Barren gray desert stretched on forever. The earth was gray, the sky was gray, the wind was incessant. She was running, running as fast as she could. If she ran fast enough, Rory would be able to get away from the presence that was all around her. Her throat was dry and her eyes stung from the bitter, parched wind. All of her limbs were heavy.

There were other people here. She could feel them. But they were only mostly people. Something was missing from them. They weren’t complete. Not like she was. For now. All around her was something that wanted to take that from her, to reduce her down to being a fraction of a real person.

If she just kept running, Rory would be able to get away. She had to believe that. She had no choice but to believe that. To stop was certain death. Or, certainly, something worse than death.

Being trans was going to ruin her life, something was telling her. It would have been better to deny it, to give up the power she’d been given, than to let everyone know the truth. How stupid could she be to tell everyone in the world what she was? Now she was just a target. Rory had really brought this on herself, hadn’t she?

Assuming that she was even trans at all. How did she know that? She would have known from birth, right? Everyone did. If she were really trans, she’d already have a better name picked out. Obviously, she was faking. Just because she wanted to be a girl didn’t change anything about who she was. Coraline was right: Rory was only doing this because it seemed like the best way to get positive attention. But she’d forgotten to mention how much Rory hated herself, too.

Rory kept running. If she kept running, she could outrun these thoughts. She could get away from the whispers in her mind.

When Rory finally woke up, she felt more tired than when she’d gone to sleep and decided to just take the day off. She was under a lot of stress. And she needed to catch up on her schoolwork, anyway. Carina and her could go on patrol another day. The other girls would take care of things for now.

It wasn’t much better at home than outside, though. Things had been awkward between Rory and her parents ever since she came out. They’d sat down for a long talk. It was clear her parents wanted to be supportive, but they didn’t know what they were doing. They didn’t understand that Rory wasn’t trying to be a different person, or how she could be trans and not already have a new name. They weren’t doing great with pronouns, either.

“Did you mean to write down twenty thousand instead of two thousand?” Carina asked, looking at Rory’s math.

“No, I didn’t,” she replied, grabbing an eraser. “Thanks.”

“I wish you could just go to school like a normal kid,” Carina said. “I’m sorry that being a magical defender means such a drastic change in lifestyle.”

Rory shook her head, insisting, “No, it’s cool, really. I didn’t get along with anybody in school to begin with. Besides, I gained more than I lost.”

She set aside her school work for a bit and moved to the couch. Grabbing the remote, Rory started flipping through channels. Who even watched cable anymore? What was she—?

Rory stopped when she saw Dayton Cruz on screen, a picture of herself floating in a box over his shoulder.

“—apparently, now, we’re supposed to just believe that he gets to call himself a woman now—”

“Rory, no!” Carina cried, darting over and grabbing at the remote. Rory held it out of Carina’s reach, trying to snatch the pixie out of the air as they fought.

“It begs the question,” Cruz continued, “how can anybody know that this is true? Nowadays, anybody can claim to be whatever they want to be! For all we know, this kid is just being pressured into saying he’s a female in order to appease the liberal elite. Or perhaps he’s doing it to force the actual magical girls to lower their guard around—”

Carina had raced over to the TV to turn it off herself. She turned back to Rory, who was just staring blankly at the empty screen. Slowly, Carina floated closer.

“Watching that stuff isn’t doing you any good,” she said softly. “Hey, how about this? Have you given any thought about what you want your new name to be?”

Rory blinked and wrapped her arms around her knees, admitting, “A little. I don’t want to commit to anything too quickly, though. Especially when I’m in the public eye like this and might not get the chance to experiment. People are going to expect me to commit.”

“You don’t have to tell anyone.”

Rory grunted in acknowledgment, then continued, “I’m honestly not sure if I want to go with something completely different or something similar to what I have now.”

“There’s no rush.”

Getting up, Rory walked over to her closet. On the top shelf was a cardboard box that looked a little worse for wear. She stood on her toes to gingerly grab it with her fingers and slide it out. Carina watched with interest as Rory brought it over to the desk and pulled out a pair of scissors.

Inside were a bunch of old DVDs and a few VHS tapes. Those ones in particular were old when she was young. She pulled out one DVD with a familiar group of funny animals on the cover. This movie was her favorite when she was young, but it became a secret shame once she was older and realized how girly it was.

Her DVD player was still sitting on top of her Blu-ray player; it was a simple matter of moving a few cables to get it working again. She popped the movie on and curled up on the couch underneath a blanket.

“I’m sorry,” Carina said, sitting on the back of the couch near Rory’s head. “If I’d been more careful, you wouldn’t have learned about this until you were ready.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Rory replied, watching the opening credits. “It wasn’t fair to ask you to keep a secret like that. Besides, it’s better that I know. I really wish I’d been told earlier.”

“No, I’m calling bullshit on that.”

Rory blinked in surprise and turned to face her.

Carina explained, “You had a hard time believing it after everything we’ve already been through. If I had led with ‘actually, you’re a girl!’ you would probably have denied it altogether without a second thought.”

Rory pouted, but then rolled her eyes and admitted, “Fine, you’re right. I guess I was being a bit dense.”

“Just a bit. But then, every magical girl needs to have a marketable personality, right?”

Rory laughed, then turned her attention back to the movie. Everything felt alright. She kind of wished that she could stay in this head space forever.

When the movie ended, Rory yawned and got up to stretch. She put the DVD away and put the box back up in her closet. It would be there for her if she needed it.

She pulled out her phone and plopped onto the bed. What were people saying about her online? Rory scrolled through a couple different apps for a while. Some of it was good. A lot of “she’s very brave” and “this proves that trans girls are real girls” and “I’d date her.”

That last one didn’t feel as good as the others.

Not to say that there wasn’t plenty of transphobia in there as well. After a while, Rory wasn’t looking for good comments anymore, she was just seeing how bad it could get. It got bad.

It took all of Rory’s strength, but she managed to pull herself away from her phone and bury her head in her pillow. So much for her good mood. Maybe she could watch another movie?

There was actually something else that Rory had been putting off. She got out of bed and trudged her way to the laptop. A message was waiting for her. Honestly, she was afraid of what it would say.

It was a message from Roberto, the guy who had been so excited to see a magical boy because it was something he’d always wanted to be. Rory let her cursor hover over the message without opening it. Her stomach was in knots. Finally, she took a deep breath and clicked.

“Hey,” it read. “I saw what you posted. About coming out, I mean. And I thought I should say something. I don’t know. I was so excited to see a magical boy so I’m a little disappointed. I’m sorry. It’s not your fault or anything. Good luck with being a girl.”

Rory sighed and closed the browser. Well, that was over with, at least. She needed to take her mind off of this, somehow. Carina had mentioned her name earlier. Rory certainly could afford to give it some more thought.

What were some names that were different from her current one? She thought about girls from school. Emma, Madison, Taylor, Jessica, Jennifer. None of those sounded quite right. Was she just supposed to know when she found the right one? What about more similar names? Emily or Ashley? Mary? Was Brooke close enough to Rory? How about Riley? Riley was kind of a cool name. Cool enough for a magical girl.

After a bit more thought, she turned to Carina and asked, “What about Emery?”

“For your name?” she asked, peaking over the couch.

“Yeah.”

“It’s pretty.”

“I think I want to try it out for now. It’s close enough to my… other name that I think I can get used to it easily enough. But only with you and the other magical girls, for now.”

Carina nodded, then said, “It’s getting kind of late. How do you feel about going on patrol? If you’re not up for it, everyone else probably has it handled. I doubt we’ll see another planar invader for a day or two anyway.”

Emery didn’t answer at first.

“Why aren’t you just pressuring me to do it?” she asked. “I’m a magical girl, aren’t I? Don’t I have an obligation to do the work?”

“Emery,” Carina said, floating over, “I’m supposed to put your well-being before everything else. This isn’t an easy job, and we ask teenagers to do it. But the hope is that you’ll grow from it, that you’ll become stronger. Putting you at needless risk when you need a mental health break doesn’t accomplish that. Your safety comes first.” She paused. “That’s why nobody wants you to go after Cynthia, even though we know for sure that she’s up to no good.”

With a sigh, Emery said, “I guess I understand that, yeah. It’s just—”

A knock at the door interrupted them.

It was immediately followed by Keaton’s voice: “Rory? Can we talk? I brought chips.”

Emery let Keaton in and popped open the bag before plopping on the couch.

“I’m thinking of trying a new name,” she explained. “Emery, now.”

“Alright. I’ll remember. But I do need to talk about you.” He sat down next to her. “You’ve been avoiding me ever since… the thing happened.”

“Thing?” Carina asked, landing on Keaton’s leg.

“I tried to kiss him,” Emery admitted, staring down at her lap. “I tried to kiss him and it messed everything up and things are just going to be awkward from now on.”

Carina murmured, “Oh no.”

“Emery, nothing has to be awkward from now on.” He reached out to place a hand on Emery’s shoulder, but hesitated. “I just need some time, is all.”

Emery nodded, but didn’t look up.

“Um, perhaps now might be a bad time,” Carina said, “but we’ve got company.”

They followed her gaze to the window, where a green pixie with curled horns was pressed against the glass. Seeing that they’d noticed him, Wolf pressed forward and the glass parted like water. He floated over to them, landing on the armrest of the couch.

“Hey there!” he said to Keaton. “I don’t think we’ve met. Are you Rory’s friend?”

“It’s Emery, for now,” she said quickly.

“Oh, sorry.” A frown flickered on his face for a moment. “But anyway, I’m Wolf. It’s nice to meet you!”

“I’m Keaton,” he replied. “I haven’t gotten to meet any other pixies aside from Carina. I didn’t know there were any boy pixies.”

“Most people don’t,” Wolf lamented. “Boys are really underrepresented in fey culture. If I could just get a magical boy of my own, I could change that.”

“I know, right? I would love to see a magical boy.”

Emery groaned.

“Right! Sorry!” Wolf cleared his throat. “I’m actually here because I have news! I’ve been darting around for a bit, and everybody is willing to meet with you!”

“Really!?” Emery perked up. “They’ll hear me out!?”

Wolf nodded, adding, “I thought it would be best to do it all at once. Maybe they’ll be more amenable if they can better picture themselves working together as a group.”

“You’re a genius, Wolf,” Emery said. To Keaton, she said, “I’m sorry. I know you wanted to talk, but I really need to figure out what I’m going to say to everyone. Perhaps another time?”

She was more than a little relieved to have an excuse to put this off. The expression on Keaton’s face told her that he could tell. Still, he nodded and stood up.

“I’ll talk to you later, Emery,” he said.