I take a deep, shaky breath, looking into the sky.

In that male body… It was so… wrong to be there, so bad. How did I spend so long in it without realizing it?

I shudder, thinking about what I was missing, what I didn’t know I was missing, and what I lost because of that and just now regained.

Happiness. Rightness. Colors of life.

Hm. Come to think of it, that would mean… I’m transgender?

I don’t know much about this topic since it didn’t occur to me I could be like that, but that… seems so correct I’m surprised I didn’t notice that. But, well, after you realize the answer, it always seems to have been obvious.

Looking back at my life, everything pointed that it was just like that.

When I was very little I always tended to stick more with girls than boys.

When I was four years old, I think, I often played with… Camilla, my former best friend. Now it would be Alex, I guess?

Damn, just thinking about her puts me in bad mood. Not because of her, but because of what happened to our friendship and completely not because of us.

I often played with Camilla, and back then I enjoyed playing all the girly roles, didn’t I? That one time when I was four years old was the first and last time I got to play with her as a girl when she played a man. I don’t remember the game, but I distinctly remember her parents seeing us and scolding her harshly for doing something so inappropriate as they put it.

Later, when I was older, when the distinction between girls and boys got wider, I kinda… didn’t end up in either camp.

I had stopped doing girly things earlier, but at this point I started secluding myself with all the mockery about my tastes.

Since then I always seemed to be in the middle, not wearing nor doing anything girly, but never manning up, never doing manly things, never sticking with the boys, never wanting to impress girls. I was interested in them, their looks mainly as a boy would, sure, but never considered anything short of relationship and love.

And it didn’t really work out, as you could guess considering I have history of two girlfriends and with both not even a month long relationship. As a side note, it was not me who had the idea of going out and much less the one who suggested it, but thought it might be fun to try. Actually, I think I wanted to try that to see the other side I didn't know I wanted.

I think… I envied girls, if anything. Wanted to see how it would be to be around them, which obviously didn’t work out.

I was always sort of melancholic later on. Because I couldn’t express my tastes, myself, I shut it inside a shell I built.

It’s so obvious now, isn’t it?

Three years ago I got to know Alex and the others and it helped me a lot, but it still did nothing to my perception of myself.

But oh well. I won't be brooding over my past.

I walk to the stream slowly and crouch in it, starting to clean myself once again after the exercise I did, mainly my hair that was dragged through the ground a few times.

Fuck, why did I let myself do that?

I run my fingers through my hair with purely instinctual moves, then over my breasts, thin waist, wide hips, smooth womanhood, juicy thighs, and it feels just so wonderful, so right. How the fuck did I not notice it?

I walk up to the stone I left my dress at and step into it, relishing in the feeling of flexible material on my soft skin.

I pull it upwards and it pans out on my hips and ass wonderfully, then I pull further and spend a few moments to place it comfortably over my breasts and clasp the collar, and marvel at how right it feels as it shapes my breasts and holds them in place properly.

I make circles with my arms to make sure there is nothing uncomfortable and turn around to where I came from.

I take the metal defenses to my dress and fasten them with straps, pulling slightly there and there till they rest comfortably. It’s only now that I notice it, but they have some sort of padding inside, which on second thought is not surprising at all.

No matter how light it is or how well it is shaped, bare metal will surely be uncomfortable on almost bare skin.

And speaking of it, these things are surprisingly light. Are they made from chitin or something? Actually, considering it’s a fantasy world, I have no damned idea what material it can be.

I move a bit to make sure I am comfortable and turn into the direction of Levia, preparing myself to continue the journey with her.

First thing I do is to release my wings and tail. I didn’t realize it at first, but it gets uncomfortable if I hold them hidden, especially for longer periods of time.

I feel my wings sprouting from my back beautifully, their weight pulling me back as it should, and feel my tail growing and starting to sway lightly, assisting me in keeping my balance.

I sigh in relief and satisfaction, stretching my wings, and I look into the sky at the passing islands.

Now back to Levia, I guess…

I smile faintly, thinking about her delicate, attractive face, and start walking back to where I left her, and freeze the next moment.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, why can’t I stop thinking about her this way?

That’s completely like… a crush?

Uh, I never had one, so I can’t compare, but that’s completely me having a crush on her, isn’t it?

But… what of it?

My mood, having just skyrocketed, plummets low as I feel a knot in my chest tightening.

She’s a Mechanical, first.

I have no idea what is their concept of love and other matters connected to it, but I don’t think it would be the same as with humans, not to mention I’m not a Mechanical.

She a girl, second.

I don’t think she is a lesbian, and… it would be nice if she was, but I’m not... eager to find out.

Because… I’m not Helia outside the game, third and most important.

Even if all the factors lined out and she somehow became interested in me, there is no hiding the fact I am in male body outside the game.

Though… we could keep our relationship only in-game, I guess.

That’s… fuck.

What am I assuming already?

I’m fucking lost.

I groan at my own thoughts that unavoidably drift to the dreams and hopes side and get pulled back by my fears, and go back, resigning myself to wait and see for now and try to cope with myself.

…

I walk out of the forest to the road, on the way noticing Levia visible between trees to be sitting on a small rock and staring seemingly into space. I see her profile perfectly, her sharp face lighted up from backwards by the rays of setting sun and her eyes glowing lightly in vibrant violet. She's... beautiful.

I think I stand there on the edge of the road for a few... for a lot longer than I should, staring at her mesmerized and catching each tiny detail on her face and engraving it into my memory once again, as if I could ever forget her. I finally snap out of it when she lighlty flinches as if snapping out of a train of thoughts and turns her head to me, eyes widening a bit as she notices my wings and tail. And then her face flushes red and she averts her eyes. Hm? Aaand what's that about?

"What?" I ask with raised eyebrow.

"Nothing." Levia replies quickly. A tiny bit too quickly. But oh well, I won't be pressing her for answers.

I foolishly hope my face is mostly neutral, but I can tell it's a wide smile even without checking since her reaction is so cute, and walk up to her slowly. "Well, you did everything you wanted?"

"Um, yeah." Levia answers, still not having recovered, and glances at me. "Why do you have wings? And tail?" She asks curiously and then realizes her question is a bit stupid consiering I rolled a random character. "Or, um, I mean, why do you have then out and didn't have before?"

"It's my ability." I reply. "Bloodline ability, to be exact, that allows me to shift my features from human to demonic. As for why I didn't have them out, well, I hadn't tested it. I can also supposedly unlock True Demon form under, um, emotional stimulus, and it will greatly improve my strength, but I don't have it now."

"Oh, okay." She nods, but a moment later looks at me with a frown and her eyes fall to my feet.

"That's a part I can't change for some reason." I smile, answering the question before she asks. "Horns too. I'm not sure why is that, but I can't really complain. They are nice, wings and tail too."

"What do you mean?" Levia asks curiously.

I frown lighlty. I mean, I'm not telling her anything in terms of being trans yet, duh. I am kind of afraid to tell her. "It's a... general feeling I guess. I can't really desribe it properly, but they feel good to have."

"Oh. Okay." Levia nods once again and stands up. "Um, can you fly? Actually, would you prefer to go to Riverside quickly or to take our time?"

I shrug in response. "I'm not rushing to be anywhere. I'd rather walk slowly and familiarize myself with everything. And I assume you don't need to eat?" I ask and she shakes her head in response. "I don't need as well, so we don't have to worry about supplies. And we can get some monsters there, too. As for flying, I haven't tried it yet, but I'm not particularly itching to."

"Okay."

I turn around and look to the road we're following, thinking a bit, and I feel... I feel... something on my wing, and it's gentle, curious, wondering and fuck it tickles! And it's so sensitive! Hyaaah! Did I let it out?

I yank my wings to the side feeling a twitch between my legs and turn around with a small yelp to look at Levia with teary eyes and twitching lips, noticing in the corner of my mind that my cheeks got red and... and... and my... fuck, it's so embarrassing!

I quickly turn back to the front and only rotate my head to look at Levia from the corner of my eyes not to show her so distintcly my... my thighs pressed together. Fuck, it's... kind of hot. Between my legs, I mean. Why was it so fucking stimulating!? I mean... it does feel... nice... like... earlier... But not now, damn it! It's another thing... to masturbate to a person and another for said person to see you in such state.

"Oh, sorry!" I hear an apologetic voice from behind me. "Was it...?"

YES! Yes, it was, it was fucking...! You know what!

Hufff... Damn, calm down a bit. Slow breath.

"Uhh..." I begin timidly with no trace of my usual confidence. "C-could you... not do that?"

"Um, okay, I won't. Sorry about it." She replies genuinely apologetic.

"Let's go!" I say, a bit louder than necessary, starting to walk forward.

...

After Levia's initial surprise and interest in my wings and tail that was doing wonders to my mind for more than one reason we resumed our journey to Riverside. One reason was the part of me that absolutely didn't want to be touched in this way, second was that the horny and indecent part of my mind wanted Levia to continue in more places than my wings, third was that I couldn't... relieve myself with her near me. And maybe something more.

Some monsters killed, weaker ones though, no Stone Aberrations or other stronger stuff, a fair bit of distance covered, but mostly just plain edge of the island all the way. I half expected to run into some carriage attacked by monsters on the way, but no such luck. Or whatever. For some reason there wasn't anyone on the way, which was pretty surprising considering that Aver's Crossing wasn't a small village and there is one town furter down the road. Not like it's my issue. Maybe it's normal here.

It would have been a boring one for me, but no, it wasn’t.

The reason is Levia.

I have been far too preoccupied with my thoughts and with her to be bored and Levia even once caught me walking unbothered by a monster closing in on us while lost in thought. I am at this point completely certain that she knows there is something bothering me, and I am sure she would have asked already had we known each other better.

Most likely though she doesn’t want to intrude my personal space.

Which stings me.

I don’t know what I had been expecting, but for some reason the fact that Levia seemed unbothered by attitude past a few casual questions I couldn’t answer and shrugged off as personal issue hurt me on some deep level.

And I know it shouldn’t, but some part of me desperately hoped she would press the issue and force me to tell her. The fact I know how absurd it sounds only made me feel worse about it. And myself. Damn it.

We slept one night together apart from the first one when she was more unconscious than asleep, and I caught myself thrice attempting to roll over and snuggle up to her, but stopping myself in time. I don't think she would mind it particularly, but I doubt she would look at it as normal behavior, especially considering she is a Mechanical.

Do you know what the worst thing about loving someone, either as a crush or something more?

It’s that you can either hurt yourself by keeping it to you or express it, but if you decide to convey your feelings, your relationship will most definitely change a lot and not necessarily for the better.

In my case, the problem is slightly different, but connected to the issue. My male body out of the game.

Let’s say that I manage to do everything properly so she accepts me. And then she gets to know I am a guy, not to mention in a family affiliated with the Church that condemns Mechanical, and to top it off my parents completely agree with the belief of the church.

In best case scenario she would maybe still accept who I am and where I hail from. But then there is the problem of my family and all that shit.

It’s just… so much damned problems in one line that would need to get solved if I wanted to achieve something for real.

Sure, you can say for sure that we could keep the relationship only to the game. And what?

How would I live with the constant reminder of who I am while deceiving Levia? What if she asks to meet in real life?

I sigh deeply as I sit on a stone by the road, and suppress a scream of joy, surprise and fear as Levia plops down next to me unannounced and completely unexpected by my distracted mind.

I glance at her, stopping for a moment to appreciate all the details of her face, the violet eyes looking into the sky, the sharp and still somehow delicate jaw, the small, sharp nose and the small and yet full pink lips, visible under the hood of her outfit. Right, hood.

Don’t ask me why, but she doesn’t have clothes per se, just a freaking huge cloth she needs to fold good five times over herself for it not to drag on the ground.

I’m not sure how exactly she did it, but she somehow folded the fabric in a fantastic way that leaves her a lot of flexibility and at the same time covers her whole body, including something I can only call a hood over her head, and at the same time doesn’t look baggy. It makes her look kinda… dunno how to say it, and I wouldn’t say she looks gay, because she doesn’t, but it gives her an air of someone different, not so girlish and young as her looks would suggest, more mysterious. And most definitely more stimulating for me, uh.

If I had to say, it would probably be the fact she is a Mechanical that she folded it so neatly, since calculations should be like second nature to her.

Speaking of her nature…

I got to know she is a peculiar person.

She is confident and, especially when she fights, you see no reluctance nor shyness from her, but during our conversations she often ends up embarrassed or hesitant.

She is like… a person who plays confident, but can’t fully control herself and loses her composure sometimes, I guess. Maybe there's something I don't see properly yet.

“When are you logging out?” I hear Levia asking as I am a bit lost in thoughts.

I glance at the clock. “Uh, fifteen minutes. I need to log out earlier because my parents will get pissed off if I don’t go out and do some things. I’ll be back Friday evening most likely, though I’m not sure when exactly since I have some things to do. We could go to Riverside together then?”

“Oh. Okay. I’ll be logging in around this time, too.” She answers with a bit of disappointment and happiness at the same time and we lapse into silence.

We just on the stone, looking into the sky and resting, enjoying our company till I need to go.

“Hey, why are you playing VOW?” She asks at some point.

I look up into the sky and shrug. “I… didn’t have any particular motivation, if only going by the fact I had no idea what character to play. I got a bit of it now, found fun things to do here, with myself or with you.” I say, purposefully omitting that she is becoming much larger of a reason than I would dare to admit right now. “Though I think the original reason were my friends. We always played games and did stuff together and we wanted to check out VOW since it looked like a lot of fun.”

“I see.” She smiles faintly, what I catch in the corner of my eyes. “I started playing because I wanted to see how it is to be a human, to be honest. Not like the generator allowed me to.” She chuckles.

“Well, I don’t think it’s bad. If you ask me, you could pass off as a human practically anywhere as long as you don’t get hurt or something.” I tell her. “I don’t know what you feel in this body of yours, but it should be close enough to human to be unimportant difference. Speaking of which, what do you think makes a human? A body? What about cyborgs?” I raise an eyebrow in her direction with a smirk.

She looks away at that and stays silent for a while. “I’ve no idea, honestly. Mom often told me that we are not humans, but people, and that makes us the same as humans. It… took me a long time to properly understand what she meant. I once saw a group of bastards publically criticizing a man with cybernetic enhancements and chasing him out of a bar.” I turn my gaze to the sky to hide the conflicting emotions on my face.

Anger at the church and my parents, fear of Levia finding out my origins, wordless scorn of the people who believe the Church is inarguably right.

“They were spouting things about humans being made by God to stay this way, about the enhancements being some insult to the God. Not even one of those arguments was driven by proper logic, all were God this, God that, as if their god was always right.” Levia’s face twists with anger, but soon eases as she takes a deep breath. “Since then I understood that there will always be enemies among humans, among people. There is no difference between humans different from majority and Mechanical. They are the same - different. That’s just who they are.”

That's a... surprisingly correct view. It also matches my situation ironically well. I don't think my parents would take me being a Mechanical very differently than me being trans. Sure, their reactions would be different, but in both cases they would most likely try to, ekhm, fix me, as they would probably call it, and not accept me as who they are.

Levia looks at me as I refocus on her and my breath hitches as I see her beautiful, captivating, radiant smile. She continues, but this time in quieter voice. “My mother was right. You are one of us. You are good.” She says, specifically emphasizing the word ‘us’.

I keep my face upwards and desperately hope it remains straight, it doesn’t though, forming into something between a grin and a grimace, as my heart does flips and other figures at her words, my stomach at the same time twisting in uncertainty and fear.

Fuck.

I may be good, and I am so, so happy to hear her saying that, but my parents, my cousins, but family, my neighbors and my country is not, vast majority at least, and most definitely not on the surface.

But I can’t tell her that, can I?

I take a deep breath and glance at her. “Thanks.” I say simply with a smile that I hope conveys my thanks properly.

She nods lightly and we stay silent till I stretch my back and turn to the window on my side, eyeing a certain button grudgingly.

“Well, I’ll be logging out. See you next week.” I say, my heart aching zo much more than I would dare to admit to Levia at the thought of leaving her for whole five days. So short, and yet so long.

I know very well I’ll be meeting her next weekend, I know much better that there is nothing wrong with us separating, it is normal even, but just…

Damn.

I raise my hand, not showing my internal conflict, and place it above the button, preparing myself to go back to…

My…

That male body.

That… disgusting body.

That…

I sump down, my feelings of disgust, repulsion and apprehension so strong I astonish even myself with pressing down on me, and I let out a small, pained whimper at the sheer disgust I now realize I feel and I have always felt, merely bottled it over time into a place where my dreams and hopes couldn’t reach and awaken them and ruin my life into worse than it already was.

I feel smooth, small arms wrapping over me, and I am immediately assaulted with a huge amount of conflicting feelings.

“Hey, I’m here, what happened?” Levia asks in almost panicking, concerned and gentle voice.

She’s here.

Anxiety. Anger at myself. At my parents. Disgust. Fear.

Relief. Happiness. Love.

That last one the strongest, and yet impossible to express with all the other shutting it down.

I slam the fucking button with enough strength to crack the stone under me and black out, unable to tell her that I want her to comfort me, unable to say that she was the only reason I didn’t think about what was to come, unable to tell how grateful to her I am, not only for what she did consciously, but also just for the fact she simply was there for me, even if she didn’t see it this way.

Fuck.