=:= Stacey =:=

Stacey paused on the sidewalk and looked at herself reflected in a store window, checking her appearance once more. She was dressed casual, but she still wanted to make sure she looked good and presentable. It wasn't exactly a job interview, but it was close enough.

She let her eyes run up and down over her reflection, making sure everything was just right. She had a new pair of black sneakers on her feet, along with some black ankle socks. She was wearing a pair of skinny-jeans, which she'd painstakingly modified to do up at the back over a gap for her tail. The t-shirt was something she grabbed at Pride last month, white with a large rainbow print that wrapped all the way around.

She'd had her wavy red hair trimmed the other day, it was now about an inch above her shoulders. And she wore some subtle make-up, just a bit of lipstick, eyeshadow and a touch of blush. Her ears were standing up tall and proud, and she swished her tail back and forth once behind her. She still couldn't help but grin at that.

It had taken her about two weeks but she'd managed to learn to have some control over her tail, and her ears. She could move them where she wanted, or she could keep them still if she wanted, but only while she was concentrating. As soon as her attention went elsewhere, they'd be right back doing their own thing, based on her emotions.

Satisfied, Stacey started walking again. It was only half a block to her destination. When she arrived, she put on her best professional friendly smile, opened the door and stepped inside.

A tall, young, attractive blonde was sitting at the reception desk. She looked about nineteen or twenty, which wasn't far off from how Stacey looked nowadays.

"Welcome to the Queer Support Association of Welland," the blonde said with a smile. "How can I help you?"

She smiled back, "Hi. My name's Stacey, I have an appointment with Miss Carlisle?"

The blonde nodded, "Stacey, of course. Have a seat, Jess will be with you in a moment."

"Thanks."

She looked at the row of seats, then wound up sitting sideways at the end. She pulled her tail around and held it on her lap to keep it still. She already felt a blush coming to her cheeks, there were a few other people in here and she could feel their eyes on her.

In addition to the front desk and the guest seating, the reception area had one wall dedicated to brochures, leaflets, and related informational hand-outs. There were four other young people here, two were standing there looking at the info-wall, the other two were already sitting in chairs reading or waiting to see someone.

She only had to wait two or three minutes, before the young redhead emerged from the back somewhere and asked, "Stacey?"

"That's me," she smiled, standing up. Her smile widened as she watched Jessica's eyes move up and down over her, taking in the ears and the tail. Stacey felt another blush come to her cheeks as she realized she needed to stop thinking of Jessica as 'the young redhead', considering she was now a ginger herself, and she looked a couple years younger than Jess.

After a second or two of silence, Jess nodded "Come on into my office."

Stacey followed Jessica through a door into a hallway, and then into an office. She noted that she and Jess were about the same height now. When they'd met back in early May, Stacey stood a good six inches taller than the other woman.

The chairs in here were more comfortable, and the style had room for her tail which was a relief. She sat down and let her tail slip through the gap in the chair, while Jess took her seat behind the desk.

Once they were both comfortable, Jess began her spiel.

"So, my name is Jessica Carlisle, and I'm one of the coordinators here at QSAW. I saw you'd asked for a meeting, and the note said you wanted to offer your services, either as a volunteer or as part of the staff. What sort of skills do you have, what sort of experiences do you bring, that you feel would make you a good candidate here?"

Stacey fought to keep herself from grinning too widely, as she replied, "I looked over your website and I noticed you don't have anyone on staff to offer people legal guidance or advice. I'm recently retired, with nearly thirty years experience with the Niagara Regional Police. I also have a few years of college-level education in law."

She watched as Jessica's eyes widened, then she looked Stacey up and down again. Jess stared for two or three more seconds before she asked, "Stacey...Saunders? Detective Stacey Saunders?"

"Not 'detective' any more, I took early retirement last month." she grinned. "But yes, that's me. I wasn't sure if you'd even remember me, obviously you didn't recognize me."

Jessica smiled back, "I can see it now, but yeah, no, I had no idea..."

After a moment her grin faded and she got up and closed the door to her office. She then turned looking at Stacey with a much more serious, concerned expression.

She hesitated, then asked "Stacey, was this... Did you do this, using that spell everyone's talking about? Or... Did Cindy do this to you?"

"This was all me," Stacey replied. With a smile she added, "Full moon, May twenty-third, nine-forty-five in the morning. First day of my new life."

Jessica looked relieved as she sat back down at her desk. "Did you end up speaking with Cindy at all?"

Stacey nodded, "Yes. An hour or two after I left your home. She uh, plucked me out of my apartment and into her... I don't really know where. But we had an interesting conversation, then she sent me home again."

"And that was it?" Jess asked.

"That was it," she confirmed. "I've texted her a couple times since then, but haven't heard back."

"Ok. Thanks for letting me know." Jess nodded. She then said "As for your qualifications, I think we can definitely use you here. I'd like to introduce you to my colleagues. I could take you on as a volunteer but I'd like Maria to meet with you first. She can offer you an actual job, and I think she might." After a moment she added, "The other co-ordinator here is Kara Duncan, you briefly met them back in May..."

Stacey nodded, "I remember."

Jess got up again, "Just wait here a sec?"

She slipped out the door, and Stacey relaxed a little as she waited. She was still smiling, then blushed as she realized her tail had been swishing back and forth excitedly for most of the meeting.

Reaching down, she grabbed hold of it and pulled it around onto her lap. She held it still and muttered quietly, "You keep giving away all my emotions! I'll never be able to play poker again if you can't learn to settle down."

"Stacey?" Jess asked from behind her. "Come with me please?"

Stacey felt her cheeks go bright red as she realized she'd just been caught talking to her tail.

She got up and followed Jessica across the hall into a meeting room. There were two other people already seated there. Stacey recognized Kara, the tall slim enby she'd met in Welland back in May. With them was a brunette who looked to be around forty. The woman was perhaps an inch or two taller than Jess and herself, her brown hair was cut short, and she had brown eyes and a slightly tanned complexion. She wore a skirt and blouse, while Kara was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.

Jess did the introductions, "This is Kara Duncan, that's Maria Watson. And this is Stacey Saunders. Retired police detective."

Stacey was still blushing slightly as she smiled, "Hello again Kara. Hello Maria, nice to meet you."

One of Kara's eyebrows nudged up slightly, but the enby just nodded and said, "Hello."

Maria seemed more friendly, "Hello Stacey. Please have a seat."

After Stacey and Jess were both seated, she told the other two women the same thing she'd told Jessica about her qualifications and that she'd realized QSAW wasn't able to offer legal guidance or advice at the moment, and she thought she'd be a good fit.

At first, Jessica and Kara stayed quiet while Maria asked the questions. Most were the sorts of things Stacey expected to be asked. Why she wanted to offer her services at QSAW instead of anywhere else, did she think she'd be particularly well suited for helping queer youths, and so on.

Then Kara got involved, and the questions got harder to answer. The enby put Stacey on the spot and left her feeling like her previous career was a liability rather than a benefit. She tried not to take any of it too personally. She knew there was no love lost between the queer community and the police.

Mostly it boiled down to Kara sort of challenging her with a "No cops at pride" attitude.

Stacey took it in stride, and for the most part she agreed with Kara. She added though, "I'm not a cop anymore. I'm here because I want to be better, and I want to help people."

Then Maria took over the conversation again, steering it towards the subject of Stacey's obvious changes. That led to a brief discussion about human rights, and whether people like Stacey might be considered 'ineligible' for protection under those rights on the grounds that they're not entirely human.

In the end, Maria seemed satisfied with Stacey's answers and attitude. Stacey didn't mention that she'd already had this discussion a half dozen times over the past six weeks with her sister. Katie taught law at UBC, with a special focus on human rights and constitutional law. As a result, Stacey had a fair bit of practice and was already aware of some potential challenges she and others like her might face.

Finally, Maria nodded "Ok Miss Saunders, I'm satisfied. I think you might be a very good fit here. The legal experience will be helpful of course, but the fact that you've used that spell to change yourself, and in such an obvious and unmistakable way, is also a plus."

She explained, "Since the June full moon, we've been getting more and more people asking us about that spell, looking for advice or information on how to handle their new lives afterwards. While we can provide some of those answers and guidance, having someone on-staff who's already lived through it will really go a long way. I hope you won't mind if your responsibilities here include discussing that?"

Stacey smiled, "Not at all."

Kara asked, "Did you do it in June?"

"May, actually." Stacey replied. "It's been just over seven weeks now."

The enby nodded, they actually looked impressed at that.

"If you don't mind discussing it," Jessica asked, "How did they handle your change at your previous job?"

Stacey sighed. Some of those memories were still a bit raw, but she knew she'd probably be asked about this many more times in the future. She'd already been through it more than once with her sister.

"Not great," she replied. "The police aren't exactly known for being open-minded, after all."

She sighed again, then explained "The day before, I handed my boss the paperwork to apply for early retirement. I had the day of the full moon off, and I had a friend from the force with me to witness it. I was supposed to be back to work the day after, but I chickened out. I asked my friend not to tell anyone yet what had happened, and I took a few days' sick leave, till I got the news that my early retirement had been approved, for June thirtieth."

Stacey took a deep breath, before continuing "I went back work five days after the full moon, and my boss and coworkers flipped out. I was almost arrested for 'impersonating an officer'. My badge and gun were taken, and I was treated like a criminal. People I'd stood alongside and risked my life next to roughed me up and threw me in an interrogation room. They held me a few hours, had the department shrink come in and talk to me, ran my prints... Eventually my friend vouched for me, and luckily my fingerprints hadn't changed too much, they matched my file."

She finished, "I was put on administrative leave, then a week later they told me my retirement date had been moved up to June fifteenth. I was never taken off leave, so my last real day on the job was the day before I changed. To be honest, I kind of expected that sort of thing might happen. I didn't think it would cost me the friendship though, I thought Rob would stand by me regardless."

Maria and Jessica both sighed, and all three of them looked unhappy as Stacey recounted the tale. Finally Jess asked, "If you were going to retire anyways, why didn't you wait till the retirement was done before doing the spell?"

Stacey shrugged, "As soon as I saw how many hits Heather's video had, I knew there'd be a lot of people changing. And I knew it would be exponential, from one month to the next, as word got out. I won't lie, I mostly did this for myself. But I also knew sooner or later the force would have to confront it, and I figured I'd go first. Let them see one of their own changed, so they were already aware of it when they came across it 'in the wild' so to speak."

"How did you know the spell would work?" Maria asked. "I think most people who saw that video doubted its veracity, there weren't as many people using it in May as we'd expected."

Stacey grinned, "I met Cindy. Before I even knew about the spell or the video, I already knew magic was real. I'd experienced being teleported, and I knew she could toss fireballs around. She actually gave me a print-out of the spell. I'd never have heard of it otherwise."

Maria nodded, "Ah, that explains it. Very few cis people were aware of the spell until after the May full moon. Heather's video was only shared on a couple trans-friendly sites."

None of the three of them showed any surprise or reaction to Stacey's mention of being teleported or seeing fireballs. She realized with some surprise that magic was probably already commonplace to them.

After that, Maria brought the meeting to an end. Jessica and Kara went back to their other duties while Maria took Stacey into her office to discuss the employment details, covering her responsibilities, hours, compensation and so forth.

Twenty or thirty minutes later contracts were signed and Stacey had herself a part-time job. She'd be in here three days a week, alternating shifts week to week, beginning next Monday. The pay was decent too, considering it was part-time.

Stacey shook hands with Maria, then on her way out she bid Jessica and Kara a good day. She was in a fairly good mood as she made her way back home. She couldn't wait to talk with Katie and give her the good news.

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