After my admittedly rather explosive (in more ways than one) combined self-discovery and assassination attempt I had made a rather reasonable assumption that due to needing a whole new identity, as well as time to recover from trauma, I’d be gifted a longer break from school-based activities, but alas, that hadn’t lasted even two weeks until I was told to go back.

Well, it’s more like I was told that I could return to school, and I didn’t have any good excuses not to, with ‘don’t wanna’ and ‘am scared’ being insufficient on account of ‘if those counted, you’d never come back to school again’, which I’d begrudgingly accepted as an argument that held some validity.

Lucky for me, a certain someone shared all my classes and had happily volunteered to be my emotional support Lottie.

…Even if said emotional support included holding my hand firmly to make sure I wouldn’t run away, because if it wasn’t for it, I would have already done so at least five times before even crossing the school entry.

Classes were scary, sure, and so was the mortifying ordeal of being known, but there was a reason we were here so early, despite having already taken care of all the administrative stuff beforehand – I had confrontations to make.

First and foremost was Raine, of course, because she’d been unable to visit me in the meantime due to family obligations.

And so, we approached our usual pre-classes hangout spot, with the friend in question already waiting.

Of course, I did the mature and reasonable thing of hiding behind Lottie, as much as handholding would allow, and only tilting myself from there enough for Raine to see my eyes.

“Hi,” I said, in a tiny voice.

“Hey… I have no clue why you’re hiding, Lottie already told me literally the entire story and has shown me a frankly unreasonable amount of pictures of how you look now, so it’s pretty safe to say I’m in the loop now,” Raine responded, clearly already exasperated by my antics.

Having seen her point, I came out from behind Lottie, mostly.

“I need you to understand that the only reason I’m still here is that Lottie would stop me if I tried to run,” I explained.

“I see, so she’s the one who’s wrapped your tail several times around her hand that you’re holding,” she teased.

I looked at Lottie’s arm, and sure enough…

“EEP!” I squeaked, way too loudly, thanking goddesses that the school was still mostly empty. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I just–”

I was interrupted by Lottie’s other hand giving me a singular pat, staying there, like she was silencing an alarm clock.

“Whatever makes you comfortable is fine by me, it’s not like it’s the first time your tail did something like that.” She comforted me.

That was true.

One of the side effects of getting my beloved extra limb I’ve been missing my entire life was that it felt very natural, and that included it being rather eager to help out with things I was doing without me consciously realizing it was happening, moving on some sort of deep-seated muscle memory I’d never earned.

I was trying to do better about letting myself have things, and so I decided to let my tail remain where it was – even though I hadn’t realized it consciously, it had been giving me a very welcome amount of comfort to have it there.

It turned out that falling into the usual conversation dynamic between us wasn’t that hard after all, with Lottie’s energy, Raine’s dry responses, and my best attempts to be reasonable while also keeping my attempts at humor (which Lottie apparently found rather charming, somehow), and I had nothing to be scared of.

It was almost time to move on to other people I had to talk to, but before we did, I had to address something that’s been bugging me.

“Hey Raine, I’m sorry if this is, like, rude or offensive or something to ask, but are you by any chance some kind of fae?” I asked.

She responded by sighing and putting her palm to her forehead.

“I should have figured this was coming, what with your weird passive species magic and all… No, I am not a fae of any kind. See, a direct answer, that’s how you know,” she said.

Huh. I guess it was a little bit too obvious to be the case.

“Oh, umm, my magic is still on a fritz, it works a little bit, but I’m not strong enough to recover fast, and even when I do, when I corrupted myself, my powers ‘stabilized’, which apparently means that they won’t be as hyperactive as they used to be, luckily,” I explained.

“That’s cool and all, but, like,” Lottie started. “I don’t really get why you can’t trust us with the actual truth. Like, you know our deals pretty thoroughly by now, including my secret identity, and… we trust you a lot, and it’s kinda hurtful that you don’t trust us. It’s okay if you have your reasons, I understand, but, well… honesty is kinda my thing, so here it is.”

“Honesty is my thing too, it’s actually a thing for all three of us, now,” Raine responded.

“Hey! I can lie just fine! I just can’t do it if I don’t want to, and if I do I’m probably much worse than I used to be, but still!” I corrected.

“Regardless, since you’re both magic right now, and you’re pretty much my only friends on the outside… No, just because we are friends, I can trust you, even if I was taught not to. The truth is that I’m a druid, and have been raised by a commune of druids – like, I have legal parents, but in practice, all of the adults in the community are my parents in a way. I was just taught to never tell that to anyone on the outside, mostly because of bigotry, and also because I’m adopted, and the government isn’t exactly the most accommodating of family systems that aren’t, you know… nuclear family,” Raine confessed.

“Okay, but what about the lying thing and the pointy ears?” I asked.

“Oh, that. It’s not exactly a standard practice, but the Oath of Truth is very useful when commuting with nature spirits and animals, since they’re otherwise not the most trusting of humans and they can sense it. I just didn’t think it was that big of a deal, I still don’t. And the ears… Well, if you could shift into cute animal forms on demand, even if turning back fully took time, wouldn’t you?” she explained.

“Well, before now, maybe, but I’d mostly be doing it to get some tail, and I have one of those now, and fur reminds me too much of body hair, so nope,” I responded.

Lottie burst out laughing and Raine smirked, both clearly very amused.

“What? What did I say?” I whined.

“We’ll tell you when you’re older.” Raine had the audacity to wink at me.

I did the mature thing and stuck out my tongue.

I looked around in hope to escape the awkward situation, and sure enough, I found my next targets.

Lottie had been kind enough to contact Stacey and Liana to ask them to show up early so I could apologize for the trouble I’d caused in relative peace, and they had arrived.

Though I also noticed the person I’d caused troubles to indirectly, the boy the two had targeted when corrupted, even though my mostly non-functional powers told me that ‘boy’ was perhaps not the correct way to refer to them.

Huh, the more you know…

Of course, Lottie wasted no time dragging me to them once she stopped laughing, and I was having troubles with being seen, let alone actually speaking, but once I started, I just spilled everything out.

Well, not everything. Sure, apologizing properly required some context, like how I hadn’t done what I’d done on purpose, how I’d done it, or what exactly it was that I’d actually done to them, but when I was adamant on apologizing, my Moms and Lottie sat me down and we figured out together what details of the story were important enough to be worth mentioning, and which ones I could and even should skip – even though I still hadn’t processed fully how much of a traumatic experience it was, I didn’t exactly want to inflict the story about how my grandma’d tried to murder me on everyone I interacted with.

And so, just like that, I was done with the explanation, and it was time for me to breathe heavily as I remembered that air was, in fact, still required for my survival.

After I calmed down, I just sort of said, “So, yeah, that’s pretty much it, at least the important parts, so now that you know, I wanted to just properly say… I’m sorry.”

Stacey and Liana looked at each other, and then at the not-boy behind them, before turning back to me.

“Well, we talked about all this before, and we sort of decided that nothing actually bad happened as a result of all this, hell, they even fired that one dickhead teacher for being a homophobe after he went full mask off trying to punish me, so… I think it’s safe to say we forgive you,” Stacey said.

“Yeah! And you know, when you recover enough to do so, I actually wouldn’t mind being ‘corrupted’ again for a bit, with knowledge of what’s actually happening this time… but only if that’s okay with you,” Liana added.

“I, umm… I’d need to ask Mom, both of them, actually, but… I’m sure there’s a way to do that safely, and I don’t see a reason why not,” I responded.

“Actually, I have a question too!” not-boy added, partially hiding behind the two just as I hid behind emotional support Lottie, but without hand- and tail-holding.

“Oh, um, sure,” I mumbled.

“What’s your name now?” they asked.

Huh, that was… I guess it was hard to shake myself out of the avoiding-my-name-like-the-plague mode, but I did have to have something to be able to sign up to school again.

“Right, umm… I’m not one hundred percent sure about it, names are hard and stuff, but I’ve been trying out Lucy… Because, it’s like the most demon demon, Lucifer, when I’m, like, apparently the most harmless demon ever, and I like that kind of humor, so yeah…” I explained, before pausing for a couple seconds. “How about you? Sorry, I didn’t mean to, like, invade your privacy, but my powers told me for some reason you had some identity developments too, so…”

They blushed, looking to the side, only to see Liana nod encouragingly as Stacey took their hand and squeezed it for courage.

“It’s, umm… It’s Cheryl… And, uhh, she/her pronouns, just like you all,” she confirmed shyly.

I was about to say something generic to fight off awkwardness, but then, a lightbulb lit up in my head as I remembered something from my research into trans girl stuff.

“Anime girl,,,,,,” I mumbled in awe.

Cheryl’s face lit up in excitement.

“Yes, exactly like her! I know it’s silly, but… wanting to be an anime girl was actually really relatable. To be honest, I’m still kinda envious, she got to look pretty even without hormones in that comic, and then there’s you, just magically transformed like that… I know it’s not all good, and I know it’s not healthy to be so envious, but… It’s hard, you know? It hurts a lot…” she explained.

Even without my powers, I could feel her hurt… It was the same hurt that had caused me to think I’d deserved to be hurt, that I’d needed to hurt myself even more…

But then, it hit me!

Magical transformation!

I turned in the direction of where we left Raine and shouted “Hey Raine!” before realizing that we had, in fact, not left her.

“Hey, I’ve been here the whole time, I’m surprised you didn’t notice. Just wanted to give some emotional support,” Raine responded.

“Oh, umm, thank you, like, a lot. Say, can you maybe check Cheryl’s magic potential like you did with me?” I asked.

“I don’t see why, but sure, why not…” she said, before looking at Cheryl intently, making her shrink in place. “Oh! She’s actually pretty good! And it’s a universal affinity too, not like your weird super-specific dark energy or whatever.”

“O-oh, I could learn magic? That’s exciting, but doesn’t that require, like, actual teachers and stuff?” Cheryl asked.

“I looked it up! Apparently, the basics are pretty easy to find on the internet these days! Of course, you need more than the basics to use it for transition, but I just so happen to know a certain someone with access to an instructional pdf about transformation magic!” I said, excited at being able to help someone like me.

“That… could actually work, I think,” Raine responded.

“That… That’d be great! Thank you so much!” Cheryl brought her hands up to her face in excitement.

“Yay! It’s so cool to know someone my age that’s like me! Demon Mom is really cool and all, but she’s still an adult, so it’s not the same, but now, there’s two of us!” I exclaimed.

“Ahem,” Liana sounded.

“Huh?” I asked.

“Three of us,” she corrected. “I might have started out years ago, and I’ve been mostly fine with where I am for a while now, but I did transition, using regular human means too, so it’s gotta count for something, right?”

I did not expect that, even though in retrospect, I really should have.

After a couple seconds to reboot my brain, I gasped loudly.

“Omigosh, that’s so cool! Three of us!!!” I yelled even louder.

Even with five people, it took them a bit to calm me down from the endorphin rush I was experiencing, after which it didn’t take that long until the classes started.

The classes were terrifying, sure, especially given that I’d never been the best of students, but with Lottie there, I didn’t really have anyone give me trouble despite my appearance probably disturbing some more traditional folks. In the end, it was just school, same as always.

Of course, Lottie wasn’t the only one to keep me company, at least during the breaks, as not only Raine, but also Stacey, Liana and Cheryl joined me to hang out.

By the end of the day, I was pretty sure I had accidentally doubled the size of my friend group.

And sure, there was still a lot to be uncertain about, I was still a huge mess, and my first therapy session was still yet to happen, since between all my queerness and the ‘supernatural disability’ as aunt Cristina had called it, finding a therapist actually not only able but also well equipped to deal with all of it was a bit more of a challenge.

I didn’t mind waiting though.

Sure, a lot of things in my life were yet to be resolved, or yet to be fixed, or even yet to be addressed, but at the end of the day, I was still in a much better place than I could ever have imagined myself in just a couple weeks prior, let alone dared to hope for, and I was really, really happy.

My family was finally honest, my friends cared about me, Lottie extra cared about me, and I had a bright future to look forward to, and in the end, could a girl really ask for more from her life?

Rainbow

And that's it! Not everything is wrapped up, but I think this is as neat and tidy as I could have reasonably made it. It's definitely been a journey writing this story, the journey that wasn't perhaps the healthiest (I wrote most of this story at a rate of one chapter a day every day, and while there's some people who can pull that off without problems, I'm far from one of them), but it was still a journey that I was happy to have! And I'm beyond proud of how the story came out! All that is to say, I hope it's been a journey for you too, and that it's been a good one that you've enjoyed! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

This is the copypasta time, but the story is over... Oh, well, you can still buy the e-book version of this story together with all other stories in the Bundle for the next 100 years, and who knows, maybe my Patreon has another unpublished story waiting for you right now! I certainly don't know, it's still 22nd of October for me! Maybe if she remembers, future Rainbow will come here to clarify that part! She certainly won't rewrite this paragraph though, because I'd rather die than pretend to be a respectable professional.

Anyways, I hope you have a nice day, you deserve it! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

Rainbow

Future Rainbow that is still past Rainbow for you but also from hour after this chapter went up edit: No new stories on Patreon yet, alas, but with Secret Santa bundle incoming, in which I participated in as always, there will be at least one thing soon. Hopefully I'll manage to write more soon, I have some ideas floating around.