Despite joking around and generally contributing to the relaxed atmosphere, I wasn’t without worries – after all, there was still another topic to touch on, and I wasn’t naive enough to not connect the dots. Really, it was naive of me to think I could just become a girl and refuse to change back and everyone would just let it slide, but I’d hoped I at least they wouldn’t corner me like this, and now I couldn’t even convince my brain to try to run and hide, because I knew it would be pointless.

I eventually resorted to getting my legs up onto the couch and hugging my knees.

After all, if they were so insistent on me not being a bad person, then maybe if I made myself a small and pathetic enough target, they’d spare me…

“Fuck, it’s gotten so late, you kids will need to go to bed soon, don’t worry Lottie, you can stay over. But… we do need to address one final thing before that,” knight Mom said.

“Do we have to?” I asked in a small, pleading voice, which I pulled off much better than I’d expected.

She looked away, and demon Mom had to step in for her.

“It’s important, sweetheart,” she responded.

“Are you sure it is? Maybe we can put it off for a day or two… or forever…” I mumbled.

“You’re really scared, aren’t you? How do you even know what this is about?” Lottie asked.

“Well, how do the three of you know, if you haven’t had time to talk about it? I’m not that oblivious!”

“I promise there’s nothing to be scared of, honey,” knight Mom tried to reassure me.

I knew she wasn’t lying, and yet I still rejected it with tears in my eyes.

“If there’s nothing to be scared of, then how come you didn’t say anything earlier! How come you just kept going quiet and looking at me weird or saying something serious or changing the topic every time it came up! None of you are finding any of this even slightly surprising, and you keep acting like you know so much more than me, and yet you never did anything about it! How am I supposed to believe I have nothing to be scared of when this is all I have to even guess what’s going on?!” I shouted.

I was full on crying now, fully curled up on myself and refusing to interact with the outside world.

It wasn’t fair, none of it was fair!

Why did I have to deal with all of that shit?

Why did it have to hurt so much just to be?

Why did I hate myself so much?

It would be so much easier if I was just born like them…

And, well, maybe demon Mom wasn’t born as herself, but she at least was herself so clearly and so self-evidently, and I just…

I just wanted things I couldn’t have.

And I was trying to take them, using my corruption and inability to turn back as convenient excuses to wash myself of agency of the choices I wanted to make anyways…

I started to run out of tears long before I could cry myself out, but at least, some sort of quirk of my new biology had granted me the ability to do so without becoming gross with snot, so all I had to deal with was a little bit of mental pain being converted into physical pain all over my my face and throat.

I eventually felt a new hand making its way onto my shoulder.

“Hey sweetie, can you please look at me?” demon Mom asked.

Slowly, I raised my face out of my hands to look right in front of me, which was exactly where she was.

I tried to wipe away my tears with my hand, but between them and me squinting from getting used to seeing light again, my vision was still blurry.

And yet, the glow of her purple eyes was very self-evident, guiding, and even comforting…

“That’s my girl.” I could see just enough to be able to tell she smiled at me. “I’m going to be honest with you, and I’m going to say the truth, because I am the only person in this room who actually went through what you’re going through right now: this is scary. It’s terrifying. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the most scared you’ve felt your entire life, and it’s way too strong of a feeling to be stopped by whether or not it’s justified to be scared. And I don’t want you to feel like this, none of us do, and I’d do anything to spare you of this feeling, but please, be honest with me, with yourself – do you truly believe that if we skipped this conversation entirely, it wouldn’t just keep eating away at you regardless? Because I have a feeling you wouldn’t be this scared if that was the case.”

I had no capacity to make words, and I had no clue if nodding or shaking my head would be admitting that she was right, so I just decided to risk it by nodding and hoped she’d get the message.

“That’s right… I know it won’t feel better until we’re done with it, and you’ll still need ages to recover, but… You clearly don’t know certain things, and the way you talk about them… You’re using your lack of knowledge as a way to hurt yourself, so it’s only natural you’re scared that people who want you to learn about it are going to hurt you with it too, but I promise that this is a good thing. I promise we’ll never force you to be something that’s not you. So please, can you hear us out?” demon Mom finished, practically begging me to give this a chance by the end of it.

One thing was clear – this couldn’t go on, she was right about that much.

So, in the end, I decided to give it a go, and nodded.

Worst case scenario, this would be just tearing off the band aid, right?

Satisfied with my answer, demon Mom got back up and returned to where she’d been sitting, before gesturing to her wife to start talking.

“So, sweetie, do you remember how I taught you about queerness?” she asked.

I nodded. Not only did I want to do good by people around me, but I’d also found the topic compelling for reasons that had either eluded me, or were too inappropriate to acknowledge outside of shameful masturbatory sessions.

“Right, of course you do… So, I went to great lengths to describe the sexuality side of queerness, since that’s what I’m familiar with, but I admit I have… omitted the other parts of it. Partly because I thought I knew so little that you’d be better off reading into it on your own, which I’d assumed you’d do because you were so curious about it, partly because I didn’t want to… push anything on you. Either of you, really. Which was a big mistake, since both of you clearly needed a push… So, though I suspect I already know the answer, but… do you know anything about the gender side of queerness?”

You could be queer in a gender way?

Somewhere, within a deep, dusty corner of my mind, I vaguely recalled hearing, or reading, the term ‘genderqueer’, but with how low quality the memory was, it was just as likely I’d just made it up…

“N-no…” I admitted.

It wasn’t easy, but I got myself to talk again – I finally didn’t hate the sound of my voice, after all…

“Okay, so, from the beginning, are you familiar with the word transgender?”

Oh.

Oh no.

I had a bad feeling about this, but I couldn’t exactly lie about it.

“I… have seen it in some… less than appropriate places on the internet… But I’m pretty sure it meant something different in that context…” I explained, leaving demon Mom and Lottie confused.

Knight Mom, however, seemed to know what I was talking about.

“Ah, that’s… Well, people do often use the same words to mean different things, and given the structure of the word it’s not entirely unrelated, especially in cases like yours, but… A lot of things you could have read in places like that aren’t exactly accurate to how things work in real life,” knight Mom explained.

Wait, she knew about the weird transformation fetish things I read? I knew for a fact my parents would never touch my computer, so how?

I wordlessly communicated my confusion to her, to which she responded with glancing at her wife for a second, before smirking, and winking at me.

Now, I was never one of those kids who found the idea of my parents having sexualities disgusting or anything, I was raised in sex positive enough way to make that not really a problem, but I still couldn’t shake a feeling I had just learned something I shouldn’t have about my mother.

“Umm… What are you two talking about?” demon Mom asked, looking between the two of us with concern.

“Don’t worry about it, darling,” knight Mom responded while patting her on the back.

The very confusing and awkward moment was interrupted by none other than Lottie groaning loudly.

“Ugh, we’re never going to get through this at this pace!” she exclaimed, before repositioning us to be face to face with each other by grabbing my shoulders. “Listen, you can be a girl if you want to, in fact, you already are. Guys don’t want to be girls, only girls do, so wanting to be one means you are one. Wanting to be a girl is, like, the only requirement. I’ve read variations of those words so many times online and I have no idea how you managed to avoid even interacting with the general concept, but that’s all there is to it! I know there are bigots out there and that’s scary, but they’re wrong when they say that you are wrong, you’re anything but wrong. Please don’t hurt yourself anymore. Please don’t run away from yourself. I can’t stand watching you like this anymore, I just want you to be happy, so please, just once, be kind to yourself too…”

She let out the words so fast, I was halfway convinced she said it all in one breath, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t take me a moment to actually process it all, but once I did…

Was it really just that simple?

I mean, it couldn’t be, right?

I turned to look at my Moms.

“Is that really it?” I asked.

Knight Mom nodded.

“Yes, it is sweetie. You’re just like me,” demon Mom reassured me.

“B-but, there’s no way! I can’t be! I, I’ve felt it with my powers, I felt you, it was so obvious, there’s no way I can be like that…” I said, still trying to deny what was obvious, given the new information I’d just gained.

Demon Mom smirked in response.

“Hey sweetie, guess what my powers told me about you?” she asked, very smugly and presumably rhetorically.

And then it hit me.

She was telling the truth.

Even indirectly, even without my powers, even without my own ability to lie, I’d be able to tell if she wasn’t.

It wasn’t just obvious.

It was the most self-evident thing in the world to anyone who could sense it that I was, and always had been, a girl.

Whoa…

“So… I’m really just a girl then, huh…” I said.

“Yes sweetheart,” knight Mom responded.

“Of course,” demon Mom added.

“So, how does it feel?” Lottie asked.

“Umm, I think it’s, like, the best feeling in the world ever possible ever. I want a plushie! I want a giant plushie that I can bring everywhere so that I can hug it when I can’t hug anyone and so that I can be cute and girly with it, please. I don’t think I have any plushies anymore, I don’t know if we still have any somewhere, but they’re definitely not big enough!” I exclaimed.

“Okay, that doesn’t add up, I don’t buy that these two would ever make you get rid of your plushies,” Lottie commented.

“Oh, no, they never did, I just at some point started feeling really sad and tired and over the years, I just sort of decided that spending any energy on doing things that didn’t serve actual, practical purpose or didn’t distract me from my life enough were simply not worth it because I didn’t want to waste any of my precious energy on silly things when I could use it on things I really wanted to do but never ended up actually doing because I was too tired anyways,” I explained, matter of factly.

Silence fell upon the living room once more, and my parents eventually turned to look at each other, looking concerned.

“What’s happening? Everybody’s being quiet and serious again…” I asked, making myself smaller in concern.

Lottie responded with laughter.

“I think they’re just realizing they can’t get away with not sending you into therapy, no matter how much self-actualizing you do,” she added.

~~~~~

With all topics of importance addressed, the evening wound down and we’d started relaxing, which in this household meant that my parents fired up one of the consoles and invited me and Lottie to join. I’d considered it, even going as far as picking one of the controllers, only to realize that my hands were much smaller now, meaning that I’d have to go through an adjustment period, and I quickly decided that starting it with playing Super Smash Brothers (without items, because my Moms were nerds) at competitive levels that I wasn’t personally anywhere near myself was not the best of ideas.

Besides, Lottie had another idea, apparently she wanted to talk in private, so we decided that my room would be the best.

However, before that, I revealed that I had not looked in the mirror in my new body, and Lottie decided it was the priority, especially if she could witness it, and so we headed for the big mirror attached to the sliding doors of the corridor closet.

Immediately as I saw myself, I stopped, falling silent, and to her credit, Lottie gave me space and time needed to process what I was seeing.

My attention first went to my face, of course. I lacked proper terms to describe it, but it was definitely cute and pretty, but not unrealistically so for my age, the only thing standing out being my eyes, purple, and emitting a light amount of glow characteristic of dark energy, despite me still not having any, just like demon Mom’s.

Next, I focused on the long, pitch black hair framing my face, which was fluffy yet straight, and it felt extremely soft and nice as I ran my hand through it, surprised not to find any knots. On the top of my head sat two horns, if you could even call them that – those were very unlike demon Mom’s; they didn’t emerge far from my hair, and instead of having complex shape, they simply ended, not in sharp points, but in roundness, completely harmless both to me and to my surroundings, which I liked to think fit me.

Or at least, I hoped it did.

My body wasn’t necessarily curveless, but you couldn’t exactly expect much of a sixteen year old girl of my height. I found it to be just fine with me though, aside from the strange feeling about my chest size, almost like I was disappointed about not being disappointed? Regardless, my breasts might not have been large, but even without looking I could feel they were still there, and that was enough for me.

I wanted to move on to comparing my size to that of Lottie, having found the exercise to evoke a lot of nice feelings in me before, but I simply couldn’t avoid what I was wearing any longer – the close-fitting black bodysuit with various, uncomfortably revealing holes that was clearly designed for a body with far more curves that mine.

Sure, I had to admit that it worked well for demon Mom, giving her that ‘sexually liberated villainess’ vibe, but on me it just looked out of place, while still being exactly as embarrassing to wear.

“You know, I somehow managed to ignore that I was wearing this until now,” I said.

“It’s cute, on you at least, which is a feat considering how slutty it is,” Lottie commented.

“H-hey, no shaming!” I corrected, still feeling too embarrassed to even say the word in question.

“Who said anything about shaming?” she asked, her voice low enough to make me feel… things.

“O-okay, that’s enough, we were about to talk in private, so let’s go do that,” I mumbled.

Being corrupted once again showed its benefits, as it enabled me to grab Lottie’s hand and drag her to my room without giving it a second thought until we were both sitting on my bed, at which point I occupied both of my hands with covering my face as I groaned into them and collapsed back.

“Gee, I said we needed to talk, but unprotected handholding? At this stage of our relationship?” she asked.

“This! This is exactly what we need to talk about!” I shouted, quietly because it was late and we had neighbors.

“Handholding? I know it’s pretty lewd, but–” Lottie was once again joking around before I interrupted her.

“What am I to you?” I asked, looking her in the eyes as much as I could given our relative positions.

That was the way to do it, right? Simple, direct, effective, no place for ambiguity.

And yet, she looked away.

Was I misinterpreting things? Was that just how girl friendships worked when there weren’t any guys around?

“Sorry, it’s just… back when you were doing your little speech, you implied I was important to you, and…” I trailed off.

“That is not what I said,” Lottie said, her voice serious and quiet.

“W-what?” Did I misremember it? Did I screw something up again?

“That is not what I said. I didn’t imply anything, I just said it. And I didn’t just say ‘important’, I said ‘most important’.” She paused before turning to face me once more. “I know exactly what I said because I meant every single word of it, and I’m confident you remember it better than that too.”

“I-I’m sorry…”

She was right, I did remember it better, I just didn’t believe it.

“No, it’s not your fault, I’m not angry at you, I’m just upset because… you’re putting yourself down again, and I hate that so much, because you mean so much to me, and because you don’t deserve it, and I just want to make it better, but I know I can’t do it in the way I want to, because…” It was her turn to trail off.

“Because?” I asked.

“Because I like you. Because I really really like you a lot, like, that kind of like, and I have for some time now…” she said, as if that explained anything.

“B-but… I thought you only liked girls?”

She chuckled, somehow amused by my accurate recalling of her sexuality.

“Newsflash, cutie, you were never exactly too subtle about that. Sure, you retreated into yourself a lot over the years, but when that started and what seemed to cause it only gave more signs, and it’s not like I don’t remember what you were like when we were kids…” she explained.

That took me a bit to process.

It was one thing realizing that, logically, given the rules of how things worked, I have been a girl all my life, but it was entirely different to be told that someone saw it in me, so much so that they developed feelings for me that wouldn’t be possible if they didn’t.

And it was even more different, because it wasn’t just someone, it was Lottie.

And that maybe, just maybe, though I’d never allowed myself to even think about acknowledging it… those feelings were mutual.

“I-I don’t understand… What’s the problem, then?” I asked.

She laughed again, no longer her cool, low chuckle, but full on maddened giggling.

“Have you taken a look at your life recently? You went through more than any person ever should just today, you have so many layers of trauma that even with no inhibitions it’ll probably take you years to discover them all. You are vulnerable, you are fragile, you quite literally have no inhibitions whatsoever, and… Even if we do like each other, and are compatible, and I try my very best, there’s still no way I won’t take advantage of you as you are now…” she explained.

That… made sense.

It hurt, sure, but while my parents might not have taught me as much as I had thought they did, they did teach me about relationships and power dynamics, and it made sense.

“I see…” I responded quietly. “I can’t argue with that,” I eventually added, looking away from Lottie.

“Hey, are you okay?” she asked, concern clear in her voice.

I considered it for a bit.

There wasn’t really a reason to rush, was there?

She’d still be here for as long as it took me to get myself together.

And in the meantime… We were still here.

Still together.

Just… differently.

I looked her in the eyes again.

“Can I still be close to you?” I asked. “Like, physically. Because, like, it felt really nice when you hugged me, or when I rested against you, or when I held your hand, and… we don’t have to be dating to still do all those things… right?” My voice got quieter and quieter as I spoke, but I couldn’t allow myself to stop before I was done.

She looked back at me for a couple seconds, before smiling, letting herself fall back onto the mattress, turning onto her side to face me, and pulling me into a cuddle.

“Of course you can. I promise I’ll never push you away,” she said into my shoulder.

It didn’t take long before we ended up in a full mutual embrace, having shifted to more appropriate laying in bed position, not a care in the world but each other’s warmth.

Well… maybe one more thought.

Demon Mom was right, my sheets smelled horrible now.

But luckily, I had a perfect Lottie for the job, to cancel out my old smell with that of a lovely girl.

Falling asleep in a girl's arms while obsessing over her smell could definitely be done platonically… right?

Rainbow

Here it is, the chapter that wraps it all up, the chapter that ran longer than anticipated, as was a theme for this project, and a chapter that was just barely too short to split into two chapters! That's probably for the better, the wrapping up of this story lasted way too long even without yet another chapter... I'm normally better at pacing than this, I swear (she lied, because her memory is too bad to tell if that's the truth or not)!

Anyways, gay women! Gay girls! Girls who are girls! All those good things! Isn't the catharsis sweet? Well, I hope so, because it's kinda carrying, like, half of the narrative here, if not more!

If you want to read this story to its ending now, you can... wait, shit, it's only the epilogue left now... Well, the e-book version of the story is still nice to have if you're into that kind of thing, and it's not like I made the Patreon for just this story, so I'm gonna just... leave those links here regardless:
Patreon | itch.io

I hope you enjoyed this chapter and have a great three days until the epilogue! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜