=:= Samantha =:=

"Hello everyone, sorry I'm late." Maria apologized as she slipped into a seat across the table from Samantha. "I couldn't get away from the house quite on time. Oh, and belated happy birthday, Nicole."

At nearly forty years old, Maria was the oldest in attendance this morning. She tended to dress like the professional she was. Today she was wearing a modest black skirt, white blouse, low heels, and had dark hose on her legs. Maria's complexion was tanned and she had brown eyes. She kept her dark brown hair cut above her shoulders, and her make-up tended to be subtle. She was about average height and kept herself in good shape.

Sitting on Sam's left, her wife Nikki smiled "Thanks Maria."

Nicole had just celebrated her twenty-fifth birthday yesterday. Despite her youth, she was actually president and C.E.O. of Divine Wines, the winery and vineyard that she and Samantha owned together. Nikki rarely dressed like a business-woman though. She was a little goth at heart, and while she was never too emo about it, she almost always wore dark make-up to match her black dresses and long straight jet-black hair. She usually wore shoes with heels, like the black ankle-boots she had on today.

Her skin was very fair, and the black hair, clothes, and dark make-up tended to make her look even paler than she was. Her eyes were a very bright blue though. To complete her appearance, Nikki had a sparkly little stud in her right nostril, and her earlobes were stretched around some 10-millimetre silver plugs.

Her somewhat unique appearance and her slightly short stature of five-foot-four tended to give people a skewed impression of her. Visitors to the winery often had a hard time believing she was the boss, let alone one of the owners.

Samantha gave Maria a sympathetic smile, "It's ok Maria. I imagine wrangling four teen girls can be quite a handful?"

Maria grimaced. "At times... Though to be fair, Sadie has been helping a lot. Amanda too of course, but Sadie has experience raising kids."

Last month, the fallout from a number of magical and mundane situations had resulted in Maria being forced to take custody of her sister-in-law's family. The social worker suddenly found herself acting as legal guardian and replacement mother to seventeen-year-old twins Sadie and Amanda, their thirteen-year-old sister Jenny, and thirteen-year-old cousin Beth.

Maria had never married and had no children of her own, so it was a huge adjustment to suddenly find herself responsible for the four teen girls. The whole situation was actually very convoluted and strange, but somehow the family was adjusting and actually seemed fairly happy now.

About fifteen months ago, Maria's niece Jenny had come out as trans, and Maria used magic to help the girl transition. As a result of more magic the girls' father, Maria's older brother, had become Amanda's twin sister Sadie. And finally last month, as penance for a number of dangerous errors in judgement, the girls' mother Liz had been transformed into their young cousin Beth.

Of the four, only Beth was unaware of all the magic and changes the family had been through. Her memories had been temporarily obscured, to give the girl a fresh start that was untainted by her past mistakes.

Nikki commented, "It's an unusual situation. All of you are adjusting ok though, I hope?"

"Yes," Maria nodded. "It's been almost three weeks now, we're doing all right. Two days ago was a bit of a mile-stone, with Thanksgiving. It was actually quite nice, to be honest. We all came together and I think everyone had a good time. Even Beth seemed to come out of her shell a little and enjoy herself." With a smile, she concluded "We're starting to feel like a proper family."

"Are you going to have time to continue your work here?" Sam asked. "If you need to cut back hours or days, let us know?"

Maria shook her head, "I think I can manage things for now. I'm down to just one day a week at my own clinic, and I'll probably be ready to shut that down completely by the end of next month. It's just a matter of helping my last few clients find other therapists they're comfortable with."

Samantha nodded, "Well if there's anything we can do to help, just ask us, Maria." She then looked around the table, "Now, let's get started."

To her right sat Sam's adopted sister Jessica. At only twenty-two years old, she was the youngest in attendance this morning. Jess was wearing skinny jeans and a tight t-shirt, which was her preferred style. She had some lipstick and a bit of eye-shadow, but that was all. Her eyes were emerald green and her shoulder-length hair was bright red. A dusting of freckles across her cheeks added a bit of colour to her otherwise fair skin. She was about the same height as Nikki, perhaps a half inch taller, but where the goth tended to be rather slim, Jess had a bit more curve to her figure.

Next to Jess sat her partner, Kara. The tall enby kept their blonde hair cut short in a vaguely masculine style. Their blue-grey eyes were almost always alert and while they didn't talk much, they tended to observe and hear everything.

They were usually dressed in masc-coded clothes, like the mens' jeans and the black combat-style boots they had on today. On the other hand, they were wearing a light-blue t-shirt that stretched slightly across their chest, showing off some curves.

Although they were twenty-three, Kara sometimes came across as a bit older. They were slim but muscular, and their quiet confidence and no-nonsense attitude frequently put strangers on edge. When they were comfortable and relaxed though, they tended to open up more, and had a rather disarming lopsided smile.

As for Samantha, she'd turned twenty-six over the summer. At five-foot-seven, she was the second-tallest in the room, just two inches shorter than Kara. She was rather curvier than everyone else in the room as well. Not exactly fat, but she did have a bit more padding than the others. Sam almost never bothered with make-up, and even when she did it was usually nothing more than a bit of lipstick.

She kept her wavy brown hair cut to about shoulder length, and Nikki often described her hazel eyes as 'deep, emotional, and expressive'. Sam almost always dressed casual and comfortable. Today she wore dark leggings under an ankle-length brown skirt, and had a forest-green t-shirt overtop of that. An old comfy pair of sneakers completed the 'outfit'.

The group was getting ready for a re-opening of their LGBTQIA+ support organization. She and Nikki had founded it about three and a half years ago, with the goal of helping queer youths in the region. For the most part it had just been a website and a phone number, with volunteers working out of their homes or in rented or donated office space.

This past summer though, she and Nikki had decided the organization needed more attention and more resources. They'd rebranded so the group had a proper name, and they acquired a permanent location in a downtown storefront. Renovations had been finished last week, and now they were holding their first official office meeting in the new location.

This coming Monday would be the grand re-opening of the Queer Support Association of Welland. Or 'Que-Saw' as Jessica had started calling it.

While Sam and Nikki remained on the board as directors, Maria was now on the payroll as the manager and would be in charge of most of the day-to-day operations. She would also continue her original role with the org, as a social worker offering free consultations and therapy sessions to local LGBTQIA+ youth.

Jessica and Kara had started working for the organization as well. They'd both be helping Maria with management, such as coordinating with other volunteers, and they'd also be working directly with clients who came in looking for support.

Both Jess and Kara had first-hand experience dealing with a lot of the same issues that people came to their group looking for help with. They'd both had bigoted, unsupportive parents. Jess understood trans issues and had experienced homelessness before Sam and Nikki saved her, and Kara was non-binary. They were both skilled artists too, and they'd been doing all the graphic design work for the organization's literature, signage, and so on.

The other thing all five of them had in common of course, was they were all witches. Four years ago, Samantha had accidentally awoken an ancient Goddess, causing Nikki's life to be changed forever. Since then, they'd slowly brought more people into the fold, friends and family, and their little coven had grown. There were now a dozen of them in total.

With the exception of Maria, everyone present were all 'officers' of the coven as well. Samantha was the Priestess and de-facto leader. Nicole was their Goddess's vessel, Her anchor here on Earth. The Goddess could 'possess' Nikki, or funnel Her power through the goth. Jessica was the coven's Scribe, and Kara was its Champion.

The others tended to defer to Sam outside of coven business too, and so she found herself taking the lead in their meeting as well.

She looked at the older woman sitting across from her and asked, "Maria, how are things looking for the grand opening on Monday?"

It took a few moments for the social worker to get her notes out of her folio, then she replied "Everything's on schedule. We have the last of the furniture coming tomorrow, but apart from that the place is pretty much ready to go. We'll get some last minute supplies this afternoon or Friday. We have volunteers lined up for the next two weeks, to have someone at the front desk and the phones. And myself, Jessica, and Kara have our schedules worked out so at least one of us will be here every day as well."

Nikki then asked Jess, "Will you be able to get protective wards in place here before Monday?"

Jessica sighed, "Yeah. Happily there's not that many doors or windows. It's just across the front, then in the back there's one door and one small window." She grumped a bit, "I feel like that's all I've been doing for the past couple weeks though. Maria's new place took forever to secure."

Sam suppressed a smile, "Sorry Jess. Once you've finished the wards here, that should be it for now I think."

The redhead was still grumpy about it, "It would have gone a lot faster if Cindy was around to help. Do we know when she'll be back? Do we even know where she is?"

"It's not really on-topic for our meeting, but..." Sam looked to her wife. "Nikki, can She enlighten us?"

Nicole closed her eyes. It looked sort of like she was meditating, though they all knew she was actually communicating directly with their Goddess.

After a few moments, Nikki opened her eyes and answered. "She says Cindy and Zoe are still in England. They're in Shropshire... She says they're planning to visit Blakemere, the old Talbot estate there?"

Kara rolled their eyes. "Cindy knows she's not actually related or whatever? She's not going to inherit land or a title."

Jess added, "What's she even doing over there?"

"She knows, Kara." Sam replied with a smile. "And Jess, Cindy felt like she didn't really fit in or belong anywhere... She said she wanted to travel and see the world, so she could try and 'find herself'."

Nikki added, "She wanted to visit the estate of the people she was named after. The Goddess also said she and Zoe were planning to visit Wales next. After that... Who knows. It's been less than two months since they left, they might be gone for a long time."

Jessica sighed, "Ok, I get it. It's just that doing all these wards and things would have been a lot easier if I'd had help. And Cindy's the only one who's learned how to do the Goddess's runes apart from me."

"I know, Jess. We could really use her help here in other ways too." Samantha sighed. "Bringing us back on-topic, we need to come up with some way to help trans people that doesn't involve a sudden obvious magical transformation. And we especially want to avoid having to continually make changes to reality. We need something subtle, that will help people without attracting unwanted attention."

Nicole nodded. "It's going to be a bit of a balancing act. We want to use our gifts to help people, but we have to be careful about drawing too much attention to ourselves. Word's going to get out sooner or later that we're performing 'miracle transitions' here..."

Kara suggested, "If we could make the spell work slower, would that help? Like instead of instant transformation, what if the process could be spread out over a longer time-frame, so the changes were gradual..."

"It would have to be a significant amount of time to fly under the radar," Maria pointed out. "A full year would be a good starting-point. Two years would be even better."

Jessica frowned. "Two years? That's... That's way too slow. People won't even notice themselves that anything's happening. I get that we don't want to draw too much attention, but what's the point of using magic if we can't give people immediate relief and help?"

Sam considered. She knew Jessica was thinking of her own situation and a two year wait would have been far too slow for her. "I think it would be best if we could customize the process for everyone who needs it. And if it could be done in stages... If we could do some things right away, and other things could take more time..." She sighed. "It's starting to sound a lot more complicated than just doing the spell but making it work slowly."

Nikki asked, "Maria, what would be the shortest time-span you think would work without attracting attention?"

The social worker frowned, then finally replied, "I would be reluctant to say anything less than six months. But maybe in some situations, three months would be ok... I'm thinking about people like Zoe, where there's no close friends, they're not living with family, no-one who's going to really notice the changes that closely."

Jessica pointed out "For Zoe, instant worked out pretty well didn't it? I still think instant should be an option."

"It worked because she was prepared to walk away from her old life completely. And she was lucky, to have Cindy as a friend, and being at the right time and place that I could offer her a job at the retreat." Sam explained. "I know you don't want people to have to wait Jess, but we have to find a balance that will let us help people without breaking reality or attracting attention."

"This is all moot until we know we can slow down the spell." Nicole said. "I'll email Cindy and ask if she can put some thought into it. We can ask the Goddess for some guidance on it as well, maybe we can work it out ourselves."

Maria pointed out, "We'll also need to figure out the best way to help with ID and other paperwork, without relying on Her to just conjure up new ones. Name changes are one thing, but updating the gender markers is a bit more involved. Slowing down the transformation process would make it feasible for us to do all of this through normal channels."

After a pause, she added "It would help if we had a medical doctor on the team. Someone who could handle physical examinations, blood-work, whatever else might come up, all without raising difficult questions. I'm not thinking so much about complications or health issues, but some people's occupations require regular physicals, that sort of thing. Sending someone to their regular doctor during or after a magical transition would raise questions again."

Nicole looked thoughtful, then nodded. "I've wondered a few times about bringing my doctor into the loop. Dr. Stevens has already seen some 'unusual' stuff, especially dealing with Cindy, and she hasn't seemed phased by it. Sam and I will have to talk it over with the Goddess of course."

Samantha nodded in agreement. "All right... While we're on this topic, do we have anyone currently talking with the Org for help, where a magical solution might be necessary?"

Maria checked another of her notes. "Two people called the help line in the past week specifically to talk about trans issues. They'll both be coming in next week. I'll know after I've met with them, if either are candidates for magical assistance. There were another dozen or so calls that weren't specific about what they wanted to discuss. Four of them are also coming by next week, so we'll hopefully find out what they need."

"Thanks Maria." Sam looked around the table, "Anyone else have anything to add?"

No-one else spoke up, the others just shook their heads.

"Ok then, I think that's it for this morning." Samantha stood up, and smiled "Maria, I'll leave things with you. We'll see you on Monday for the grand opening."

Nikki got up as well, asking "Jess, Kara? We'll see you tonight for dinner?"

Jessica nodded, "Yeah, we'll be home tonight. See you two later."

After bidding the others a good day, Samantha closed her eyes and focused on her home, as she worked the teleport spell. She appeared in the living-room, next to the leather sectional sofa. A moment later Nikki was there too, standing just to Sam's left.

Nikki closed the space between them and wrapped her arms around Sam, a contented smile on her face.

Sam accepted the hug, holding her wife close. She whispered "Don't you have to get back to the winery, love?"

"Mmmhmm." Nikki sighed.

Samantha felt one of her wife's arms slip down her back, then around her side, and then Nikki's hand finally ended up resting on her belly.

"Any more thoughts on when you want to make the announcement?" Nikki asked softly.

Samantha smiled down at her goth wife, but shook her head slightly. "Not yet... I don't know if we should tell our parents first, or our chosen family... Or we could wait till the holidays and tell everyone all at once..."

Nicole shrugged slightly, "Whatever you want, hon... You know folks will figure it out on their own eventually, if we wait too long."

"There's at least another two months before I start to show," Sam pointed out. "More if I start wearing clothes that are a little more loose or baggy."

Nikki smiled "You haven't touched a glass of wine in over a month. And Jess and Kara aren't stupid, they'll figure it out soon enough."

Samantha smiled back, "Maybe..." She felt another little shudder of anxiety. "Oh Goddess things are going to be exciting and terrifying come May or June..."

"Exciting and scary, but also wonderful." Nikki replied, stretching up to plant a kiss on Sam's lips.

Sam sighed happily, kissing her wife back. "Things are already wonderful, love."

=:= Kara =:=

"That should be enough pens." Jessica said as she dumped a few boxes into the cart. "We've already got paper for the printer and photocopier. Should we get notepads too? I guess we should."

Kara shrugged, "What will we need notepads for?"

"I'll need something to doodle on if we keep having long boring meetings like we did the other day," Jessica smiled and set off down the aisle. She added over her shoulder, "Oh, and I guess we can use them to take notes too?"

Kara followed, pushing the cart along ahead of them.

It was Friday the thirteenth today, but instead of doing something fun or auspicious, the two of them had been roped into shopping for office supplies for QSAW. Maria was over there now supervising the new furniture arrival, which was supposed to have come yesterday. Better late than never, of course. Sam was at her spiritual retreat, and Nikki at the winery.

Jess dumped a stack of notepads into the cart, then pursed her lips, trying to think of what else they'd need for the grand opening on Monday.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "We need to get coffee and stuff, for the coffee machine! And we'll need cups, stir sticks, I guess some napkins..."

Kara raised an eyebrow, then reminded her "We don't have a coffee machine, Jess."

"Right! We need to get a coffee machine too." Jessica nodded, and set off again to find the aisle with the break-room supplies.

Kara smiled and shook their head as they hurried to catch up. Shopping was slightly more fun when you weren't spending your own money, after all.

QSAW was a non-profit and existed only because of donations, but their biggest supporter was their Goddess. As far as Kara knew, She had never really clarified where She got the money from. She'd mentioned once that in the past She'd just conjure up a pile of gold or silver coins, but said that it was easier nowadays because money was all numbers on paper or in a computer.

There had been a few little comments and remarks over the past couple years though, and Kara strongly suspected that their Goddess had been discretely stealing money from the accounts and investments of the world's billionaires and Fortune-500 corporations.

It was perhaps a nice bit of poetic justice that some of the most greedy and conservative capitalists were unknowingly funding a coven of queer witches, their queer support org, and several other queer organizations around the world.

The sad thing was, even at the rate the Goddess was coming up with funds for all of them, it was such a comparatively small amount it was unlikely to ever be noticed, let alone missed, by any of the wealthy bastards She was taking it from.

An hour or so later, Kara and Jess were back at QSAW. They'd parked the big SUV around back and Kara was hauling in the boxes and bags, while Jessica was figuring out where to put everything.

The new furniture was all in place thankfully, so there were desks and chairs at reception and in the two offices. The small kitchen / break-room now had a fridge and a table and chairs.

Soon Kara and Maria were putting things away and setting up the coffee machine, while Jessica was on her knees at the front windows, carefully writing out protective runes along the bottom edge of the window frame.

"This is going to take a while, isn't it?" Kara asked, after a few minutes of watching Jess work.

"Uh-huh," the cute redhead nodded. "We'll have to come back tomorrow so I can finish it." She added, "Or, I have to come back tomorrow. You don't need to waste the day sitting around watching me."

Kara sat down in one of the new guest chairs. "I'll be here," they said. "At least I can keep you company. And make coffee."

Jess didn't look up, her focus was still on her writing, but she smiled. "Thanks Kara. I appreciate it."

"If Cindy were around to help, I'm sure it'd be all done by this afternoon." Kara grumped.

"Yeah," Jessica shrugged. "She's not here, so we'll make do."

After a few moments of silence, Jess added "You've been kind of down on Cindy for a while, Kara. Did she do something to tick you off, before she left?"

Kara frowned. "No, it's nothing like that. It's just... I guess it annoys me how she just drifts through life without any responsibility or concern. She lucked out when you found her and took her in, and ok she was helpful for a while there, when she came up with these wards you're writing."

Kara paused, collecting their thoughts. "After high-school though, she's done nothing with her life. At one point she was talking about going to university. She wanted to take history, or maybe learn viniculture and work with Nikki. What did she actually do? Nothing. She even convinced her friend Zoe to quit her job at the retreat, so the two of them could go off sight-seeing together."

Jessica stopped writing for a bit and looked up at Kara. "I'm pretty sure she didn't convince Zoe to quit. Zoe didn't want to be a maid for the rest of her life, she gave Sam her notice way back in April or something. Long before Cindy started talking about travel."

"Whatever," Kara shrugged. "My point is, I think she's irresponsible and she's sort of taking advantage of the coven and the Goddess. I mean, she's never done any real work, she gave up on her education, and she's off touring the world on a bank account and credit card that the coven supplied and pay for."

Jess nodded slowly, but didn't reply right away. She stayed where she was, kneeling by the front window, but she seemed to be studying Kara's expression. Kara wasn't sure what Jess was thinking, they couldn't really decipher the look on their girlfriend's face at the moment.

Finally Jess said, "Maybe you're right, Kara. But I don't think you should be worried about the money. It all comes from the Goddess, it's not like you and I, or anyone else in the coven, is forced to work extra hours to support Cindy and Zoe on their vacation. "

She hesitated, then added, "I'm also wondering if maybe you're just a little bit jealous? I mean, you and I, we both have responsibilities assigned by the Goddess. You're our champion. I'm the scribe. Cindy was given a title, but so far she hasn't been given any real responsibilities. She's free to do what she wants, while the two of us are asked to do quite a lot."

"I'm not jealous," Kara stated. "I suppose I'm just...disappointed, in her attitude and behaviour."

Jessica smiled a little, "Ok Kara. I'm going to get the wards done on this window, and maybe the front door. Then how about you and I call it a day. We can go home, or how about we go somewhere nice for dinner? We can celebrate Friday the Thirteenth together."

Kara nodded, then smiled. "Ok Jess. Sounds good."

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