“Hello, I’m Beazi. My husband asked that I wait and see if you needed anything…?”

Bea stopped just outside, seeming hesitant to enter. Just like last time she was stark naked, and I guessed the satyrs really just didn’t like wearing clothes if they could help it.

“Come in and shut the door.” I told her, changing my mind about leaving the moment I saw her.

She did as I instructed but didn’t really move further into the room. I returned to my chair, glancing back when I noticed she wasn’t following. To my surprise, she looked quietly terrified.

It finally dawned on me that from her perspective she was in the room with an unknown entity wrapped in living shadow. One who had walked in here on the heels of the god of Evil.

They might be allies, but for all she knew I was a dangerous monster. Possibly one of his “field agents” - I might be capable of anything, and The Adversary was no longer here to rein me in. My Souleater title probably wasn’t helping. It didn’t seem like titles were visible to casual inspection, but if she had a way to see it that thing had to be ominous. Particularly to anyone who knew what a soul really was.

At that moment I realized what System had done, and I let out a dark chuckle. That title was a private little joke of his, wasn’t it? After all, I wasn’t eating souls, was I? I was eating spirits with my soul-space. It was my soul doing the eating, not the souls of others being eaten. I’d been getting it backwards this whole time.

Bea looked even more terrified, and I began to feel bad for her. She’d been nice to me when I’d first come here. “Relax,” I told her. “It’s me, Infinity”

I deactivated Embrace of Shadows for the first time since I’d originally activated it, scattering small fragments of shadow to flow back to their hiding spots. The room managed to look both brighter and darker at the same time as it no longer contained a pool of darkness at its heart, yet nearly everything in the room suddenly had more of a shadow than it had moments before.

At the same time, I dropped the threatening persona I’d assigned to Nyx and settled back into the middle ground between my real self and Tavi once more. I’d been planning to practice being Nyx with Bea, but it wasn’t the time for it.

Suddenly I was no longer a menacing and enigmatic figure, but only a small shirtless goblin girl sitting in a chair that was too big for her. I’d have time to practice being Nyx later. Right now, I could just be whatever passed for me these days.

Bea gawked for a moment, then laughed as the tension she’d tried to conceal flowed out of her. She plopped down into the seat across from me where System had sat earlier, grabbing the wine bottle as she did so. I watched as she took a swig directly from the bottle, then collapsed back into the chair, cradling the booze like it was a newborn.

“My husband is quite convinced you’re an auditor, you know,” she told me. “The Lord Adversary audits the Exchange from time to time, and the poor girl on the phone sounded so terrified that he’s been scrambling to get all the books and inventory in order since he showed you in here. It’s caused quite the stir.”

“Uh, shouldn’t you let him know I’m not an auditor?” I asked her, a bit taken aback by this revelation.

She waved away my concern. “It will do the old goat good to tidy things up a bit, he’s gotten lazy in his old age, with all the trust The Lord Adversary puts in him.” She grinned at me. “So, tell me all about it, has it really only been a day since we last spoke? Look at you! You’re like a whole new woman!”

I ended up telling her all about my day, from my trip into the dungeon to my curse at the hands of Limitless to my escapades in the bathroom of the Fair Deal. I let Tavi’s personality take over as I told the story and ended up acting out parts of it with literal shadow puppets.

Tavi’s enthusiasm was infectious, and Bea was in turn impressed at my accomplishments, horrified by my description of the dungeon, and amused by my blunders. We passed the wine bottle back and forth between us, neither bothering with glasses. When the story was finished I was a little tipsy even though I’d been careful not to drink at my old human tolerance.

I ended the story by complaining about my cramps. The wine had helped dull the pain, but I could tell that I needed to change out the rag I was using, which was going to be a pain since I hadn’t brought a replacement. The whole thing was a literal pain in the ass, and I couldn’t believe women had to deal with this for most of their lives.

In the middle of my griping, I realized I must have said something wrong, because Bea had gone from commiserating to looking at me with confusion. I very literally replayed the last few things I’d said by looking at them in my chat log and discovered that I’d expressed that sentiment out loud and rather directly, as though I were still getting used to the idea… which I was.

Bea cocked her head, curious. “Dear, I know you’re from another world and all. My husband’s business takes us to many such worlds, and I’ve seen many strange and marvelous things in them. Still, I’ve never encountered a world where women, or at least mammalian women, didn’t have a cycle of fertility. How did it work in your world if not like this?”

I froze, did I dare tell her the truth? I’d hidden it from everyone I’d met so far, but that was to keep my identity a secret as much as it was to avoid embarrassment. Bea had been utterly frank with me on several occasions though, and I was beginning to think of her as a friend. Was there a reason not to tell her? What if it grossed her out? What if what I’d inadvertently done to Tavi horrified her?

“Man, that’s a bigger question than you know,” I told her. “I’m trying to figure out how to answer it.”

“Well, what world are you originally from? Perhaps I’ve heard of it.”

“We just called it Earth, which might not be very helpful,” I told her. “It’s a world without any magic, so you probably haven’t been there.”

She shook her head. “No, I understand your meaning and I believe I know the world you are speaking of. The Lord Adversary has had us transport and store considerable amounts of equipment from that world.” She frowned as she considered. “I was under the impression that it only contained humans though, I wasn’t aware any goblins lived there.”

I sighed. “That’s because before I got to Astra, I wasn’t a goblin, I was human. The gods put each of us through something called the Forge of Souls if that rings any bells to you.”

“I’m afraid not, but that is fascinating, why did they turn you into a goblin? Did you ask to be one?”

“No, my understanding is that it was random. They told me that for every soul they brought to this world, one soul had to be consumed in the process. Some people apparently got to create a body for themselves, but it still cost the soul of someone living on Astra. I didn’t get that chance, instead I ended up in the body of the person whose soul was used to bring me here, a goblin thief named Tavi.”

I sat quietly for a moment, looking at my hands. It’d been a while since I really thought about the circumstances that had put me in this body, and the last time I had really considered it I had thought this was all a game.

I hadn’t really let it sink in that I was wearing the corpse of a real person. Someone that had loved and been loved by people I’d barely met but had still come to care about. If I were being honest with myself, I’d been avoiding thinking about it as much as possible.

The sudden acknowledgement of my situation caused a physiological response that I couldn’t control. My muscles rebelled against me, and I found it nearly impossible to breathe as my throat clenched. I wrapped my arms around myself and shook as I helplessly realized I was having a panic attack.

Time passed, I wasn’t sure how long. When I recovered, I found Bea holding me close, hugging me as I shuddered. The proximity let me see that her top half was as furry as her bottom half, but the fur was soft and pink like her skin, and so short as to be almost invisible from any distance.

My brain latched onto this fact like a lifeline, and I used it to pull myself back from the deep dark hole I’d found myself in. I was curled up in my chair, and Bea was kneeling beside it as she comforted me. As soon as I felt like I could articulate, I spoke.

“Thanks… I’m better now. I think.”

“I’m so sorry to have brought this up!” Bea lamented, continuing to stroke my hair as she held me. “I didn’t realize it was such a painful topic for you!”

“No, no… It’s fine,” I told her, gently pulling away so I could look in her eyes. “It just caught me off guard is all, I didn’t realize quite how much I’d bottled up there. I’m glad you asked. I needed to feel that. I just… a girl died so I could come to this world, and her soul is gone. I barely even understand what that means. Worse, I’ve been pretending to be her. She has this big adopted family and they nursed me back to health when I first got here. At first I was just doing it to get help, but now I don’t know if I can bear to tell them because it will hurt them so much. I don’t know what to do.”

Bea pulled me in for another hug, before putting a hand on both my shoulders and holding me at arms length and looking into my eyes.

“This is not on you. Listen to me carefully. My husband and I work for the lord of evil himself. We have had items pass through our hands that would make your blood run cold and wake you screaming from dreams for weeks on end. We try not to hear how such things are ultimately used, but sometimes word reaches us. We do what we do because someone has to, and we’d rather it be someone like us than someone who would enjoy that part of the business. In the meantime, we do what we can to offset the harm we cause by helping people like you. Trust me when I say I understand how you feel.”

She produced a small cloth from nowhere I could see and used it to wipe the tears from my eyes, which was the first clue I had that I’d been crying. “You had no choice in this, and it is not your fault. I know that’s not enough, but there is something you can do. Honor her memory, be thankful for her sacrifice, see to it that her family is protected and supported, and incorporate her life’s goals into your own. Let her live on through you, not by replacing her, but by remembering her.”

I sat and thought about her words while she stood and retrieved the bottle of wine. She walked with it over to the door and stepped out into the hallway. I overheard soft talking, and a short time later Bea reentered and closed the door behind her.

In her hands she held a small bottle of brown liquid and two shot glasses. Without a word she poured out two full shots, handing one to me and downing the other herself a moment later. I hesitated for a moment, then downed mine as well.

It was not what I expected, there was alcohol yes, and it burned going down, but there was also something else I’d never tasted before. Mere moments after I’d drank it the burn turned to a soothing chill that eased my lingering aches. To my surprise, while I continued to feel buzzed, I didn’t feel any more drunk than I had been before. Instead, the more time passed, the more I felt at peace with the world around me.

“It’s called the Mountain's Tears.” Bea told me. “It’s a dwarven drink, popular at funerals and other somber occasions. I’m not entirely sure how it’s made but if it doesn’t have some magic in it, I’d be surprised. It’s supposed to be good for remembering the deceased.”

“Magic mushrooms maybe…” I speculated, “I can’t exactly remember her if I never knew her… or wait, no that’s not true. Damn, is that why he gave me that skill?”

I opened my skills and looked at Devil in the Details with new eyes, wondering if The Adversary had foreseen my feelings of guilt and given me a way to get closure. Was he that thoughtful? How could the god of evil display such empathy? I obviously still didn’t understand him.

Bea settled back in her chair and gave me a knowing look but didn’t ask me to clarify. I took a moment to steady myself, and closed my eyes, letting the strange drink work its magic on me. Soon enough the panic and despair I’d been bottling up faded into the background, and I felt like I could function again.

“Sorry about that. I had more eating at me than I realized. I think I was telling you about how I became a goblin, right?”

Bea raised her eyebrows in concern, “Infinity… You don’t have to go on. I didn’t realize the answer to my question would be so personal or so painful.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I waved her concern away. “I know, but to be honest I’d like to have someone to talk about it with. I could really use a friendly ear and some advice if you don’t mind?”

She sat up in her chair and nodded at me with complete certainty. “Of course. If I can help, I’d be happy to hear you out. I just didn’t want to make you dwell on painful memories.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” I let out a big sigh. “So, the key thing you’re missing here, and the reason all this is the answer to your original question, is that when I lived on Earth I wasn’t just human, I was a dude. I’ve never had to deal with this crap before because I never had the plumbing that required it.”

Bea raised a hand to cover her mouth in shock. “You… oh dear. You’ve been a woman for all of what, two days? On top of everything else? No wonder you’re coming apart at the seams!”

I gave her a tired grin. “No kidding. I found out earlier today, just before I came here actually, that my soul is probably stapled onto Tavi’s spirit too. It’s really easy for me to fall into thinking like her, but without any of the memories that give it context. It’s been great for impersonating her, but mostly I’ve just been a hormonal mess having to sort through feelings that belong to her. It’s like my body and brain are telling me one thing, but my identity and sense of self don’t match that image. I’ve been trying to find some sort of middle ground, but it’s been hard.”

Bea seemed confused for a moment, then her eyes went wide with realization. “Oh. Oh my, yes, I can see how that would be a problem. I take it you weren’t attracted to men before?”

I just nodded sheepishly, trying not to blush.

Bea winced. “Let me apologize again for the sales tactic my husband employed on you yesterday. That must have been like salt in the wound, and I probably didn’t help by pointing it out, did I?”

I just shrugged. “I’ve been dealing with lots of stuff like that, don’t worry about it. My only complaint is that it should be illegal to be as good looking as that Javril guy is.”

“If you think that’s criminal you should see him in bed.” Bea said, giving me a look that let me know she was teasing me. “Would you believe that he’s a… what’s the term? A grower?”

I let my mouth hang open in shock, but I realized I’d completely lost the battle against blushing. “Bea! You’re married!”

She nodded. “Happily too.” Then she smacked her forehead dramatically. “Sorry, I keep forgetting you aren’t actually a goblin. Humans are normally monogamous where you come from aren’t they? Goblins and satyrs tend to have very similar views on sex in my experience, even if goblins are more fond of clothing… It’s the fur you know, species with fur almost all hate clothing, it’s just so uncomfortable, even if it can be very effective at enhancing your looks.”

My ears were dangerously close to catching on fire, but she continued unabashed. “I’m married to Sam, yes, but in our culture that doesn’t mean monogamy. We have sex with our friends all the time, why wouldn’t we?”

“Uh, aren’t you worried about pregnancy? Diseases? Jealousy?” I stammered out.

Bea gave me a weird look. “Why would I be worried about pregnancy? Diseases are annoying but everyone here is in good health, if they had a transferable status condition like that, they’d get it cured first obviously. Jealousy happens sometimes, but character flaws like that aren’t to be encouraged by humoring them - and really, everyone's a little jealous of Javril, just look at him! My Sam would never be so cruel as to deny me such a pleasurable encounter.”

I tried to think of a way to articulate why she should be concerned about pregnancy, but words failed me, and I just buried my head in my hands convinced I was about to die of embarrassment. I looked up when I heard Bea’s muffled laughter, and saw her laughing into her hand.

“Were you teasing me?” I asked, still mortified.

“No no no…” she said, then paused. “Well, yes. But I didn’t lie. It’s just so fun to talk about this sort of thing with people from more repressed cultures. I’m sorry. You know I don’t think I’ve ever seen a goblin blush like that before.”

Then she fell into giggling again until the giggles turned into hiccups in what I could only assume was an act of karmic retribution.

“Seriously though. Why aren’t you concerned about pregnancy? Do you have access to some kind of magic, or do you have access to birth control pills from Earth?”

I was wondering if they had a way to stop periods like birth control medication could sometimes do on earth. I knew that was typically reserved for people with medical conditions that made it a debilitating condition, but surely there was some magical equivalent. This wasn’t unbearable, but it was annoying and uncomfortable.

Bea immediately crushed my idea. “No, no, nothing like that. Sorry, of course you wouldn’t know this, we’ve had the System alpha here in Jira for almost my entire life but of course it’s new to you, and you haven’t had sex yet to see it for yourself… on worlds governed by System sex is always at least nominally consensual, and pregnancy is a double opt-in. When you have sex, the man will be prompted to ask if he wants to try for a child, and you’ll be prompted to accept it if he says yes. If either of you say no there is no chance at all of you becoming pregnant.”

“So, nobody here or on Astra needs birth control at all? What about people with painful periods?” I asked. This was such a good policy on every level that I was shocked it existed. Nothing that perfect could exist without some sort of flaw to spoil it… That's just how the world worked in my experience.

Bea shook her head. “Nope, none needed at all. There is magic that can help ease pain though, and some of the girls around here that have more painful cycles will use that. It can be a bit dangerous as it can cause you to ignore dangerous wounds and other pains that should be treated, not suppressed.”

She paused in thought. “You know, there is something I can give you to help, now that I think about it.”

She pushed herself out of her chair and walked slightly unsteadily to one of the bookcases behind Sam’s desk. With a tug on one of the books, just like in an old movie, she opened the bookcase and swung it out of the way, revealing a pristine single-person bathroom like you might find in any western style household. With some effort she pulled out a largish package from under the sink and brought it over to me, plopping it down on the desk for consideration.

It was a large, unopened box of name brand tampons, straight from earth. “Rags and pads don’t really work without clothing to hold them in place. These things caused a minor revolution around here when we first got our hands on them.” She handed them over to me. “Here, these are my gift to you, call it a welcome to womanhood present. If you like them and want more just come see me, we import tons of these things already.”

At this point embarrassment was just a fact of reality for me. A constant, like the directions on a compass or the position of the stars. I was now and would always be embarrassed.

However, both my mind and body were worn out, and I found that I just didn’t care anymore. I took the offered pack of tampons gratefully. On the side of the package, it claimed to hold 118 regular sized tampons. That seemed like a lot, but I had no idea how quickly I’d go through them - and I would go through them, there was no way I was turning this down. Wearing a bloody rag in my underwear sucked and if I never had to do it again it would be too soon.

“Thank you. Seriously,” I told Bea as I moved the entire package of tampons into my soul-space. Then I hesitated. “Do you mind if I use that bathroom really quick?”

“As long as you don’t have any meetings in there,” she said, giving me a wink. “Take your time and read the instructions on the box. Just let me know if you need any help.”

I sealed myself up in the bathroom and pulled out a single box of tampons from the pack, doing as Bea had told me and reading the instructions. I’d seen these things before of course, but I’d never used one or even really handled one outside of its packaging.

The instructions were simple and straightforward, though there were some surprises. I managed to somehow mess it up on my first attempt but got it right on the second. I left the bathroom a minute later, feeling weird yet far more comfortable than when I’d walked in. I’d been expecting to be able to constantly feel it, but to my relief this was not the case.

Bea raised a full shot glass in my direction as I came out, grinning at me. I grabbed another shot myself, and took it back to my chair, along with another sausage from the food platter still sitting on Sam’s desk. Through a mouthful of meat I asked Bea a question that’d been burning a hole in my pants for a while now, and I figured if anyone would know she would.

“So, I have to know… Why do we have to put up with this? I mean Earth is a no magic world and we can stop periods in a variety of ways. I can’t figure out why a place like this or Astra hasn’t magic’d it away except when people are trying to get pregnant. I’m told healing magic just puts it off and makes it last longer but surely there’s something that works?”

Bea rolled her eyes. “Would you believe it’s politics?” she asked. “Divine politics to be specific. Some deities are oddly invested in so called ‘natural’ processes and take offense at trying to circumvent them. System’s pregnancy opt-in was a major concession from that faction I understand, but there’s no way we’d get out of our cycle with the deity of cycles themselves in the prime pantheon.”

I flipped through my notes really quick and landed on an entry for a god called Althi, although I’d written “Althia? Althis?” in the margin beside their name. After a moment of reading I remembered why. When I had first approached Althi they had introduced themselves by that name, but as I spoke to them the deity had changed from fairly androgynous to distinctly feminine, back to androgynous, and then distinctly masculine.

They had also referred to themselves with a wide array of pronouns and names but showed no sign of having multiple personalities or anything. I’d written down their domains as Sun & Moon, Time, and Cycles, though I didn’t really understand why their gender was constantly changing. Sure, it was a cycle, but it seemed like a completely arbitrary one.

“So, some of the gods have a personal investment in a somewhat related concept, and because of that billions of people have to suffer for half their life? Man, if that isn’t some on the nose social commentary I don’t know what is.” I downed my second shot of Mountain’s Tears and winced as it went down. Idly I noticed an icon appear in the corner of my vision.

“That’s the way it goes.” she nodded, then brightened suddenly. “So, have you tried masturbating yet? How is it compared to when you were a man? I’ve always been curious.”

I started coughing furiously and would have done a full-on spit take if she’d caught me a few moments earlier. “What?! No!” I managed to get out between coughs.

“Why not? I could understand being hesitant about sex but aren’t you curious?”

I squirmed in my chair, “I mean, yeah a little.” I paused to cough some more. “I haven’t exactly been alone much though. Also, the thought weirds me out, you know? It’s not my body.”

She sobered a bit at that. “Ah, yes I see what you mean.”

She paused and thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know how this whole soul thing works, but you said you are good at pretending to be Tavi… Have you asked yourself what she would think about it? I know if I were in her situation I wouldn’t begrudge you the use of my body, it’s not like you wanted this to happen. I’d just want you to make sure my family was safe and happy since I couldn’t.”

“No, I guess I haven’t really…” I said, thinking about it. “I guess that’s worth a shot.”

I cast my thoughts inward and embraced the Tavi side of my personality. Introspection wasn’t something Tavi’s brain really wanted to do, she was more about living in the moment and having fun doing it, but I forced myself to consider my predicament from her perspective.

Bea had made me curious what Tavi would actually have thought about this whole thing, and even though I couldn’t be sure my simulation of Tavi’s thought process was completely accurate it still seemed worth doing. As usual it was far too easy to slip into her way of thinking, and my tired mind found relief in turning my problems over to someone else for a while.

After a moment I opened my eyes and grinned at Bea. “Hey! I’m Tavi right now, I wanted to say a few things before the idiot takes back over.”

I hopped out of the chair and went to grab a handful of sausages off the platter, stuffing several into my mouth and chewing while I continued to talk. “So, like, I don’t know what the big deal is. I know I’m supposed to be dead or whatever, but I don’t feel like I am, and if I am then who cares? It was gonna happen eventually. At least this way seems pretty interesting.”

“Either way I couldn’t care less who or what this guy fucks, and he knows it, he just doesn’t want to admit it and is looking for excuses not to think about it. It’s honestly really funny to watch him struggle with it.” My ears waggled as I chuckled, amused at how embarrassed I was going to feel in a few minutes.

“Man, I’m kinda fucked up in the head, huh?” I commented, popping another sausage into my mouth. “I guess that’s what happens when you mash two people together. You know that’s another thing he’s trying not to think about. It’s not like I’m the only one who’s kinda dead. My soul might be gone, but his body’s toast, and he might not even have his own spirit. What’s to say this isn’t a merger rather than a takeover? He’s been thinking about that whole true name thing at the start of all this and wondering why it was necessary. Shouldn’t he have already had a true name? Why’d he need to get a new one?”

I kicked back and turned to loop my legs over the chair’s armrest, making myself comfortable. “All I’m saying is what if it’s less that he’s using my body and more that I’m using his soul? So many uncomfortable questions running through that rock in my head. For him the stuff with my body is so much easier to think about that he’s been using it as a distraction from the real big questions.”

Bea’s eyebrows had hit her hairline at this point, but my grin had only gotten bigger and toothier. I’d actually managed to throw off the satyr woman for once, instead of the other way around.

“Anyway, I’m done. He’s been using me like a crutch to solve his problems, and like I get it, but I’m not gonna do everything for him. We’re in this together now but he’s the one that hasn’t figured that out yet. He’s gotta get over this stuff so we can deal with all this shit without being in conflict with ourselves.” I popped one last sausage into my mouth and bit into it, then I pushed myself out of Tavi’s mindset so abruptly that it left me reeling for a moment.

Bea looked at me like I was a crazy person, which to be honest I felt like after the last couple of minutes. I could remember making every decision I’d just made, I knew why I’d made them, and they made perfect sense, but at the same time I couldn’t have said those things if I’d tried. I didn’t feel like I had known some of those things until I started thinking about them as Tavi. It was both bizarre and weirdly thrilling.

“I uh… I’m back to normal now. Kind of. I think,” I told Bea. “That was weird.”

“Well, I think that answers the question at least,” she said, speaking cautiously. “It seems like you might have some other things to think about though.”

“Yeah, no kidding… That felt like getting to interview my subconscious, or maybe my id would be more accurate.” I rubbed my forehead.

The two of us poured another drink and continued to chat for a time, but the topic drifted to my life on Earth. I regaled her with stories that would have seemed mundane to any fellow earthling but were fascinating to her.

We drank more, and everything was good… Except for when she asked me what my name had been on earth. For some reason, I couldn’t remember. I managed to blame it on the booze, and I drank more to try and forget that the question had even been asked.

It didn’t work.