Ryn’s PoV
I hopped back out of my grove and into the mundane realm to find it threatening to rain. The clouds above Avonside were dark and billowing, whipped up by the wind as it twisted its way through the mountains. It was going to make gathering stone a pain in my pretty little ass. My buns hated the cold.
The dark weather wasn’t doing anything for my poor tired brain either. So many things to make sure of. I wasn’t good at keeping tasks ordered in my mind at the best of times, but lately I felt like I was drowning.
Today I had to cut stone for construction, touch base with Professor Rivas on an insulin producing plant design, check on the obrec to see if they needed anything, and… shit, what was the last thing? Crap. Hopefully I remembered it by the time I needed to do it.
Walking through the campus was still a surreal experience, considering that like, a year ago, I was doing the same thing on a different planet and in a different body. The students going about their day were gone now, or at least they weren’t really students anymore.
A group of foragers, baskets on their backs, trudged along the same path as me, heading the other way. I wonder what they had all been studying before this. Before they were torn from their old lives and thrust into this dangerous new world. One of them had a thermos full of what smelled like coffee, and deep inside my brain, a remnant of my past self awoke. It seemed my coffee plants had been put to good use.
“Hey, excuse me,” I blurted, swerving slightly so they knew I was talking to them.
The group looked up as one, eyes widening as they realised who was talking to them. They slowed and exchanged looks, as though silently drawing straws to determine who would be unlucky enough to talk to me.
“Yeah?” A thin, awkward looking dude asked cautiously.
“Where’d you get those coffees, if it’s okay to ask,” I said, feeling a little nervous as I gestured to their beverages. The way they were all looking at me made my stomach squirm a little. Like I might vaporise them with an angry look.
“The Fogg building,” he said, politely but curtly. “Cafe at the bottom.”
“Thanks,” I smiled, trying my best to appear unconcerned by the strange attitude of the group. Was I really that scary? Did I have resting murder face when I was tired?
They moved on while I puzzled over their strange behaviour, but in the end all I could do was shrug and wander off in search of the cafe. It had been so long since I had proper coffee, and the smell just now had caused a craving.
The Fogg building wasn’t too far away, being near the center of campus. If I remembered correctly, it mainly housed student services and the cafe at the bottom. I think there might have been a few classrooms at the top too? I wasn’t sure. Either way, it was a small, colourful modern building shoved between two cold war era tower blocks that made it stick out like a sore thumb.
When I got there, a small line had formed that appeared to be growing by the moment. Yawning, I joined the queue and waited patiently.
It was a pretty cute little cafe, to be honest, and it seemed to have survived its time on the ring mostly unscathed. The decorative pot plants looked like they could use some watering, and the paint on the outside sign was slightly faded, but the windows were still there and they even had some tables and chairs laying around. Of course, they no longer accepted money. Instead, they had what were called Work Certificates, which were definitely not money. Nope, not at all.
Unfortunately, the people in the line were less than chill about me just rolling up like a normal person. Everyone was staring at me now, with a broad range of expressions and emotions, some more hidden than others.
Oops, guess I should work on a proper disguise. Something that was more physical than a simple illusion. Could help with research towards changing trans people’s bodies too. Not really a priority in the grand scheme of things, but important to me personally.
The stares were a lot to handle though, and I nervously checked my skin-tight magical shield. Was it still in place? Yeah? Okay, good.
I made my way up through the line, only for my gut to drop out when I saw who was serving the coffee. Rhea, the girl who’d been weirdly confrontational with me the other day when I was mining stone.
Shit, well… that might explain why the people with the coffee were giving me funny looks earlier. Maybe she was talking shit about me?
She hadn’t seen me yet, and I debated just leaving, but… I really wanted that coffee. She also wasn’t the one actually preparing the coffee either, just taking the orders. Worst case she wrote down the wrong order on purpose or something. That was fine, all coffee had its place, and I wasn’t feeling all that picky.
I immediately wished that I had just left when she actually laid eyes on me. Her expression soured in an instant as I stepped up to the counter, and I could tell she was calculating if she could get away with telling me to leave.
She obviously couldn't, since it was my coffee beans she was handing out, and I think she must have realised that because she plastered a smile on her face and asked, “Why hello, Ryn. What can I get you?”
“Um…” I began, unsure how to process her behaviour. “Just whatever is easiest, thanks.”
I placed a Work Cert onto the counter and waited for her reaction. If I didn’t let on what coffee I liked, she couldn’t purposefully give me the wrong coffee. Now you’re thinking with portals, Ryn!
One of her eyes twitched in irritation, but she nodded and picked up a crude paper cup, scribbling something on it and placing it to the side. “It’ll be ready soon, they’ll call your name.”
I nodded my wary thanks and stepped to the side, wondering what she’d put on the cup. A cup that looked like it had been made after Avonside arrived on the ring, funnily enough. I wonder how they had managed that so quickly. Was it even hard to make disposable paper cups?
Some random dude from behind the counter plucked my cup off the waiting tray and began to make my coffee without so much as a glance in my direction. He looked exhausted, and I didn’t blame him. Making coffee for hundreds of people in the space of an hour or two could be tough work. Any service job was.
I wonder if there was some way I could make a coffee spell. Oh, or teach my buns to make coffee! Would they tolerate that?
“Elias?” the called name lanced ice into my heart, and my lungs failed to take in the next breath.
I looked up to see the dude who’d made my coffee looking around. Looking around at all the guys, not at all realising what Rhea had done. To his side, she stood, a look of cruel victory on her face.
Hurting as I was by the sudden intrusion of that months-dead name, I did the only thing I could. I walked up to the guy as calmly as I could, took the cup from his confused grip, and rushed out of the cafe.
Oh god. Why did it hurt so much? It was just a name. I’d heard it a few times since I’d become Ryn, but never… never in a way that was so vindictive, so nasty. She had used that name to send me a message, to tell me that I wasn’t a woman in her eyes, that I was still him. Then there was the name on the cup, written with obvious care onto the paper in permanent marker.
Using a sharpened telekinetic tentacle, I carefully sliced off the name, like a surgeon performing a life-saving operation. The flake of paper never reached the ground, because that same tentacle eviscerated it with a wild savagery that was in stark contrast to the care I had just used. The cup was a little less structurally sound, but that didn’t really matter to me. I could hold the cup together with my mind, after all.
Timidly, I took a sip from the coffee, then breathed a sigh of relief as I found it to be just the way I liked it. Strong enough to princess carry me. At least I had won out there. Silly bitch thought I wouldn’t like it darker than her heart.
Well, time to get to cutting stone, I guess.
Nobody was really around at the quarry when I arrived, which was more than fine by me right then. I wanted to take out some of my stress on some inanimate objects without anyone seeing the tears that came with it.
What the hell was Rhea’s problem anyway? I hadn’t done shit to her, and now she had some sort of petty vendetta out for me? Ugh, whatever. I’d leave extra stone here for the university to use, more than we’d agreed when they let us use the stone. At least that way I was channeling my pain into something useful. Plus, I figured the easiest way to combat her evil whispers was to do even more good than before. The rest of Avonside couldn’t hate me if I was responsible for the roof over their head, right?
Doubted it, to be honest. Humans sucked, and they’d hate people, things, and ideologies for whatever damned reason they wanted, regardless of logic. Still, it made me feel better, so I guess that was something.
A few hours later and I was just polishing off the last load of cut stone when an obrec ranger jogged up to me, waving as she did so.
“Rynadria, greetings,” she said in the obrec tongue. “Otho requests your presence at our lodge. There is a human boy from the Anver states here, he claims to know you.”
“A… huh?” I blinked, trying to imagine who on the ring it could be. The Anvers were… all the humans who lived down in the clusterfuck of principalities to the south. Yeah, that was them… and… but I didn’t know anyone from there, did I? I had passed through with the other members of the order and we hadn’t really made any friends. Confusing. I guess there was only one way to find out.
“Alright, let’s go then.”
Thank you for the chapter and glad this is back! I hope Rhea realizes how much of a shitty asshole she is someday, it doesn't happen often in the real world, perhaps in fiction it can be a thing?
Nah, she ain't gonna realize. What Ryn should do is break off selling or giving luxury items to the college, they get the bare minimum. And when people ask why they aren't getting the good stuff anymore you point out the people like Rhea. Nothing gets disgusting piles of human waste to hide their nasty habits and opinions faster than getting removed from the group. She'll either stop being openly nasty or the college group kicks her out for rocking the boat.
@coldpyr0 That wouldn't do either. A lot of people wouldn't ask for reasons and just be disappointed. The best thing that Ryn has also the power to do is to be an excellent ally for the entirety of Avonside. Then, Rhea and her likeminded ones will quickly lose quite some support.
@Lexi It isn't about support, no one is really supporting Rhea and reality is sadly not that good. Just because people always say to be the better person doesn't mean that they do when the time comes, and humans are too selfish to really care about others unless it impacts them. Exceptions are named that for a reason, people wouldn't ask, the point is that they hear it through gossip and they start treating Rhea like she treated Ryn, they will either do it unconsciously or deliberately because Rhea's actions are hurting the group. We are still pack animals at our heart.
@coldpyr0 Sadly, this could just as easily backfire and give the bigots ammunition, and in this case Rhea would be the one to deliver the bad massage of no coffee, giving her the chance to put her spin on it.
Ryn just being mean is sadly much faster to say than explaining why TERFs spout BS.
Given the reaction people had towards Ryn in this chapter, she might already be subtly be working on people. Her position is likely to get her into contact with tons of people, and the one that gives coffee addicts their coffee is likely to leave a favorable impression with them.
@Echimera I disagree, normal people wouldn't side with either party by default. Sure they might believe rumors that Ryn cut off luxury items just cause she's mean, but the moment they have more info they easily adjust who they believe. Either they pick the useless bigot that isn't doing anything productive or they pick the witch who can easily magic up food, high quality medicine, and luxury goods. People forget that things like shamans and witch doctors were more wide spread in early civilization than just Native Americans. Without modern day politics and in a community slowly regressing into a trade mentality, the producers and healers get FAR more support than the average Jane or Joe.
@coldpyr0 I wish I could have as positive an outlook as you, but sadly people all around the world show that facts often don't matter in the face of emotions. Otherwise, religious nutjobs and other bigots would have it so much harder to stay relevant with their baseless fearmongering.
@Echimera They mainly stay relevant because of the claws they've latched into systems and governments all over the world, they are losing relevance the more they continue to fearmonger and spread hate. This is why the Catholic and Christian churches have pulled back on being so outspoken on hateful subjects, they let smaller groups that they support with money take the heat for their bigoted ideas because they are starting to lose believers on top of getting fewer new ones. You can't stop bigots from hating but you can at least shame them into keeping their horrible ideas in their head and out of civilized society, at least until a leader who openly spouts that same hate is elected anyway...
she should get magicked into a guy only to get changed back to suffer what Tammie did in trouble the first time she exited the pod
@ArcadiaWindjumper
No, while I get the emotion behind that sentiment, just no.
Knowing what it's like, I can't say I ever want anyone else to go through that, even if they are transmisic bigots.
@Schokolade believe me i am trans too but sometimes you have to walk a mile in someone's else's shoes to become a better person and if that includes suffering then they would probably be more aware of the hurt they cause afterwords and just what it feels like
@ArcadiaWindjumper I do and don’t agree with you. Knowing how it feels to be who you really want to be would be certainly life changing and it might change Rhea for the better, but that’s only if she wants the change.
I’m thinking that if Ryn keeps doing what she’s been doing for the university and the people around her others will see how good a person she actually is over the ruthless mage she can be. Then they’d more than likely start noticing the people like Rhea and those not accepting of her situation and either ostracize them or start showing actual support
@Dragons true but people are selfish and rather not get involved if someone without power saw someone getting mugged in an alleyway and knew they could safely stop it would they??? people will defiantly say yes they would but when push comes to shove not so much parents say to just be yourself all the time every parent says that and that they will love you no matter what but when the kid dose reviling they are lgbt Epically The t in the acronym they get all hate full and sadly some get beaten to death sad but true trying to be themselves like parents said only to be killed by them for being themselves
@ArcadiaWindjumper Very realistic…sadly.