Chapter 3

First impressions?

Friendship out in the countryside is something that just “happens to you. ” You just sort of get up one day, your mom told you you're going to go play with Deacon next door, his moms gonna serve you lunch, and she’s gonna show up to take you home when dinners ready. And that’s just..how friendship happened as far as I had..just a bunch of “hey your gonna spend the day with this person” and more often than not it just sort of took.

And it’s not like I don't value the friends that I had back home, they were the friends I had all my life. But something about the strange spontaneity of Calamity and me seeming to just instantly fall into such a trusting friendship was something that feels like it should have felt weird, but…felt right. 

Calamity’s first impression, jumping headlong into a hostile situation to save a complete stranger seemed to inform her other habits..or maybe the jumping into a fight was informed by them it would seem. 

In a couple of days I’d almost forgotten I’d not registered to attend the school and then wham...Calamity shows up with the independent student forms. “So while it’s not common, students applying to attend the school apparently happens enough that there are forms to fill it out. I wonder just how ethical that is…but, guess it’s favorable for you, eh?” she put the forms down in front of me. 

I shuffled through the paper, the questions and other things seeming to blur into a mash of gibberish gobledy guk. She tossed a pencil on top of the pile, “probably best to get them filled out as soon as you can so they can assign you a dorm that's good.” she informed me “come to think of it I still haven’t seen the roommate they assigned me” 

“Wait..dorms..that's what this building is?” 

“Oh my goodness you really are a clueless country girl” she sighed. I felt myself blush self consciously “Yeah, the school owns the building…buildings. Lots of stuff, I think maybe over half the school's students are on campus…the place the dorms are on” she explained at the end. 

I nodded “yeah…so..uh..”

“Yeah..let's finish your forms, I got something for you that's gonna help you out with some stuff I think” 

There was a long silence with us just looking at each other before I finally spoke “Uh..so questions?” 

“Hm?” 

“I..how am I going to pay for any of this?” the question had quietly sat there in my head with only just now the thought to address it coming to me 

“I wouldn’t worry about it. You perform well enough and get a big enough name you’ll pay the school enough in exposure, plus cases like you they don’t normally charge any kind of entry fee or anything..might end up stuck in a less-than-decent dorm, but what can you do” 

“That sounds hard to believe.” 

“No less hard to believe that a dedicated school for magic casters and knights-errant” 

“When you say it like that..” I shifted course to ask “uhm…how could you tell I was…you know?”

“Transgender?” 

“Yeah..i thought I’d kinda..I mean I did my best”

“Roxie.” she sat down on the bed near me “you wore a skirt and a ponytail..I mean..the lipstick is kinda nice but…you need practice. As to how…well, you get a sense for it the longer you’ve lived our kind of life” 

“There’s more like us?” 

“Of course.” 

“Of course” I mumble and nod 

“Are you okay?” 

“I…think so” I pull my legs up and hug them tightly “I...I feel like I’m gonna sound stupid, but I’d honestly thought I was just gonna feel like a freak all my life” 

“No...Roxanne” she sat down in the bed next to me “Trust me..you aren’t” she put an arm over me. “Even if I just met you, you aren’t a freak..just trying to figure yourself out and didn’t get that chance.” 

“I…guess?” I never cried that much in my life and yet here I was feeling tears as I shook “I..I..fucking..” I lost my speech at that moment as I felt the sobbing begin. 

“It’s fine, I promise that's fine.” she said assuringly, “it’s hard when it all catches up at once, yeah?” 

I mumble an agreement. 

I sit there a bit longer pulling myself together, feeling Calamity rubbing my shoulder gently as she keeps me held in close. 

“Wanna get out of here? Get ya something before you get your paperwork handed into the school?” 

I breathe in deeply and wipe my face “yeah”

****

As we walked down the sidewalk I couldn’t help but feel the need to ask Calamity a question “Is your staff at the school or something?”

“My what?”

“You know..the thing you use to cast magic?”

“Oh! My witches tool...no I don’t like staffs that much. Prefer to have my hands free when I get up to spellcasting, you know?” 

“So how do you cast magic?”

“With this!” She grinned holding up her wrist and showing off the black leather bracelet on it. It hung loose enough that when she lifted up her other hand to flick a finger at one of the spike-shaped gems attached to it spun a couple of times, the light shimmering off the blue gemstones, the display making me wish I knew more about gems so I could identify what they were. 

“You mean there are more tools you can use for magic?” I looked at her wrist as we walked..

“Well yeah, they’ll tell you more about it in the introductory classes” she motioned with her bare-wristed hand 

“God I feel so ill-informed.”

“Hey, not your fault you grew up out in the middle of nowhere” 

“Bleeh” I groaned “I guess; So what exactly do you like doing with your magic?” I said shifting subjects 

“Mostly abjuration and stuff.”

I blinked, suddenly realizing how little I actually knew when it came to magic “And…abjuring is?”

“Shield and defensive stuff..can also make people's perceptions mess around” 

“Like how?” 

“Like…” she holds up the wrist again showing off that shimmering state again “well, for the most part, no one is actually able to hear what we’re saying; I just cast a ward on that makes it sound like we’re whispering nonsense at each other” 

“That's interesting,” I said processing all that information. It suddenly gave better context for the reason some people passing us by were giving us weird looks. I’d just assumed it was because of us having such a candid conversation out in public. 

“So Roxie.” And now it was Calamity’s turn to ask a question “What are you planning to learn?” 

“I..” paused for dramatic effect, more trying to look like I had the answer while I fished wildly around in my head for an answer “Don’t…actually know.” I sighed as my shoulders slumped down “I don’t know a damn thing about magic other than it would let me be the kind of hero I wanna be” 

“Damn, that's kinda cliche, but I like the sincerity and honesty” 

I felt my face redden with self-consciousness. 

“You’ll figure it out, I can tell” She assured me. 

“I guess..I just wanna do..something to help like she did” 

“You’ll get there.” She bumped over and nudged me with her shoulder as we walked, “Promise.”

We went into the building; a quiet, low-lit shop I would eventually learn the name was ‘Amy’s Apothecary’

After entering I was left alone by Calamity to walk alone in the shop, looking over the various odds and ends across the place, i barely had any money but there were some things I most certainly wanted for later, a straw that chilled drinks as you drank them, sitting next to it was a mug for warming beverages. The place was a treasure trove of enchanted curios. 

Eventually, Calamity would return to find me “I’ve got you the most important thing your gonna have for the rest of your life” 

“What is it?” 

She held up a necklace covered in beads, the singular brass plated charm dangling from it shaped like a circle with an arrow pointing down off it “A glamour” 

“A glamour?” 

“A very complicated one all held together with wire beads, and a little bit of love” 

“Uh?” 

She rolled her eyes a second at my cluelessness “I’m being dramatic, come with me” she suddenly grabbed me by the hand, eliciting a slight squeak as we walked toward a mirror. No one outside of the family had held my hand before and I was trying to keep from feeling weird about that. 

She handed the necklace to me “put it on…but..before you do it’s important you do this; focus on what you wished you’d looked like. The real you” 

“The Real me?” 

“The you you wish you’d been born as”  she added “The Magic needs a self-image to latch on to” 

I nodded slowly “and I do that and just..put the necklace on or?”

“Basically yeah, trust me, this will change your life” 

I inhaled deeply, gripping the charm in my hand, feeling the curves of the circle, and the points of the arrow digging into my palm, the cold dissipating as my body temperature warmed it away. 

The Me that I wanted to be born as. 

I wanted to be born a girl.

 I wanted to look nice..cute? Pretty? I focused more, I didn't; want to look..that different..I think. I just wanted to look like me. A little bit like maybe that witch. Her hair was curled shoulder length. 

I liked my red hair.

I hesitantly put the necklace on, awkwardly latching it, fumbling a couple of times before I felt Calamities hands gently guide my wrists to get them in place “just like that” her voice said approvingly. 

Did magic feel like anything? There was a slight buzz, a strange sensation of..static? That feeling you get after stepping out of a hot shower and the cool air washes over you. 

I opened my eyes

The girl in the mirror stared back at me with wide eyes she was about an inch shorter than I’d been. Curly ringlets of red hair rested over her ears a bit. She was absolutely shocked 

I gasped, hands reaching up to touch my face, my chest, my stomach. “Holy..”

“Amazing right?” Calamity said with a smile from behind me “You’re gonna need to take it off every couple of days for a few hours so the illusion can recharge but it’ll almost always be ready on school days” 

I was thinner in places. Arms were less trunk-like. The shoulders looked like they’d be a lot less awkward looking with the cape draped over them if I had brought it with me. 

“Oh my god,” I let out another gasp and breathed in deeply feeling some stray tears fall from the corners of my eyes. Without even knowing what I was doing I turned and grabbed Calamity in a hug, everything in my head a haze of happy buzzy joy 

Calamity stated, “So it’s like this the necklace is a bit of a complex charm; illusions, enchantments, and a few other things that would cause us to lose an hour of the day at least explaining.” 

My fingers fidgeted, tracing the symbol as she carried on “Some people like us prefer potions over the long term but honestly I like this as it’s…not necessarily any faster but a lot more immediately satisfying, over the next few years it’ll start changing stuff about you until eventually, you won’t need to wear it all. And I think you’d probably prefer that kind of a thing, yeah?” 

I couldn’t help but feel my feet tap and run in place for a second before latching around her with both arms while repeating “thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” over and over. This was amazing! 

“A gift from one girl to another” Calamity grinned while in the death grip of my second hug. 

“How can I ever repay you for this?” 

“Be my friend for..ever?” she chuckled “I don’t know Ill figure that out, I hadn’t got to meet someone around my age thats also trans so it felt right to help” she gently pushed me a bit a way.  “Of course. Now we gotta do the hard part.” 

“The Hard part?” I asked, confused

“MON-STERS” “MON-STERS”

“MON-STERS” “MON-STERS”

She held my hand again, and I tried to keep up with her as we darted past the chanting crowd. I felt my stomach lurch as the hatred spilled past me. These people had been there when we had come inside, but I was so wrapped up in trying to not take up space I barely paid them any mind at all.

And in turn, they barely paid us mind as they shouted at the building as the two of us ducked around a corner to catch our breaths. 

“That's the worst of the day..or should be anyway.” 

“What the hell are those guys?” I asked calamity as I looked around the corner to the whole lot of them, finally getting a good look at them all 

“Spyte..a bunch of hateful assholes” 

“Spyte?”

“The Sisterhood Protecting Youth from Transmutational Enchantment..or Spyte” Calamity explained “A bunch of adults who use moral worry to justify hating people who use magic to alter their bodies” 

“And they advertise with that name?” 

“I fucking wish; that's the funny bit, smart enough to influence social trends, too stupid to recognize they made what’s gotta be the most stupid and villainous sounding acronym,” Calamity told me “If they ever tell a fancy catchy name it’s Panacea; a cure for…enchantments that change people's physical form” 

As we watched the demonstrators yelling a bunch of hateful nonsense one of them was looking straight at us. I could feel the skin on the back of my neck dot with goosebumps. 

She was looking straight at me. Or felt like she was anyway.

“What the heck do they do?” 

“More or less you're looking at it. They go to places enchantments can be acquired and shout at anyone entering or exiting cause that's what they’re legally permitted to do” she motioned for us to walk off “They got nothing else to contribute to society; just keep a wide berth from them and you should be fine” 

“Are they always here?”

“Well, Amy’s is where a lot of trans people get potions and charms they need..so unfortunately just about every week at least once. They make a pretty bad first impression don’t they?”

I nodded feeling that tight knight of worry in my gut, something about the situation having a sense of dread about it that made me worry about the future.

What a first impression they made. 

****

I stood at the desk in the building, somehow even more nervous than I had been than when I was back on the train. 

This was it. 

“So you’re applying for the grant program?” the woman at the front desk 

I nodded, doing my best at faking eye contact. 

I was handed more paperwork to fill out. Initials, signatures, waivers, and a final signature. Another form for dormitory access and a room. Another form to access the low-budget food menu. And with one last signing I handed the papers over to the attendant.

“We should have these filed and everything finalized by the first day of school.” she handed me a key and card with a number on it “This is your dorm room number and key” I stared and nodded “just come back here on the first day of school and we should have a schedule for classes set up for you. Thank you Ms. Vangrove” 

I took the supplies and walked frigidly out of the front office and let out a sigh of relief as suddenly Calamity hopped up from over the spot she’d been hiding causing me to let out a shocked gasp “made ya flinch” she grinned. 

“Mean!” I pouted, pocketing the key to my dorm room

“So lemme see where your placed.” I held up the room card, a couple of seconds to process and she let out a laugh “ha! We’re roommates!” 

“Huh, what?” 

“Your room 618. My room” she grinned “Destiny!” 

I processed that as I looked at the paper both of us reading through some of the stuff I signed before eventually, I bumped face-first into someone. A collection of papers and other supplies fell all over sending me to the ground “crap! Sorry sorry” I panicked grabbing papers and stuff before looking up at…

The Woman was scary. Reflective sunglasses, black lipstick, and purple hair wrapped tightly in a bun. She looked unhappy, unamused, and unremorseful as she moved, tapping a staff as the papers and supplies pulled out of my grip and from the floor, sorting themselves into a clean and tidy stack that she gripped in a single hand again. 

“What is your name?” She asked. 

I felt panic grip me. Her eyes felt like they were boring directly into my soul, looking for lies and dishonestly “R-Roxanne, uhm, Roxanne Vangrove” 

“Ms. Vangrove…I do hope you do a good job being more aware of things when the year has started for you” She said before moving past me and walking away.

Me and Calamity hastily walked away and out of the school building “Who was that?!” I asked in a panic. 

“Ms. Everheart..she’s, she’s a lot less angry than she looks..least normally. Wonder what got into her,” she commented. 

“I don’t like how she looked at me…” I said, the nausea in my gut would have rejected whatever was inside it had I eaten. “God what a day…” 

“We haven’t even had lunch yet…speaking of.. let's get a wrap” 

I nodded as we made our way off. That uneasiness would last me the rest of the day.