“I do not like this! My arms are hurting! I am no longer interested in copulation at this time. Release me immediately and beg for my forgiveness that I may allow you to pleasure me in the future. I command it as your summoner!”

“Look, lady, bottom line is, you don’t seem to be able to control yourself or show us basic respect. Unless that changes, we’re not untying you.” Aaron glared down at the woman and almost managed to keep looking angry when her cat-fox ears drooped flat. For once, the ‘godling’ did not simply shout an order, her response coming out subdued and questioning.

“You do not wish to worship me?”

“No.”

“But I Summoned you, made you young again...”

“Hold on, that’s right, she said she summoned us here!” John pointed a finger accusingly. “It’s her fault!”

“Calm it down John…”

“Hell no I won’t! Look at me! Look at me!” John lifted her sweatshirt and revealed the synthetic material of a sportsbra underneath, containing her impressive but not excessive endowments. “Where are my sculpted swimmer’s pecks? Eh? Where is my manly chest? You took Little John from me!” The ‘godling’ looked really confused, shrinking down a little.

“I did… something wrong?” John took another breath, but Lucy put a hand in front of her face and John let the breath out in a long controlled hiss, calming down a little. Aaron decided to take over again.

“John was a man. Lucy there was a woman… and they were together, romantically.”

“It is fortunate then that they are still bearing interfaceable genitalia?”

“That’s true… that’s besides the point! This is a massive change to do to someone without their consent!” Aaron paced back and forth and Alan decided to tag the guy out, receiving a little look of thanks. Alan decided to sit down before the kneeling woman. It put him at about the same eye level and made him feel less like he was just lording over someone they’d tied up. Somehow, throughout this whole situation, he seemed to be the least upset by it.

Maybe because he’d been feeling like a dead weight, too out of shape? Too gung-ho for all this magic stuff? Actually kind of liking being here despite that they might all die. Yeah. Kind of messed up, really.

“What’s your name?” Guess he was playing the good cop now. Whatever, he didn’t mind locking himself into that role.

“Name? I am a Child.” Alan suppressed a snort.

“You… act kind of like a child, but I mean, what are you called? What would your mother call you?” The woman screwed up her eyes as she considered the question.

“Oh, you mean like these individual titles that your species are fond of giving, meant to be unique identifiers? Mother would refer to me by my Essence designation code, but I lack that now. My Shell was damaged and I sacrificed the last of its energies to complete the Summoning and form this vessel.” Alan rubbed his temples. Why did he volunteer to be the one speaking to the weird woman now for a second time?

“Ok, am I to understand you don’t really have a ‘name’ then, the way I am Alan, she… er, he is John…”

“I’m still a he, damnit!”

“Fine! You can have whatever gender identity, alright? He’s John and he was biologically male and is now biologically female, yeah? She…”

“I think I’d like to be a ‘he’, try it out.”

“…goddamnit is this going to be complicated? We’ll just go with it. Lucy there was biologically female, now biologically male. Aaron looks like he got younger, I got younger but now my ears and teeth are wrong, plus I’m like half my body mass. Elean… she was a Talor… oh, I should call you a ‘she’, since we’re bringing this issue up?”

“Of course. I have female reproductive organs, doesn’t that make me a ‘she’?” Elean said with an amused expression.

“In our culture there is the complication of self-identified gender perception versus the gender association of your reproductive organs and we’re at a difficult social crossing where we haven’t figured out how to handle the coincidence of differing perception of gender based on the societal construct of gender, which is associated with aesthetic and behavioral archetypes that aren’t even consistent across all of the global cultures present or historically…”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“John, enough. It’s too much right now.”

“I… I don’t follow, but I am to understand that ‘John’, who was male before and female now, wishes to be referred to as male, but Lucy, who was female before and is male now, wishes to be referred to as male, that you, ‘Alan’, and you, ‘Aaron’ were and are male and wish to be called male…?” There was a series of nods and assents. Elean shrugged. “Whatever suits you, I will attempt to keep it straight, though I do find it odd. In Talor society there is a very significant biological difference between men and women. To most Talor, you would all appear as female. In fact, most of the species I am aware of, outside of Man, have very significant distinctions between the genders.”

Alan waived a hand to dissuade further delving into the topic. It was already going to be something that came up again and again, he figured. John was clearly struggling mentally with the situation, which was frankly, totally reasonable. That Lucy didn’t seem that upset might just mean the reaction was delayed or maybe she was genuinely ok with it. Either way, it was going to be complicated.

“Let’s set that aside for now.” He turned back to the ‘godling’. “We’ll need to have something to call you by, but for now let’s just call you Kid, alright?” She made as if to shrug, but winced as the ropes made the motion painful. “Look, we don’t want to hurt you. You need to be able to respect that our bodies are just that, our bodies. You can’t just command us to do anything. Nobody is going to just have sex with you on demand. We don’t even know you and sex is incredibly intimate and usually restricted to partners who are deeply committed to each other.”

“Now Alan, that’s not born out in American society, casual sex is actually far more common…”

“Shut up Lucy! I know for a fact that none of you were ‘casual sex’ people, yeah? Yeah. Let’s not argue for something we’re not condoning right here, right now, alright? Alright.” Aaron’s eyebrows shot way up. Was he surprised at Alan’s comment or… maybe because Alan was being so forceful? Huh, he did feel a lot more argumentative and energetic. Oh right.

“Look, Kid, I appreciate the idea of being young again, especially being fit, but the point is you did something that changed our bodies without our consent. Even if in the end we’re very thankful for it, it wasn’t right.” Kid bit her lower lip. Her jaw was trembling. Her eyes even started to tear up. Shit, Alan could feel his own ears flatten now, affected by the visible emotion.

“I… I understand. If I promise not to order you to do anything or to try and force anything on your bodies, will you please untie me? This… hurts.” Alan looked around at everyone. Elean just shrugged, but Aaron and Lucy nodded. John looked very upset still but sh… damnit, ‘he’ finally nodded. Alan had just started shifting the pronouns in his brain and now he was having to shift them back! So frustrating! Plus how could he look at those curves and think of John the man? Mmm… curves…

“Alan, you’re looking at me weird…” Alan wiped what he hoped was not a visible bit of drool from his face after quickly averting his gaze. Going to have to watch out for that. His libido was screaming at him for not having taken Kid up on her aggressive offer before.

“Alright, fine, looks like we’re letting you loose. Be good, alright?” Kid nodded vigorously, wincing as it caused pain to do so. Elean quickly undid the knots and Kid lay down on the ground, rubbing her wrists, which looked like they might have been a little bruised. The marks on her ankles didn’t look so bad.

“What now guys? Do we still want to take Elean up on her offer?”

“My offer to help you flee? I… I owe you all a tremendous debt. I’ve been trapped, enslaved as a Sentinel for more than a century. I would risk my life to aid you but… staying is not a risk, it is a guarantee of death. Even if the Mana were returned fully to this area and I had enough food to recuperate my internal stores fully, my Archive is in disarray, my body is changed, if less so than yours, I would not be able to fight more than one other Sentinel, if even that.”

“I’m not sure what that all means but what we’re hearing is that staying is guaranteed to be a bad idea. Then I think,” Aaron said, offering a hand out to Elean, who just looked at it in confusion, “that we’ll trust you to lead us to safety then, Elean.” The hand hung out there. It got awkward. “It’s a handshake…?”

“Oh!” She shook Aaron’s hand cautiously, then returned the firm grip with the audible sound of joints popping. Aaron pulled his hand back and shook it out. “Sorry! When you said ‘handshake’, the word conveyed to my mind the concept! Such an interesting thing, having an entire language installed into your mind! Though I seem to be stronger than I am used to, or perhaps Man is not as strong as a Talor?” Kid stood up on shaky legs, still seeming to struggle a little with the whole balancing and walking thing.

“The three of us have undergone a combined transformation. I had intended to be a large and muscular man, however Mother interfered somehow.” She brushed off dirt from her clothes. “It seems Mother wishes me to be female. She does have an obsession with generative reproduction. As for the strength, Mother seems to have specified us as a long extinct beast-hybrid race, which has naturally higher musculoskeletal density and strength, an omnivorous dietary capacity with carnivorous leanings, and a bi-annual reproductive cycle.”

She flexed a hand and cat-like retracted claws extended. They weren’t long, nothing like some horrifying instrument of death. More likely they would be useful for climbing or grabbing. The hand twitched and the claws retracted. Alan looked at his own fingertips and could just make out the subtle separation under his fingernails where the claws were retracted to.

Try as he might though, he couldn’t get them to extend. He noticed Elean was doing the same, though her claws did extend, which received a satisfied smile from the once-Talor.

“That is a lot of detail, but further conversation might be best after we can get somewhere safe, get something to eat, and preferably somewhere to sleep for the night?” Aaron brought them back to reality.

Elean looked up and nodded. With her in the lead, they started off, making their way through the forest upriver.