the twitchy grey squirrel bounding after her. The spear girl seemed to materialize out of the leaves and shadows behind them. They all gathered at the far end of the bridge, watching me quietly.

 

I stared at them with wide eyes, afraid moving would shatter the calm of the moment. I felt so, so grateful to them. But there was unease and fear mixed in, leaking from the other part of me, the part that was foggy and sleepy and distant, but still there. They recognized the girl, and they were scared of her. I didn’t know why, and I don’t think they did either. But the feeling was enough that I decided not to go hug the girl like I wanted to, for their sake. Instead I decided to at least wait in silence comfortably. So I broke the spell, turning and lowering myself to the bridge, sitting with my back against the railing. I gave a tentative smile, watching my protectors.

 

After a little while, the girl nodded a little to herself, like she’d confirmed something. She stepped a bit closer to me. Her eyes were calm and steady and warm and brown. I felt strange. I felt like she cared about me, the real me. The me nobody had ever cared about.

 

There was an aura of serene strength about her that I only noticed because I didn’t feel the familiar new-people-panic welling up within me as she approached. It felt instead like she was someone I’d known for ages, someone I could trust. Someone who had my back. I had no memories of her as far as I could tell. I didn’t remember being friends with her before. But oh I wanted to be friends now.

 

She stopped a few feet away from me, and we shared an oddly comfortable silence. I studied her dark brown hair, the simple but efficient way it was wrapped up in bun with a plain white ribbon. She was wearing an off white knee-length shirt-dress thing. A tunic, maybe? When my eyes went back to hers, I felt like she was seeing all of me, all the weird little parts and pieces that lived in my head. It felt like she knew me for the fractured soul that I was.

 

The sleepy part of me thought she was tricking us, thought she was secretly judging us and trying to hurt us. They didn’t trust her one bit. But she’d just saved me from my parents, and that gratitude protected me from the others’ fears. I wasn’t sure I should even trust sleepy me’s reactions anyway. I was starting to remember how much they’d bullied me during the last bits of our time together.

 

So instead of letting the fears fester, I opened my mouth and said, “Um, hi!”

 

My voice was a little higher in pitch than I was expecting, and I blinked in shock at the butterflies of happiness I felt in my stomach over that simple change.

 

“Hello, Emma,” the girl replied, her voice was smooth and soft and kind.

 

She gave a slight bow towards me, her expression warm and caring, but I was a little distracted because ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh! She knew my name! The warm happy butterflies swarmed faster and faster in my chest.

 

“Youknowmyname!?” I cried happily, almost stumbling over my words, “Who are you?”

 

She grinned as I jumped up to my feet with excitement.

 

“I am known as Philomeirax, little one,” she said, her voice like a wise teenage girl’s, “I am part of a Goddess, and I know much about you, for I’m the one who brought you here.”

 

That was a lot for me to take in. First of all, Goddesses were real? And this girl was one? I tried to wrestle my brain away from dwelling on all the cosmological implications of that, though. I wanted to start with the getting-my-friend’s-name-right part, that was much more important to me just then.

 

“Fi-lo-my-rax?” I asked, poorly sounding out the strange syllables she’d said.

 

Her eyebrows rose just a little bit, but she nodded and her eyes twinkled a little. “You may call me Philo.”

 

Oh yay! That was much easier. “Okay, hi Philo! It’s really nice to meet you!”

 

“I wish these were different circumstances, little Emma,” Philo said, sounding a little sad, “But I am very glad to meet you, too.”

 

I frowned a little bit, not having any actual idea why we were here in the first place. The sleepy part of me was kinda waking up more now, drawn out by their fear of Philo. They wanted to get as far away from her as possible, and it made it hard to concentrate.

 

“Um,” I said, my body swaying a little unsteadily as I tried to shut them out, “What circumstances are these, exactly? I don’t remember how I got here. Or, um, why I’m here?”

 

Content warning: heavy mention of angry alter

 

There were strange, confusing memories coming from the sleepy part of me. I didn’t like how real they felt. How does she know about our family’s estate? they asked angrily, Is this all some cruel illusion?

 

I had no answers, and their voice made my head hurt. I pressed a hand to my temple, wincing. I let my eyes drop to the boards near Philo’s feet. It felt more comfortable, not looking at her directly.

 

“You look tired, Emma,” she said quietly, “There is much I would like to tell you, but perhaps you should sleep first.”

 

I frowned, trying to concentrate. There seemed to be so much that the other part of me knew. It felt like they’d lived a whole life that I hadn’t been a part of. And it hadn’t been a nice life.

 

“N-no,” I stammered, “I’d rather know what’s going on first.” I was hugging myself lightly, trying to get a hold of the ricocheting memories. “I don’t feel right.”

 

Internally I saw death, pain, and anger. So, so much anger. Years and years and years of it, so many more than I’d ever lived.

 

End content warning

 

On the planks, Philo’s shadow nodded. The air between us felt heavy. I didn’t think she really wanted to tell me any more, but I wasn’t okay. I needed to know.

 

“I’m afraid those memories you’re seeing are real, as you suspect,” she said softly. “That other part of you has lived for thirty-one years in this world. You were conscious periodically during the first few years of your shared life, but became separated from the other parts of your mind as time went on.”

 

I felt my lower lip begin to tremble. Thirty one years? I knew it felt like I’d been sleeping for a long time, but not that long. I was only… seven? Or maybe eight? Time felt fuzzy, unreal.

 

I blinked, staring down to the water between the planks and struggling to understand. “I… remember when we were younger together,” I started, my voice wobbling a little with emotion. “But you say that was so long ago. W-where was I? What have I been doing, while the others have been living their life?” This was so much.

Content Warning: heavy mention of abusive parents, heavy mention of abusive alter

 

“What happened to you back then was absolutely awful,” Philo said, her voice hardening a little. “Your parents hurt you, tried to force you into the shape they wanted. You ran from them, hid from their hate. When they cornered your body, you escaped the blows. The other parts of your mind did not. They had to adapt themselves to survive, and over time you and they grew further and further apart.”

 

I saw flashes of memory. Screaming, fighting, crying. A lot of crying. I could vaguely hear Philo continuing to talk to me. But all I could hear was weak, wrong, selfish, stupid.

 

It’s what the other parts had called me, as they started to echo our parents’ words. They’d grown to hate me.

 

When I came back to myself on the bridge, my knees were drawn tightly to my chest, arms wrapped around them and tears streaming down my cheeks. I was hyperventilating. I didn’t remember moving.

 

Philo’s voice came from my left, closer than I remembered her being. She was talking like I was a frightened animal she was trying to calm down. Trying to soothe me, probably. But I couldn’t hear her. The other part of my mind was fully awake now. They were so loud. So angry.

 

You ran away!, they said, You left us with them! Why do we look like you? How dare you…. Their emotions were a jumble of fear, rage, and confusion.

 

We felt a firm grip settle on our left forearm just before the elbow, tugging a little.

 

“Why have you done this?” the other asked with my mouth, their voice hard. “What do you hope to accomplish by bringing my childhood trauma to life?”

 

They raised our head, looking Philo in the eyes with an angry frown. I felt powerless in my own body, overwhelmed with memories and emotions.

 

End Content Warning

 

Philo held our gaze solemnly, drawing our left arm towards her until she held our hand, palm up, in her lap. “Much like you,” she said to us, “there are many parts of me. Other Goddesses with their own ideals, values, and motivations.”

 

I felt our arm try to draw away from her, the other struggling against her, but she held it firm, clasping her hands around ours.

 

“There are Diana and Artemis of the hunt, Selene of the Moon, Hecate of the crossroads, and many others besides. It’s one of them who cursed you,” her eyes flashed to an angry storm-grey color, “for attempting to kill one of our children.” Warm brown eyes came back. Our arm struggled in her grasp, but her grip was like iron. “You,” she said, staring us in the eyes, “have been rendered powerless against our followers, and we have taken your name and your body for your misdeeds.”

 

We stared at her, and I watched passively as the other tried to remember their name. They couldn’t.

 

“During that process,” Philo continued “it became apparent that you all were not acting as a whole. I am here now to speak with Emma, and I’m afraid you’re not welcome in this conversation.”

 

Content Warning: heavy mention of abusive alter, outside force affecting one alter in favor of another

 

I perked up at the sound of my name, smiling reflexively, but the other was already turning on me, red-hot anger boiling up at my very existence. You did this to us! they screamed at me, and I prepared for another mental assault.

 

But then we felt a sudden burning hot-ness on the palm of our left hand, and an alien power surged through our mind. It was like a wave of calm spreading across our thoughts, slowing everything down. I felt the other withdraw into themselves, their tirade petering out rapidly as a heavy wave of exhaustion seemed to target them. In seconds, they had all but gone silent, and I found myself in control of my body, sitting alone beside Philo once more.

 

End content warning

 

I stared at her as she lowered her head closer to my captured hand. Her eyes were closed, and she seemed to be silently mouthing words as she gently brushed her thumbs across my palm. Her breath was warm on my pale skin, and it tickled as she whispered something aloud in a language I didn’t know. I watched as bits of the skin on my small palm began to darken. Elegant black lines faded into existence across the center of it, weaving together until I was looking at an elegant tattoo of a drawn crescent bow. The image was about half the size of my palm, with the arrow tip pointing towards the base of my middle finger.

 

I was startled out of staring at the tattoo as Philo spoke to me in english. “This Mark is a direct line to me, Emma,” she said, “When you need me, you may picture me in your mind, focus on my Mark, and call my name. I will hear you no matter where you are.”

 

“Th-thanks,” I stammered, because I had no idea what else to say.

 

I felt a little numb, overwhelmed by the emotional roller coaster I’d woken up riding. I really didn’t get what was going on. At all. My voice came out tired and sad, as I asked, “Why am I here, Philo? Why are you helping me, if the other me hurt your kid?”

 

Philo let my hand go finally, and I flinched as I suddenly had to support its weight. I drew it back to me, spreading my fingers and staring dully at the drawing on my palm. It seemed like a regular tattoo now, no itchiness or swelling. I could see the wooden part of the bow had tiny rune-looking letters woven around it in silver ink like ivy. There were little lines coming from the arrow tip like it was glowing.

 

“It’s my duty to help you, Emma. I am Artemis Philomeirax, the protector of the young: particularly girls, and particularly girls who’ve been hurt as you have.”

 

Content Warning: heavy mention of internalized transphobia

 

Uh oh. Oh no, please no. My left arm joined my right in wrapping around my knees, drawing them closer for safety. But they couldn’t protect me from my thoughts. Echoes of the other bounced around my head. Taunting me, making me wince and withdraw. I stared at the feminine fingers I was squeezing around my wrists. I couldn’t believe the poison filling my thoughts, telling me how stupid I was. I was starting to remember. Remember why I’d left, why I’d never wanted to come back. When I was here every time, without fail allowing myself to believe that I deserved happiness had always resulted in hatred and ruin.

 

“Um,” I said quietly, brokenly, “I’m, I’m not really a girl.” My whispered voice was as broken as my heart. “I just wish I was.”

 

Philo immediately moved towards me, which caused a spike of anxious terror in my chest. She seemed to sense it, or notice my body’s instinctive flinch away, cause she settled back to her kneeling stance with a bit of distance between us.

 

“You are a girl in every sense that matters, Emma,” she said with a tone I had never before heard. I had no reference for it. It was... sort of like a fierce compassion, like she’d rip the limbs off of anyone who’d dare to question her. It was strange and uncomfortable. I was starting to feel hope in my heart, which meant I needed to speed up the process of the hurt dropping. The more hope I felt, the more it hurt when it was crushed.

 

“Um, I mean my body, didn’t, er, doesn’t? I don’t look like this. I was, I was born a boy,” I said, my voice sounding almost conversational, normal. The kinda normal I’d got real used to using when I had to pretend to be my parents’ son. “You should go protect the real girls,” I said casually.

 

Philo let out a soft sigh. “Emma,” she said gently, “I know everything about you and your life. We’re in your mind, and this is your soul’s current natural form. There is no test that can prove whether or not you’re ‘really’ a girl, only your heart can make that decision.” She pointed at me and said, “If you would like to be a girl, then that makes you a girl.”

 

I stared at her finger. And then I looked down at myself. I blinked a bit.

 

“That doesn’t bother you?” I asked. I looked at her with confusion written across my face.

 

She gave me a world-weary smile. “Not in the slightest. Girls quite literally come in all shapes and sizes.”

 

“Oh,” I managed.

 

End content warning

 

This was new. The tiny little withered seed of hope in my heart sprouted a vibrantly green shoot.

 

“You’re… I can just... be a girl? You’re not going to hurt me?” I asked, oh so cautiously.

 

“Most assuredly not,” Philo replied gently.

 

My little hope sprout grew even further towards the light of her kindness. “And… you still want to protect me, because you protect girls?”

 

Philo’s smile widened, showing beautifully crooked and yellowed teeth. “I protect all children, but I am going to protect you especially hard because you are a girl who has been robbed of her girlhood for so long,”she replied with that same unidentifiably protective compassion.

 

I stared at her, and suddenly realized how very badly I wanted to hug her. I couldn’t remember the last time I had ever actually wanted to hug someone, but the idea burned in my mind and I couldn’t ignore it. I wasted no time, throwing myself across the space between us and wrapping my arms around Philo’s neck.

 

“ThankyousomuchPhilo!” I squealed.

 

She seemed a little surprised at the hug, but didn’t return it. To her immense credit, she asked, “Can I hug you back?” with a smile in her voice.

 

I smiled harder as I pressed my face into her shoulder. “Yes!” I replied happily, tearing up. I felt her well-muscled arms wrap around my small frame, squeezing me gently.

 

“You are so very, very welcome, Emma,” she said lovingly.

 

___________________ ღ♥ღ ___________________

Emma

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[ - some time later - ]

 

“So you’re like, an actual Goddess?” I asked Philo curiously. We were sitting next to each other on the bridge and dangling our legs off the side.

 

“I sure am,” she replied readily, “I’ve existed in your world for centuries, and other parts of me have been here even longer than that.”

 

It had been a while since I’d hugged her, and we’d been sitting on the bridge together while I alternated between asking her questions and thinking to myself. It was a lot to think about. But I wasn’t ready for this dream time together to end, so I didn’t ask her to wake me up just yet. Thankfully, we both seemed to be relaxing as we talked. I had stopped panicking every other sentence, and she had started sounding more like a modern teenager who put on a formal Goddess guise when she needed it.

 

At some point, I had felt the other part of my mind wake up a bit. I hadn’t really payed them any attention, but I was a little surprised when they seemed to settle in peacefully and listen to Philo and I’s conversation. They seemed genuinely interested in what we were talking about.

 

“Can I like, make a shrine to you or something back in the real world?” I asked. I was staring up at the sparkling green canopy of leaves overhead, thinking over the past hour or so. “As far as I can remember,” I continued, “no God’s ever made me feel as happy and seen as you.”

 

Philo laughed from beside me. “That’s because no one actually talks to the Gods any more,” she replied, leaning back and gazing upwards with me. “You’re all taught from birth that we either don’t exist, don’t care about you, or can’t talk to you.”

 

I tilted my head at the branches above. “I… yeah. I guess I never really thought it was an option.”

 

Philo made a hum of affirmation. “That’s definitely not your fault,” she said kindly. “Nowadays, if anyone teaches their kids about Gods at all, it’s to give them a bunch of rules and metaphors that were written down hundreds of years ago. Archaic concepts that have been mistranslated through the centuries like a giant game of telephone, and they barely matched what was communicated the first time they were recorded!” she exclaimed, waving her hand across the air in front of her as if to dispel the specter of all that miscommunication.

 

I studied the swirling path of a leaf as it fell towards me. “Wow,” was all I said in response. I thought about that, and much more besides.

 

With the other part of me a bit more awake, some of their memories of magic and witchcraft in our world were leaking through to me. They seemed to think such things couldn’t be openly talked about with others without getting theirself sent to a psych ward.

 

I remembered when I’d been growing up that the concept of there being multiple Gods had been nothing more than quaint mythology to the adults around me. It was really weird to wake up after decades of sleepy nothingness as myself talking to a literal Goddess. Even weirder that the Goddess acted like she could be my older sister. Listening to her tell me that, not only were most Gods I’d heard about real, but so was the Big One who had wanted to damn me to hell and turn my parents against me simply for being a girl, had been the scariest part of this whole waking-dream so far. She’d assured me that He didn’t actually think like that, but knowing he was out there at all was terrifying.

 

After a while more of thinking, I heard Philo take a deep breath beside me. “Emma,” she asked casually, “about building me a shrine…”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“That’s actually something I need to talk to you about. Do you want to have that conversation now, or later?”

 

I frowned a bit. I only vaguely knew where I would be once I woke up in the real world, and it sounded like there would be some scary conversations I’d need to have with the people the other me had hurt once I did. I had no idea what state I’d be in the next time I talked with Philo.

 

“Um, can you give me the general idea of it now?” I replied.

 

She stretched up to a sitting position, rolling her shoulders.

 

“Well,” she started, a happy gleam in her eye, “building a shrine and praying to me would be all well and good. But there’s something you can do that would help us just as much as it would help you. I’d like to make you an offer. You can think it over as long as you need to, and we can go over the details later, but how would you like to become my student / acolyte / follower?”

 

The last word came across to me clearly as an idea, but it was like my ears couldn’t decide which word they’d actually heard. It was super weird, like she’d said something in a foreign language that I instinctively grasped without knowing the word. I decided to ask her about it later, my mind was buzzing with enough ideas and questions as it was.

 

I could learn more about Philo! And magic! And other Goddesses and Gods!

 

“I think I would like that very much!” I replied excitedly. The thought of talking to Philo more and actually learning from her was incredible, and I matched her happy grin with a beaming smile of my own.

 

I started asking questions as fast as she could answer them. What would I be learning? Would we always be in my mind when we talked? What kind of magic could I do in the real world?!

 

I quickly lost track of time. Everything was a happy, bright blur of new thoughts, feelings, and ideas.

 

On a very deep level, I was excited for the future in a way the other me found completely novel. My happiness seemed to even be leaking into them just a little bit, allowing them to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, this wouldn’t be such a terrible curse after all.

 

___________________ ღ♥ღ ___________________

End of Chapter 2: Redemption Dream

¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ •.¸ ¸.• ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

 

Table of Scene Summaries:

Scene 2.1:

Emma, a young girl who’s part of the dissociated system that includes the murder asshole from the previous chapter, wakes up in a strange dream-like state. She meets Artemis Philomeirax (Philo), a part of the Goddess Diana who’s duty is to protect the young, and the young Goddess girl helps Emma escape from the shadowy dream specters of her parents. Philo tells Emma that another alter in Emma’s system has been cursed for trying to harm one of Diana’s children and had their name and body taken as a result. But also that they had found Emma during the cursing process, and Philo had stepped forward to protect her and turn this curse into a second chance for the young trans girl. Philo creates a tattoo of a drawn bow on Emma’s left palm, which she explains is her Mark, and can be used to contact her from anywhere. Philo also subdues and exhausts the 31 year old alter when they wake up and start to fall into old patterns of attacking Emma. The Goddess reassures Emma that her other self will not be able to bully her any longer.

 

Scene 2.2: Emma and Philomeirax continue talking and enjoying some time together, before Philo offers to take Emma on as a student in the ways of worship and magic. Emma eagerly accepts, and even her exhausted other self can’t help but feel excited about the prospect of learning actual magic in their lifetime.