DerbyGhost

Sorry for the longer wait for the second chapter. I wanted to give you all a little time to enjoy Bun in all their glory. And now, a conversation is had.

Curled up on one side of the bed I stared at Bun, neither of us wanting to be the first entity to talk. I’m sure I was supposed to take the lead here since it was my identity that we wanted to discuss, but I was hesitant around them. How much did I want to share? How honest could I be with some Slimer who claimed that they’d been attached to me for my entire life. 

Okay that’s not fair to Bun. Slimer is this gross blob who eats all the food in the house. What could I call them? I mean they were made of sentient darkness that oozed… Well I don’t know what they oozed. Some sort of material that was beyond my comprehension. Maybe I could call them a heartless? No then I’d have to explain about Kingdom Hearts to anyone who asked and that shit’s beyond me. They’re not dead so not really a spirit, nor did they ever actually say what they were. 

Looking at my options with my conversation, what would be the point of lying? All it would do is push me further down a dark path if I’m as duplicitous and untrustworthy as Bun here, and I could trust them as far as I could throw them. Which, actually, I had no idea if I actually even was able to throw them. I knew they could touch me, but I’m actually pretty happy not trying to touch them. 

“So. . .” I paused. I was really doing this wasn’t I? 

“Sew buttons, pal. Come on. Let’s get to the good stuff. The angst. The turmoil. The drama!” Bun draped their little paw dramatically across their fuzzy little forehead. “The high stakes wrestling match against the self. Picture it now, the you that you are and the you that you so want to be wrapped up in a sweaty little bundle of limbs.” The bun scratched at the bed and wrinkled its nose at me. “Kind of hot.”

I blushed and my ears stood straight up as my brain tried desperately not to picture the image that I already was picturing. “Okay if we’re going to have a conversation Bun, we need some ground rules. Okay?” I cocked my head at them, expecting a protest. Upon not getting any in response, I carried on. “This is sensitive and new to me, so when I tell you to back off you’re going to back off. Got it? This whole,” I wiggled my fingers in the air, “gender thing is rough and fresh to me. Or at least exploring it is. And I need to take this seriously. It’s something I owe to Audrey, to Kass, and most importantly to myself.”

The Bun nodded, “Well well it looks like the kitten’s got some teeth after all. Alright. I accept your boundaries as long as you promise not to be an ol’ stick in the mud and push these thoughts aside because it’s too stressful. Let’s have some honest, open engagement hmm? It’s tastier that way. More fun for all parties involved. Trust me, I solemnly swear that I am up to good, for now, obviously. Hey did you hear about JK Rowling, she went full mask off, huh. Oh wait, sorry, let’s reign it in.” Bun made a little exaggerated show of zipping up their lips and nodded at me to keep going.

“Honest open engagement it is. And since you get to pry with me, Bun, I get to pry at you. Fair?”

“As fair as fried food and a heart attack. As fair as the promise of prizes easily sought after but hard to win. As fair as a rickety roller coaster built overnight by sleep deprived carnies. All’s fair here. Nothing up my sleeve.” The bun extended their paw towards mine, “Let’s shake, hmm?”

Tentatively I took their paw in my own. The grip was icy cold and felt like I was trying to snatch fog, but solid enough that I was grasping onto something. As I pulled my hand away I still felt traces and residue of whatever the Bun was made of, sticky and tarry black as the night. “Alright well since I want to push this off as much as possible, what actually are you Bun? I know your name is Bun, but you have to give me a little more than that.”

“Ooh turning the interview on me? Exciting, exciting! Hmm well, I refer to myself as a spirit but that’s not entirely right. I guess maybe Trickster with a capital T is the right word? I feed on energy and emotions, and honey you are a veritable smorgasbord. A little walking Swedish breakfast. An extra big serving of meatballs and lingonberry sauce at Ikea, that good. But I’m assuming you kind of figured that out already, hmm. My origins are celtic, maybe, not entirely sure, everything is a little fuzzy. Once you outlive parts of the culture that created you, aka they all got murdered by various factions, all sorts of roles and compulsions kind of lose all meaning, ya dig. But hey, I’m known to bring good luck and fertility,” at this they wiggled their eyebrows seductively at me, “If breeding is your kink, that is. It depends. I prefer to think of myself as a rambler, or at least I was.”

“And why do you want to help me work through this? I thought you liked when I was miserable,” I pressed. 

“Ah ah ah! We agreed that we’d share, remember. It’s my turn to ask the questions. Jay the precious little pussy, you’ve just been told that there’s a Trickster spirit that’s been latched onto your soul nomming on your worries and angst and fears and you’re still chilling here on the bed playing twenty questions. Why are you taking this so easily?”

I shook my head, “Well I’m not. I’m scared shitless. I’ve been scared shitless ever since I met you. I mean look at you, you’re kind of frightening even if you’re cute. In fact your cute little bunny nature makes you even scarier to me, no offense obviously.”

The Bun thumped their paw on the bed and nodded, “None taken. That’s just the way it is.”

“Well, I guess I just can’t focus on being scared of you right now, if that makes sense. You’re here, and you’re kind of inevitable. You’d be lurking behind me, pushing me or whatever whether I knew you were there or not. So it’s either confront you and myself here and now, or I could just bottle it up again. But this time, by bottling it up I know that you’re still here. And that doesn’t sit right with me. I’m still uneasy with it, but now I know I’m not crazy. It’s not just some bad luck that I’ve been saddled with. Instead I’ve got you. I’ve got this bun and for once in my life I feel like I understand what’s been wrong with me.”

“Wow, were you going for an Oscar with that speech because that’s full of e-mo-tion. Bravo! Bravo!” The Bun stood on the bed and clapped for me and threw an ebony rose in front of me that vanished into vapor the moment it hit the bed. 

“Fuck you Bun, I’m trying to be honest with myself here.” I growled, crossing my arms in front of my chest, taking care not to press too hard against my tender fur. 

“That’s the ticket! Let out some of that frustration. Growl at me again! That was so cute when you did that. You are taking to these animal instincts so well. Rawwwr, I’m Jay. I’m a cute little kitty and I sniffed a mirror because I’m such a good little kiiiiitty.” 

“Enough Bun, it’s my turn. Don’t you remember that we’re playing fair. Why are you helping me?”

Surprisingly sheepish for what I’ve seen from them so far, the Bun took a moment to gather their thoughts. The silence drew on and we sat, looking at each other expectantly. At least, until Bun quietly mumbled, “I don’t really want to play anymore.”

I shook my head, “Uh-uh it doesn’t go like that. We shook on it Bun. Why are you helping me. No takesies backsies my dude.”

“Fine.” The Bun huffed, “Do you have a favorite food?”

“You’ve lived with me for what, a decade and a half and you don’t know? Pay attention a little bit Bun, it’s cookie cake.” Oh shit, could I try making my own cookie cake? That would be delicious. And it would save us so much time and money rather than having to drive to the mall to snag one. Wait, focus, dammit, focus. You can learn how to bake later, you fluffy head!

“Alright so you love cookie cake. Yum cookie cake it’s so good. And then you gorge yourself on it. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Wow so tasty so fun. And then after a while as the years go on you start looking at it and you’re like oh cookie cake again huh? It starts to lose its luster when it’s the only slop that you have access to. You,” they pointed right at my face. “You’re the cookie cake. There’s only so much turmoil and depression that I can take. I talk a big game, but I’m so tired of the same thing. Something’s gotta give bud. I need a new flavor of anxiety. You’re burning yourself out buddy and you don’t even realize it and it’s driving me nuts! And I’m a bunny, we don’t like nuts!”

“So you want me to self-reflect because you’re tired of the direction of our parasitic relationship and you want me to be… happier? So that when I do freak out it gives you a different flavor.”

“See, you understand! Right now your soul is kind of like salt and vinegar. Which is fine, but if you eat too much of it it leaves a weird feeling in your mouth and you have to take a break or else your tongue is going to start hurting.” 

The problem with asking Bun questions was every time they gave you an interesting answer you would have more and more questions looming in the back of your mind. It wasn’t fair. Dang spirits, always being so enigmatic and slippery. 

“Now now!” the Bun whispered, tapping their paw on their face in mock thinking. “It’s my turn let’s see. Hmmmm so many questions. So many concerns and worries. What should I ask first, ah of course. Do you want to be a girl?”

I let out a strangled yelp, “You can’t just ask someone that! I thought we had a little more tact in our relationship with that.”

“Wellllll tough!” The bun laughed as I squirmed. Maybe it was a mistake letting an eternal Trickster spirit play counselor. “Here I’ll phrase it in a different way. If I had a magic wand,” with a flick of their hand a wand appeared in their paw, a cheesy black tube with white ends like a stage magician from the 50s. “And poof! With a flick of my wand you’d be a girl instantly. No mess, no fuss, no having to work through all sorts of messy nonsense and red tape that humans seem to love creating. You’d just be a girl instantly and everyone would recognize that. No mom and dad judging you. No worrying about what the bullies in high school used to call you. All of that stuff was gone. Would you want to be a girl?” Their eyes gleamed with excitement and, well for a moment I mistakenly thought that I had seen some empathy there but I had to be misreading them. 

“I mean, yes, but it’s not that simple.” I sighed, “Yes okay yes. Yes. I want to be a girl. There’s been this burning yearning my entire life for something that’s been missing and I can’t explain it any other way. I’m a . . . I want to be. . . I want to be whole.” I looked down at my lap, trying to avoid the crooked gaze of my unlikely discussion partner. There was a shifting of the bed and again I felt the rough paws of the Bun pat me on my head.

We stayed like that for a moment, sitting at peace with each other. Their scratches and touches were light on my noggin, but carried a weight to them. It wasn’t enough to get over my distrust, but there was something genuine that accompanied these pats. A true sense of companionship, or at least shared experience. And it felt good, the pats, but also admitting to myself something that I had denied for so long. I didn’t just want to be a girl. I am a girl. And if my KT went the way that I was secretly hoping it might, my outside would reflect that. Holy shit my outside would reflect that. Wow. 

Light, that’s how I felt. My body was chained to an anchor, sinking down into a sea of self doubt and frustration and I just opened the lock. I wasn’t free from sinking yet, sure I had to put some effort into swimming. But I could do it. I was strong enough. And more importantly, I was a girl. I could be a girl. I could be me and free, what more could a gal ask for. 

“I’m a girl huh.” I whispered.

“Always have been,” the Bun nodded, stopping their blissful strokes. Paw come back, I whined grumpily in an extremely pathetic way. If there ever was a moment that I needed headpats, now was certainly the time. “My aren’t you touch starved. Well okay, just because this was a big thing for you to realize. It’s not like I like you or anything.” They resumed the headpats that I so desperately craved, this time mixing in ear scratches and different petting patterns to their previous pat repertoire. 

Part of me wanted to laugh thinking about how bizarre this must have seemed if anyone could have seen us. A plush, almost adult-sized catgirl getting pet on the head by a spectral rabbit. But despite how bizarre it was and how uncomfortable I still was with Bun’s presence, it was still nice to just relax. I had been so wrapped up with my sister and making things nice for Kass and for freaking out about my identity that there hadn’t really been time to just take a deep breath and relax. So I leaned into this ridiculous scene and purred happily at the Bun’s ministrations. 

The slow rumble built in my chest, much like earlier with my sister. This time I felt it happening as it got started, knowing how to associate the sensation with the noise that it produced. I was a girl. Fuck yeah I was. 

All good things have to come to an end and with another whine I realized that Bun had stopped their pets. That was so totally unfair, but I guess it was my turn to question my spectral interviewee. “Bun, don’t take this the wrong way, but how do I get rid of you? Daphne and Herbert said I was cursed.”

“Daphne and Herbert also spend all their days sneering at anyone who uses magic outside of the comfortable little box that they’ve built around themselves. Genuinely their opinions aren’t worth much, I mean who keeps a hand of glory around anyway? Perverts.”

“Well they’re experts in their field.” I murmured sheepishly, part of me agreeing with Bun but not wanting to explicitly go full chaos mode like them.

“They’re experts in making it harder for people to truly express themselves. Look at you, you’re sounding like Kass. ‘Uh actually the people who make me feel like shit are good for reasons I won’t explain to you.’ That’s you. That’s you right now.”

“Okay now I really want to get rid of you.”

“Well, pretty kitty. You can’t, not really, not ever. We’re kind of joined at the hip now. And trust me I tried. This is why I usually just play tricks and leave, but you were so tempting and such a good host. Til death do we part, my dude.”

“Seriously?”

“Dead serious.” They nodded, “But hey, now you at least have someone to talk to when you need it. I’ll be here, chilling out in the background. Call me, beep me, whenever you want to reach me with the ol’ candle mirror trick and I’ll give you sage advice or call you a dork. Hmm, really depends on how I’m feeling. Now, my turn?” 

“Mmhmm, yeah.”

“This is my last question, kiddo, and it’s a bit of a doozy but I think you can handle it. What’s your name?” They asked, cheeky smile replaced with something more earnest.

“Jerrod, but it’s Jay right now.”

“No, no no no. I didn’t ask what you were going by. What’s your real name?”

“Juniper,” I whispered, barely holding the tears back. “We’re done here Bun,” I stood, making my way to the desk, not wanting to cry in front of them. I didn’t want them to see me like this. Well, they’d probably still be here but I didn’t want to see them see me like this. Picking up the candle and holding it up to my muzzle, I stared right at the spirit hoping beyond all hope that this would make them go away for now.

“Aww but there’s so much left to do, kitty. I want to braid your hair and have girl talk and ask you why you haven’t asked out Ka-” As I blew out the candle, so too did Bun snuff out of existence. 

~~~

Remember when I said napping ruled? And how nice it was to get those little micro-bursts of sleep that let you wake up and be productive for the rest of that time before passing out again? I lied, napping sucked. Well less of a lie and more like I’ve come to the distinct realization that napping and getting up is fine as long as you aren’t thinking of a million things at once. 

I was a girl. And that should have been a relief. It made so many parts of my life make sense, sure. It cleared things up for me entirely. But for everything in my life that it made simpler, it also introduced a new kernel of doubt. I didn’t know how to live as a girl. How could I even do that, nobody taught me how. I was joking about it earlier but there's no guidebook to girlhood. There were so many different societal expectations placed on girls than there were guys. 

Also if I ever got a job that just cut out some of my income because of course we live in a sexist society that has decided that women deserve less money for doing the same jobs. And before anyone tries to make the concern troll argument that that’s because of the jobs that women take, I politely ask for you to refer to my middle finger pointing in your general direction. To top that off I’d have to worry about being out at night now, sexual harassment, getting pregnant, holy shit getting pregnant would I be able to do that with a post-KT body? Fuck I don’t know. Periods? 

Okay actually part of me was kind of excited about that. Not actually getting the periods, those sucked, but at the same time it would give me an instant solidarity with anyone else out there whose hormones decided to absolutely wreck their body and brain. I always got jealous sitting in a group of girl friends as they all talked about girl stuff, I thought before that it was because I was intruding or didn’t have anything to contribute. Now I know that I wanted to belong. To be a part of them. Fuck. God.

Okay no point in obsessing over this, checking my clock it’s like 6 o’clock, which is enough time to whip up something fun for breakfast. Maybe breakfast burritos, that would be fun. We had all the ingredients necessary left over from taco night, ooh even some chorizo. Fuck yeah this was going to slap. Before rushing off to the kitchen I pushed out my paws and did the typical morning streeeeetch and paused, a bounce on my chest pulling me out of my sleepy haze. 

Leaping to my feet, my body reminded me once again that there was something small and bouncy attached to me. I couldn’t help it, I laughed. They were small for my frame but I had boobs. Oh my God I had my own pair of boobs. Tiny and perky and covered with the same white fur that covered the rest of my body, sure, but mine. Dammit this meant I couldn’t walk around shirtless anymore, not like I was doing that much in my current state. I rushed over to where I kept all my KT clothes, savoring the feeling of my body moving in a new and exciting way with every step. Let’s see, where was that light gray tanktop or whatever that Kass had bought for me. I had loved the way it felt on my body, and something told me I’d look great with it on.

Finding it, I yanked it on, careful to actually slip my arms through the spaghetti straps. I savored the feeling of the soft fabric against my new breasts, something that I never knew I wanted and had no idea how I had lived so long without. Rushing out of the room, I had to skid to a stop to avoid slamming into Kass. Zie was walking out of the bathroom, a very tired look on hir face. Zie must have just woken up to go pee, something I personally blamed on Bun. I could see the look of joy in their face as they plotted hir seeing me like this.

For a moment we looked at each other, unsure on who should speak first. Hir eyes immediately zoomed in on my chest, a look of panic on hir face. Zie was probably worried sick and wondering how I was processing this, meanwhile I had this big sappy look of pride plastered across my face.

“Sooooo,” Kass said, breaking the ice. “I see you’ve changed a little bit since last night.”

“Hell yeah.” I nodded.

“Wanna talk about it? Are you processing it okay?”

“I’m a girl Kass, always have been.”

“Fucking cool.”

“Yeah?”

“Hell yeah dude. Hell yeah.” Zie picked me up in a hug and my mind freaked out over how it felt when my new body pressed against hirs. So different and yet, perfect. Just perfect.

DerbyGhost

It finally happened!! After 14 chapters we have an Official Hatching! Woo! Thanks everyone for reading so far, I hope you've enjoyed. These were some of my favorite chapters to write. As always, if you enjoyed please lemme know!