There was a certain bar that faced the castle, a mere fifteen minute walk from its front gatehouse. The bar faced the castle directly, forming invisible parallel lines from the windows to the chains that lifted and lowered the front gate.

There were plenty of troubles to go around within that bar.

“I’m telling you,” said Ryan, “I’m telling you-”

“You haven’t gotten to the part where you’ve told me.” Tina noted.

God, what a day. 

Man, would they hurt Apple Sauce? Ryan would have to break in and take her in as his own if they harmed her. He’d fight anyone for that horse! He had some muscles! He could-

What was he saying? 

Oh, yeah. Duh. 

“They fired us. Tina, they fired us! Us, of all people! Us!!!”

“Yeah,” Tina said, “ What are we supposed to do about it? I mean, we did ruin that luncheon. We’re lucky they’re not having our heads cut off for that little stunt.”

The world seemed to wobble around a little. Ryan tried to grasp his beer tighter to try and steady it. That somehow made the wobbling worse. 

“We get back at them! We show them what for! Teach them… not to mess with us!”

“Who, the court? Miriam? No. Forget it.”

“Oh c’mon….”

Tina frowned. She was loath to admit it, but she too felt the urge to make someone pay for this. A gig like that wasn’t any old thing to lose. And Apple Sauce making it that far into the castle’s interior was highly unusual.

She sighed, and put the strangeness of it all out of her mind. Someone had to keep it together here. If not even the universe could keep its shit straight, she’d have to make up the difference.

“No. Ryan. Think about it. Really, really, really think about what you’re saying.”

“Okay. Okay. No. Okay. But what if we-”

“Is what you’re saying true? Is it helpful? Is it informative? Is it necessary? Is it kind?”

“Oh, phooey to that. Phooey, I say.”

Ryan took a sip of the beer. It was his second-ish sip in the past five minutes, and it was no better than the first. He instantly regretted letting the substance touch his tongue. That’s where his taste buds were! 

“You are such a lightweight,” Tina said, “maybe we should get you out of here..”

He grumbled.

“I’m not a light- way. Weight. Waayyy.”

“That’s your third beer of the night, there, bales of hay. Come on.” 

With a light touch, she took him by the shoulder. She took him against her shoulder and stood up. She was firm in handling him, but it was a gentle firmness. 

“We don’t live anywhere anymore…” Ryan moaned.

“Yeah yeah yeah, I know. I’ll get us to an inn. Come on.” 

Everyone in the city knew the castle was north-northeast, directly aligned with the old main street that had been long neglected and built over. Everyone knew it stayed in one spot the whole time. 

But, for some reason, no matter how far Tina walked away from the castle, it seemed to follow. It was like the sun, in that way. No matter where you went it was there, looming and staring and taunting.

Thankfully, unlike the castle, the sun went down every so often. It was doing so just then, as she and her sloshed companion wandered into the first inn on the street. It was labeled as the ‘White Deer’s Spare Legs’, which struck Tina as a bit of a mouthful, and highly specific. 

Ah, well. 

“Single bed?”

“No. Two please.” Tina said to the person at the desk.

“How long?”

She looked over to Ryan, who was busy naming all the reasons he deserved to be promoted to head of the country’s equestrian affairs.

“...and I'm observant! My mind’s like a steel… a steel… whatchamacallit?” 

“Call it a week and ask me again later.” She said to the innkeeper.

With a precious few coin, she paid for a room, and moved Ryan and herself to the specified bedroom.

 

Ryan felt uncomfortably comfortable on his bed. The room had been recently cleaned, and the sheets had been changed. This in itself was nothing like his old room back in the stables. Some parts of him fretted that he was too comfortable and that that feeling of comfort was a weakness. 

However, much like his country, he was a parliamentary democracy, and those parts of him were a small voting bloc at the time, and the king was out on diplomatic matters. The rest of him was too busy being drunk or worn out to worry about presenting a masculine image. That sort of thing required more finesse than he had on him at the moment.

Meanwhile, on the adjacent bed, Tina sat. She did not lay down. She made no attempt to get comfortable. Comfort, to her, was a concept without a solid meaning. It was a vague alien idea that eluded her, as a bird eluded an archer’s arrow. Just when it seemed like it was going to land...

“Tina?” Ryan slurred.

“Yeah?” 

“Are we gonna be okay?”

She looked over at him. Her expression went from cynical to soft at the sight of him curled up in his comforter. Maybe sleeping on a real bed would do him some good… maybe it would do both of them some good. 

“I don’t know. But whatever our fortunes are…”

Before she could finish her sentence, Ryan’s eyes were closed, and he was out like a candle.

“Ehh. We’ll see.”

   

Dreams were an odd phenomenon.

Many a theory had been crafted about them. Some presumed them to be messages from an otherworldly plane. Others thought them prophetic. Others still insisted they were little more than the subconscious mind sorting through old information, mixing and matching ideas and feelings in new and innovative ways.

Dreams were also private affairs. They are so private that many people hardly ever remember their own. Sometimes, those dreams can even bleed into reality within one’s mind. 

Ryan’s dream was mostly gone from his mind by the time he came to the next morning, but not without leaving a small imprint. There was an image here, a sensation there…

The word witch occurred to him. It was the sole remaining memory of the dream. He knew exactly what it was referring to! There was clearly only one way to proceed! 

“I had this idea,” Ryan said, “we can really turn our luck around, I think.”

It was too early for this, if you asked Tina. 

“Slow down. It’s like five in the morning.”

“Tina, it’s literally ten o clock.” 

“It’s like five in the morning. For me.” She said.

That wasn’t good enough for Ryan, apparently. He was full of life, like a spring, ready to jump up and cause untold damage to the device it existed within.

Tina sighed.

“Can this wait? Is this going to be a revenge scheme? We don’t have time for revenge.” 

Now, it was Ryan’s turn to sigh.

“Hear me out, okay? I promise you it’s not as bad an idea as you think.” He said.

Neither of them had bothered to change out of their clothes from last night. Sometimes, the inherent terror and anxiety of being naked was not worth the pleasure of clean clothing on a fresh new day. Ryan noticed, in those moments, how disheveled they both looked in these duds. 

“We get new jobs.... At the castle.”

“No.”

He grinned.

“We agree that yesterday was some fluke, right? An accident of the cosmos. I mean... Apple Sauce got in a fucking elevator. What the hell, right?”

“Yes. So?”

“So the room and board and benefits were taken from us unjustly, due to events outside our control.” 

“No. No no no. We are not doing whatever it is you want to do.”  

Ryan folded his arms at her and frowned. Okay, no, it was more of a pout than a frown. He pouted and he tried to make himself as cute and charismatic as he could. It didn’t not work. 

“We deserve those benefits. No other place in town is going to have us covered like working in the castle, you know this.”

“Ryan, Miriam would kill us. Security wouldn’t let us near the front gate. They wouldn’t even let us near the job fair they have outside the walls.”  

Ryan grinned. Tina shook her head at him. There were much better things to do with her time than try and squeeze blood out of this rock. In fact, she would rank ‘getting re-hired at old job’ very low on her personal list of things to do, period. It was a meticulously pruned list, after all.

“Whatever it is you’re thinking…” 

“At least hear me out!” He said.

Tina sighed, but, alas, she nodded. What was the worst thing he could say?

“Thank you. My sister, she’s a witch, she makes, uh, disguises? I mean, not disguises, more like, uh, appearance modifiers. You know. Spells. Illusions, I guess.”

There was a pause. Ryan was very tempted to keep filling the silence, to keep the space occupied until Tina felt like speaking. It would have been easy to keep talking and talking and hoping that someday, somehow, someone would care enough to respond. They usually didn’t. 

Tina did respond. But her voice and face were unreadable. She spoke as if repeating back the information she’d been given, without any color commentary whatsoever.

“You want to use magic. To trick people. To get us jobs in the castle again.”   

“Well…”

It was his turn to sigh.

“Yeah. It does sound pretty bad when you put it like that.”

 Tina turned to him. There was an odd look on her face. If Ryan didn’t know any better, he’d call it… inspired. 

Her pruned list had its place. It was helpful for managing priorities, after all. But, that said, the list had its downsides. People who kept them were looked down upon, in Tina’s experience, for being ‘control freaks’ and ‘unable to handle the unexpected parts of adult life with any emotional maturity’.  

Maybe it would be worth a try. Forget the list for a moment. Maybe this idea, or some version of the idea, held water. 

“Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater, here. It could work. What kind of ‘not disguises’ are we talking?” 

Wait. Did Ryan hear her right?

She was… she was interested?

“Well,” He said, not prepared to have gotten this far, “we could adjust little stuff. You know. Faces are subtle things. We could alter a few minute details and be fine, or…”

Tina cocked an eyebrow at him. What was the holdup? Why stall now, when he could reel her in to the scheme properly? Why the nerves? 

And why did she feel nervous? 

“...Or?”

He looked away from her, to the open window. The sun smiled upon him, but it was a mocking smile. He looked back at it with lips drawn tight across his face and a crease to his brow.

Was he really going to have to say it? Well, of course he was, he was suggesting this as a serious idea! It was too late to back out now!

He licked his lips, not like a wolf licked her chops before a meal, but like a nervous person without a job or permanent residence suggesting an emotionally charged and fraught idea might.

“...Tangent, uh, I promise it’s related.” He said. 

“...Let’s hear it.” 

He nodded, with that same nervous expression on his face.

“I have this... theory. And my sample size is one, so don’t judge it too harshly yet, but I think it holds water. My theory is that all men, myself included, have a secret desire to be…”

He looked around the room for something to stare at. Nothing jumped out at him, so he resorted to looking at a spot on the wall. It would have to do. 

“Not men.” 

The spot on the wall wasn’t cutting like he’d hoped. It was betraying him, with its lack of notable traits. It could have at least had the decency to-

Tina made a face, like she had just swallowed a lemon.

“That doesn’t sound right to me. How do you explain trans men?”

“It’s just a theory.”

“No, it’s a hypothesis. I understand where you’re coming from, though. But you ought to ask around before seriously proposing that.”

For the first time since he’d opened Pandora's can of worms, he looked at Tina, instead of that backstabbing spot on the wall. It was a look of wonder and bewilderment. 

“You... understand?”

She made a noise. It was a sort of noise that tried to wash away a deep discomfort. But, seeing as it was just a noise, it didn’t really do that. It just sort of waffled for a second before echoing out into the cosmos.

“Everyone… wonders. What it’s like. On the ‘other side’.” 

“They must, right?” He said.

Tina nodded, and cleared her throat. She was talking way faster than she was intending to. The words sort of spilled out of her, bypassing any filter or higher judgement on their appropriateness.

“Yes, absolutely. I’ve wondered all the time. About. You know.” 

“Naturally! And that doesn’t,” Ryan squeaked, “Mean anything, right? Like, it’s just what people do.” 

They were in agreement. Everyone secretly wondered what the grass was like on the other side, gender wise. So, that said, any feelings the pair of them had were not only statistically normal, they were universal. 

It was a comfy thought.  

Tina snapped back to harsh reality. This was all going nowhere. Sure, would it have been nice to be thought of as a man and be a husband and all that? Would it have been nice to be called sir and to-

Never mind all that.

“What did this have to do with your scheme again?” She asked. Yes. She. 

“Oh, I was going to get a disguise that looked like me, but a woman. That was the gist.”

Tina nodded sagely.

“Yes, I get it.”

Wait.

Now hold on.

Just wait a minute, please.

“That’s possible?” She asked.   

“Yeah. It’s magic. Why wouldn’t it be?” Ryan said.

A gap of silence opened between them. The gap went from a mere crack in a stone to a rift to a full on ravine. They both sat on the bed, saying and doing nothing. Their thoughts flowed faster than their blood could keep up. Thankfully, blood didn’t directly correlate to the quantity of thoughts in one’s mind.

“I wish I hadn’t brought this up...” Ryan sighed..

“Why?”

He rubbed his neck, in a vain attempt to get at the muscle in there that never stopped aching.

“I mean. People… evil people… think trans people are like, deceptive or duplicitous. You know? I’d hate to reinforce that.”

“But,” Tina offered, “we’re not trans. We would just…”

She cut herself off. Something did feel weird, here. No one would make the distinction other than the two of them. 

“I see your point.”

“Yeah, right? The people we’re worrying about wouldn’t distinguish at all.” 

Ryan rolled his shoulders back and frowned. He began to think aloud, maybe he would stumble onto a proper solution to this puzzle. 

“Would it be better if I did it, you know, full time? Never take it off? I mean, at that point… that’s, like, just living socially as a woman. That’s… I mean, it’s an idea. I’d do it...” He cut himself off. He was rambling again.

He turned to Tina. Something stuck out about how Tina said ‘we’re not trans’.

“Wait, did you say ‘we’re’ not trans? As in the both of us? I was suggesting this as a thing I’d do.” 

“It’s only fair,” Tina said, “that if you disguise yourself as a different gender, I would do the same.”

“Right. Naturally.” 

They were like two flies, just barely correcting course before colliding with a screen door. They flew and flew in dangerous air, surrounded by all manner of hazards, but somehow, they could thread the needle to avoid any life shattering epiphanies.

But then again, there were no epiphanies to be had. It was all out on the table, for sure, no secrets or suppressed feelings here. Everything was all above board, yes ma’am.

“But also,” Ryan said, “What if we hate it?”

“Explain.”

“You know how trans people have, uh, dysphoria?”

Tina nodded.

“Some of them. A lot of them, but not all. ” She said.

“Well, sure, sure.” 

Ryan cleared his throat.

“Well, point is, what if we feel that? When we’re uh… suited up? On the job, I mean. That would suck! Imagine feeling discomfort with your body all the time!”

He laughed, but it was a hollow one. A few seconds passed.

To his chagrin, he kept laughing, if only to fill the silence. A few more seconds went by, painfully and with as much awkward ceremony as possible.

Eventually, Tina laughed too, but it was more to cut the tension than anything. Their laughter fell flat, facefirst into silence.

“So what do you suggest?” She asked.

“We should get the uh... the magic things… and try them on for size. See how it feels. Come up with names.”

It was drawing closer and closer to noon. How long had they been sitting there? How long had they been caught on this? 

“I already have a name in mind,” Tina said, “but the rest of that sounds like a plan.”

There was palpable relief on his face. 

“Oh, uh… me too. Thank god. I thought already having a name picked out was...”

“No, no. It’s normal. Everyone has one, I think. A different name they want. Or…”

She exhaled. 

“Not want. That’s silly. A name that hypothetically they could use if they were hypothetically another gender.” 

The nervous energy of the room was getting to a boiling point. The room itself was getting sick of this nonsense. Of course, it was an inanimate space, consisting of walls and a ceiling and floor, but if it could have, it would have done something to ease the weird feelings within it. Maybe it would have made the bed spontaneously fall apart underneath them and force them to have only one bed, or maybe made Tina’s coin purse fly through the air, or…

The topic of money did need addressing. Tina settled on that as her way out of this weird sense of burning shame in her chest. 

“Well, uh, the room’s paid for. For the next six nights. But I’m about out of coin, here. Do they serve breakfast here?”

“I don’t rightly know.” Ryan said.

With that, Tina stood up.

“Let’s find out, then.”