Hunter observed Dan sitting on the floor of the temple. Dan hadn’t noticed the two of them return yet.

Artemis gave Hunter a knowing look, one that told Hunter that they needed to sort this out on their own. With a small albeit healthy amount of trepidation, Hunter approached Dan, deliberately emphasizing the loud ‘click-clack’ of their shoes.

Dan looked over in Hunter’s direction, and his mouth dropped open. Hunter did their best not to stumble, suddenly feeling extremely self-conscious. They were wearing a dress, of all things!

They had never felt so vulnerable in their entire life. They faltered, hugging themself, and froze in place as Dan picked up the pace to approach them. Everything had suddenly closed up around their neck, as the mere act of being seen by the person they cared about the most had seized them by their newly-altered vocal chords.

“How!?” Dan exclaimed, causing Hunter to pull back.

“A wizard did it.” Hunter mumbled as they made a strained attempt at a chuckle. Tears freely streamed down their face and onto the stone floor, with a few muffled sobs to break up the downpour.

“Shit. It’s okay, it’s okay. You’re okay,” Dan swept up Hunter into a hug, letting them lean forward into Dan’s chest. “I’m here. Um, you’re still Hunter, right?”

“I’m - I’m still Hunter. I’m still me, I made it.” Hunter confirmed to Dan, attempting to convince themselves at the same time. 

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” Dan squeezed. “Well, that was almost too heartfelt, but your stupid wizard joke already won me over. So you definitely haven’t been replaced with someone else. I don’t really get the vibe this is a clone situation either, so, hell yes. Or heavens yes. Divine intervention for the win.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Dan,” Hunter’s sobs turned into fits of hysteric laughter as they broke the embrace and sank to the floor, putting one hand on the side of their face as the laughter and crying threatened to topple them over. “Your imagination doesn’t have an off button, does it?”

“It’s busted, I can’t afford the repair bill,” Dan deadpanned as he knelt down to meet Hunter. It was strange, because Hunter was used to being slightly taller than Dan. Now they seemed to be at around the same height. “Hey, listen to me,” Dan said as Hunter looked at their friend. “You’re the strongest person I know,” Dan whispered. "We’ll find some way to get you back to your body, alright?

“Dan.”

“Look, we might have to do some shopping around. Find someone to body swap back with you and make some incremental changes as we go. Maybe Claire can get a counterspell going. Shit, this looks bad because we’re now on the wrong end of the gender bending laws, since y’know, male to female is so much easier than the other way around…best bet is a body swap, or we get you going in reverse with someone else getting feminized. Maybe another god--”

“Dan!”

“What?”

“I’m okay like this. Honest,” Hunter admitted with closed eyes, hanging their head low. The sheer act of admitting they were capable of finding happiness after going through Artemis’s force fem tunnel was embarrassing. Shameful, even. No wonder so many people preferred for the responsibility to be taken away from them.

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah.” Hunter shrugged, wiping away their tears. “It’s not as bad as I feared. Just a different spin on things, you know?”

Dan seemed taken aback. “I had no idea you were an egg, I mean, wow, my radar totally failed me. Like, alright maybe a couple things make more sense, but also--”

Hunter interrupted him. “No, I don’t think I’m trans the same way you are. I’m going to present however I feel like. I think I'm…I don't know what to call it. Indifferent somewhat, but enough to have an opinion? I’m trying out they/them right now."

Dan raised an eyebrow. "That’s more like you. You know, you could be genderfluid. Which means your own gender identity can shift. Maybe you're up for being a girl for a few weeks. Or you just don't want to have a gender for a while. Anything goes."

"Seems accurate…" Hunter shrugged, unsure how to respond. They knew it wasn’t like them to be this quiet, as they were used to being a reasonable amount of loud and confrontational. It was nice, in a way.

“Aw, crap.” Dan made a show of shaking his head.

“What?”

“You’ve been force themmed.”

“I fucking hate you.” Suddenly, Hunter felt their voice come back. Funny how that works.

“Love you too.” Dan said reflexively, widened his eyes, and then abruptly changed the subject. "But really, I've got your back. You can experiment with whatever you want. I won't judge." Dan smiled knowingly.

"Oh, you’re doing a thing. You know, the part where you meaningfully regurgitate the advice I gave you when you started your grand plan. Very rich how you made that one go full circle." Hunter snickered. "Did you ever follow that advice? Any experiments I should know about?"

Dan sighed. "No."

"Why?"

"I dunno," Dan lied. Hunter made an elaborate show of rolling their eyes.

"I'm out of patience with this. You are going to tell me everything tonight, when we get back. Understood?" Hunter glared at their unbelievably dense friend. Worse, it wasn’t even like Hunter was that self-aware, yet. And somehow, behind every dense egg was an even denser egg.

"Shit," Dan whistled. "You're pulling off the 'intimidating authority figure' thing really well. Was the whole conversation with Scary Goddess Lady about how to become a girlboss? Okay, I know the term 'girlboss' is gendered, but you get the idea."

"You know what, sure, I totally get the idea,” Hunter sighed. “I need to tell you how our conversation actually went," Hunter began, trying and failing to avoid thinking of themselves as a girlboss.

They told Dan the full story, from how they had to confront their own gender, the transformation, and how Artemis had turned them into her champion with a focused goal of hunting down and granting people their ideal selves.

Dan's reaction was priceless.

"She gave you a job that lets you force fem people and you can run around bragging about being divine? Holy fucking fuck, that's incredible! I mean, you either become force-femmed or live long enough to become the force-femmer, am I right?"

"I will thank you to not continue desecrating my temple with blasphemous and crude words." Artemis suddenly appeared alongside Hunter and Dan, giving Dan a disapproving look.

Hunter, knowing that Artemis had significantly mellowed out enough to let them have their earlier outbursts, wondered if the goddess just really enjoyed putting Dan in his place.

That may be something both of them had in common.

"I…sorry…" Dan stammered, and addressed Hunter. "Okay, but you're basically ‘The Fantastic Egg Hunter’ now, right? Nice."

Hunter groaned. "Now that you say it out loud, I really don't want to call myself anything close to ‘Hunter the Egg Hunter’."

"What about a different name?" Dan asked with surprising gentleness, then squandered the chance for a little warmth by getting loud again. "Ooh, how about Diana?"

Artemis let out a rare chuckle. "How Roman of you."

"That's…not terrible, even if it’s pretty gendered," Hunter admitted, "I'll think about it. I mean, my name right now is fine too."

"You could have multiple names," Dan suggested. "That's a thing, too. And you can go around and tell people 'I have many names'." The last part was said in a low, dramatic voice. 

"Wonderful, I get some secret identities on top of all this." Hunter bit their lip. How were they going to keep track of everything?

Artemis, once again reading what Hunter was thinking, spoke up. "I would not have given you my gift if I thought you were not able to handle it," Artemis said, turning back in the direction of the spring. "I believe our business has concluded, has it not?"

Hunter expected Dan to ask to be transformed, yet their friend remained silent. They supposed that asking to be force feminized somewhat defeated the purpose, though they were getting a sinking feeling they knew the true answer for Dan's behavior.

“You said you wouldn’t hurt him…them.” Dan stepped forward in front of Hunter, standing between them and Artemis.

“Did I?” Artemis turned back around and gestured to Hunter. “They don’t look hurt. I honored the spirit of your request to leave them unharmed, after all.”

“It’s…that’s…” Dan’s eye was twitching and he was stuttering much more than he normally did. “You know very well what I wanted. Hunter is scared. Vulnerable. They–they just had their entire understanding of themselves ripped away, and now you’re asking them to do this to other people!?” Dan was practically shouting the last couple words.

“Hunter is also standing right here,” Hunter put their hands on their hips as Dan turned backward to face them. “Dan. I’m fine. This…isn’t as much of a shock to me as you think. Well, it’s a little shocking. But anyway. Remember all our fun together? I was the person exposed to all of your admittedly very funny made up situations and stories. It makes sense that y’know, what if I got some direct exposure to everything?”

“That should have been your choice!” Dan was trembling, a few tears resting on his cheeks. “I could have rolled with everything Artemis made you deal with. I sat there watching you struggle with the very thing I wanted for myself, and I couldn’t do anything about it!”

Hunter wrapped Dan into another hug, realizing this was just as much about Dan as it was about themself. “Listen to me,” Hunter whispered into their closest friend’s ear. “Let me tell you what I need, okay? We’ve got time to figure ourselves out. Right now, I just want us to be calm. Can I just have…Idunno, an hour or two without excitement? Please?”

Dan broke the embrace and looked between them and Artemis several times. “Fine, but this isn’t over,” He said to both of them simultaneously before focusing on Artemis. “You’re lucky that Hunter’s resilient.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it,” Artemis lowered her head, staring Dan down. “I picked your friend because I saw potential in them to not only be able to handle this sort of stress, but to be able to learn from it. Understand it. Thrive in it. Additionally, they have access to one particular person who gave and continues to give them unconditional support no matter what obstacles have been thrown at them. Someone creative and imaginative enough to instinctively understand what they need. Sound familiar?”

“I…” Dan slouched back, thoroughly cowed. “That’s…one of the compliments of all time.”

“Now, are we done, or do you have any more grievances you would like to share?”

"No, we're done," Hunter spoke for Dan, who was in the middle of moving his hands back and forth in an attempt to keep himself calm.

Artemis’s disapproving gaze at Dan turned into a smile. In spite of the two’s volatility, Hunter could tell that as far as Artemis was concerned, Dan was acting exactly as expected. "In that case, I leave the two of you to your work. We will be in touch." 

Obscuring light formed all around the goddess's body. Slowly and dramatically, Artemis faded into light, slowly disappearing until there was nothing left for Hunter and Dan to observe. 

"Smooth," Dan shakily commented, evidently still recovering from the argument before. He then turned to Hunter with a cheeky grin. "You know, that really is a nice outfit you have on. Did she have a rack of them hidden behind a rock, or did it appear out of thin air?*

"Thin air," Hunter said as the two of them walked back to the trail.

"Neat. I wonder if the gods' control over specific types of fabrics happens to be automatic or they have to work for it. Also along with that, teleporting the clothes onto you, figuring out your body size and measurements without asking. Lots going on there," Dan rambled, which might have made the Hunter of yesterday annoyed, but today's Hunter just wore a smile.

***

They ended up having to call Claire to pick them up, since it was quite a ways out and neither Hunter nor Dan felt like paying for another expensive ride.

Dan made several annoyed statements about a god taking their money to drive them to her temple, then not being gracious enough to at least make it a round trip. Very rude, though as far as Greek gods were concerned, downright benign.

Hunter's first instinct when Claire pulled up was to make an attempt to transform themselves back into how they looked before they had the mind-shattering revelations about their gender; however, they remembered what Artemis had taught them. 

Believe in their mission. If they couldn't have faith in themselves, how could they expect to change the lives of anyone else? Hunter didn’t want to hide from their own explorations of themself - but to embrace it, and even enjoy it.

Hunter and Dan got into the backseat of the car, with Hunter wasting no time and immediately putting their head on Dan’s shoulder, interlocking their hands together. Before Hunter could dwell on what they were actually doing, Claire interrupted them by doing a double take when she noticed Hunter's new look.

"So…does it turn out I would have been right to change you with my spell, earlier?" Claire asked with a bit of self-satisfaction.

"No, because this was…mostly my choice," Hunter said. "Your spell would have been bad for me since you forced it on me. Really bad."

"Those three girls seemed quite happy," Dan commented.

"Five girls now, at least so far," Claire said. "I did some digging on campus and found a couple more who ran into you, Hunter. They're all getting coffee tomorrow and strangely enough none of them had any lasting damage to their lives that they cared about. Or hurt feelings about their choice being taken away from them; they considered everything that happened to be worth it. All five are trans."

"Someone must have smoothed out the process for them and done damage control," Dan mused, which Hunter agreed with. It seemed Artemis had done those girls a few favors for getting caught up in the hunt. 

Hunter remembered that Artemis had mentioned ‘you may notice your superior marksmanship more’. Did that point to an existing talent or was it something that was enhanced with magic? Because the odds for Hunter randomly getting several trans girls caught up in their own choices seemed really, really low on their own.

Food for thought. 

Claire spoke again. "So, Hunter. I mean, alright, you make a really, really pretty girl. That dress is so good on you. Fortunately for both of us, I'm painfully straight, but damn, you can get it. That's quite the glow up."

"Oh, I'm not a girl," Hunter corrected, though they couldn't help but awkwardly blush at the compliment from their ex. "Right now, at least. I don't feel like one at the moment."

"Oh? Who do you feel like then?"

"I feel like me," Hunter said as they discretely tilted their phone away from Dan's view and sent a couple separate, secret text messages to Claire. "I don't have a gender right now. And I'd like to use they/them if that works."

"Wow, you're so br--" Claire started and then caught herself. "No, I won't subject you to that phrase. The point is I'm happy for you." Her phone dinged a couple times, which she ignored.

The car ride kept going, and Claire kept talking.

"Dan, still up for the true self spell after the next full moon?" Claire asked.

"Oh, uh…yeah," Dan mumbled. "Sure. Of course."

Hunter mentally added that interaction to their list of clues, and decided it was time to get directly involved. "Claire, could you drop both of us off at Dan's?" 

While Claire gave a response in the affirmative, Dan could only nervously look at Hunter.

"Now? Really?" Dan squeaked. “What happened to a ‘couple hours without excitement’?”

"We have unfinished business," Hunter said with a stern look. “So yes, now.”

Dan just sighed and withdrew into his seat, and didn't say much the rest of the ride home.

***

The march back to Dan's apartment was solemn. Dan didn't say a word, and Hunter grew more and more certain they knew exactly what was up.

After putting their stuff away, Dan collapsed on his living chair and made a show of avoiding Hunter's gaze.

"Are you going to tell me why you're avoiding any chance to get a free, instant transition, or are you going to make me guess?"

Dan had the audacity to look a bit coy. "Guess."

"You are so fucking frustrating," Hunter grumbled, though they weren't entirely successful at keeping the amusement they felt from showing up on their face. "Of course you would put me in a position like this. It fits with everything else that's happened."

Hunter took a deep breath and continued. "You’ve been avoiding every chance you had to get your perfect, free transition. Even when say, I have a magical Greek idol in my hand and I’m offering it to you, you flat out turn me down. What the hell? I bet you're going to find a way to talk yourself out of working with Claire on that full moon spell, too."

"I'm trying to, just haven't found an excuse yet," Dan quipped.

"You are just insufferable," Hunter said, smiling. "And that's exactly what I’m getting at. The whole plausible deniability thing with your parents, that was bullshit. Even before you found out that all this weird stuff was happening to me, you were building up to something, because you hesitated when I said I wanted nothing to do with your silly plans to feminize yourself. I could tell that you were bothered by things, but what you said to Artemis back at the temple clinched it. Instead of asking for her help with your own transition, you fired back about how this happened to me, and not to you. This has always been about you and me."

"I'm loving this speech, by the--" Dan attempted a joke, until Hunter cut him off.

"No, I'm talking right now, the champion or demigoddess or girlboss or whatever the best term is, is still talking!" Hunter said with equal amounts of frustration and admiration. "You didn't take the idol. We even stood in the Temple of Artemis, with me having been transformed, and you didn't think to ask her to transform you too. I'm pretty sure you could have caught Claire's spell back at her place if you really wanted to, but you let that book take the hit instead of you. And every time, it killed you to make those decisions. When you told me your plan, you even tried to push me away for reasons I still don’t understand. And even with all of that, you genuinely still really want this."

Hunter closed their eyes, still in disbelief about what they were going to say, and even more in disbelief that they would actually do what they were about to say.

"All this time, you wanted me to be the one to feminize you."