“Oh hells, Daniel!”

I barely heard Lisa chiding him. Sabine and Kazumi were wrapped around me. It was too much, all of this was too much. For months now I’d been pretending that Eliza’s face was a mask I was wearing, as if she was going to come back for it some day, and desperately hoping she wouldn’t, trying to lose myself in the roleplay of it, hoping that one day the niggling in the back of my brain would just go away. I was afraid that, now that it was said out loud, that it’d all be stripped away from me, that I wouldn’t be allowed, that people would look at me differently, treat me differently. I was afraid of losing Kazumi and Sabine, once they realized that I used to be the person Lisa looked like now, that they’d think less of me.

I was scared to lose them.

I was terrified.

I heard a soft ‘pap’ and realized that Lisa had gently smacked Daniel upside the head.

“Next time I’ve got sensitivity training, you’re coming with me, you absolute dunce.”

I looked up at them, and I saw Lisa looking at me. The look on her face was one I’d never seen that face make before. In the mirror it had always been as neutral as possible. That, or making faces. But Lisa looked at me with… not quite pity. Something adjacent. Almost motherly.

“Eliza?” she asked. I could tell she was finding it a bit weird to use her own old name for someone else, but I nodded. She sat down on the living room table in front of the portal, a little closer. “You want to keep using that name?”

I nodded. “My friends call me Liz.” My voice came out as barely a whisper, but Lisa gave me a small nod. It could have been one of either acknowledgement or encouragement. I couldn’t tell. I was completely stuck in my own head. I didn’t know where she was going with this.

“Good. I like that,” she said. “Look… I don’t know what’s going through your head right now.”

She paused, carefully picking her words.

“First off… I don’t want… hmm… If you could go back, right now, would you?”

I shook my head in a panic. I wondered all of a sudden if she had any of her old magic left, if she could yank me through the portal and stuff me back into the old monster. She just smiled and I tried to calm down. She didn’t seem to have any malicious plans.

“Liz. Eliza. This is going to sound strange, but…”

She looked at Daniel, who had sheepishly sat down on the sofa.

“I don’t want to leave here. As much as the… as difficult as the transition has been… I’m happier here. I like the food better. I’m on equal footing with people. I’m making… genuine connections.” Another loving look at Daniel. “And I’m… I’m growing. Or trying to. So… do not worry. I’m not coming to take anything from you.”

That was more comforting to hear than I thought it would be and, while I hadn’t stopped crying, the tears did flow a little more freely again, in gratitude this time.

“As for the old name… Just like the body… It looks like it suits you better than it did me. You’re doing better things with it than I used to, at least.” The look on her face was one of painful melancholy. I wondered what her life had been like. She sounded like she’d been lonely a lot. “You have my blessing, Liz. Do you want it?”

She paused for a second. I didn’t answer because it seemed like she wanted to add something more.

“You know you’re allowed, right?”

I didn’t understand what she said. I understood the words but I didn’t know how to parse them, how to string them together into making sense in context.

“You’re allowed to be an Eliza if you want to. I like to think you’re working with something… well, I was quite beautiful, if I say so myself.” She let out a soft laugh. I could tell she was struggling a bit herself, and Daniel scooted closer to her and it was heartwarming to see him grab her hand and how much energy she seemed to get from such a small gesture.

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“You’re allowed to be a woman, Liz, if you want to be.”

I immediately began to protest. On the surface, what she said was true, but something about her words made me feel like an imposter, like those words couldn’t possibly apply to me. It clearly applied to her, but she was a real woman. I wasn’t… I couldn’t be...

“But what if--”

“No ifs or buts, Eliza,” Lisa said. The way she said it made it sound like something of a mantra. “If you want to be Liz, then you’re Liz. It’s that simple. You are who you are.”

“But what if I’m not…”

“The only requirement for being is the desire to be. Identity is fun that way. You can be who you desire to be. We both got lucky, that way.” She turned to smile at Daniel again, who was way ahead of her and already kissing her on the cheek. When she turned to me I could tell she was tearing up as well.

“You’re good enough to be a woman, Liz. There’s no template. And don’t trust anyone who tells you otherwise.”

“But I’ve been lying,” I balked, more at Sabine and Kazumi than at Lisa. “I pretended I was…” My words died in my mouth.

Lisa shrugged. “It sounds like you’ve been exactly who you’ve been saying you are all this time, Liz. I don’t think Kazumi or Sabine think any less of you just because they know what your old body used to look like.” I heard small affirmative noises from both of them. “Besides,” Lisa continued as she ran her hand through her hair, longer than I’d ever let it grow out. “I’m going to make this one look fabulous too.”

She turned serious again. “You can be Eliza if you want to. You’re allowed. Nobody is going to take that from you, and no matter how much your… your fears and anxieties protest, you’re going to be you no matter what. And if that you is Eliza, that’s okay. Okay?”

I nodded. I got a small squeeze from first one, then another girlfriend. It reminded me that they were still there, that they hadn’t run for the hills, hadn’t gotten angry or recoiled in terror once they realized who that body had belonged to. Their response had been to come over and hold me, comfort me. I was the luckiest…

I was the luckiest woman in the world, in that moment.

I’d slowly made the conversion, over the past few months. Thinking of myself first as an actor, of sorts. Then slowly I realized that I’d started to think of my kingdom as my kingdom, the people, my people. And after a while I even considered myself their regent, and then finally their queen. But the word ‘Queen’ had seemed… it had felt just impersonal enough. But I was thinking of myself as a woman for the first time and it felt right and that felt terrifying and all I could do was make myself small and let the warm and cold of Kazumi and Sabine wrap itself around me. If anywhere was safe for me to find myself, a kind voice in the back of my head said, it was with these two.

We turned back to the portal. Daniel and Lisa sat next to each other on the sofa again, holding hands. It was a very odd sight, to see my old… well, Lisa’s new body so comfortably feminine. I looked back, at how hard I’d fought not to seem that way. That was… Now was not the time to reflect on my family. One breakdown had been enough. I was glad neither of them had brought it up, so far. Back then, I’d been living far away from them. They would’ve been hard pressed to find me if they even knew what city I lived in, let alone the continent.

It grew quiet as we all sat there for a moment. Daniel was the first to break the silence.

“How have you been, Sabine?” he asked quietly. I suddenly realized that, as she’d rushed over to me, she must have stepped into his view. She was mostly obscured by the folds of my dress but he’d clearly recognized her. She turned to him and his reaction was… it was painful.

Her lips were still darkened from the magic she’d spoken earlier, and her eyes were a deep red. Both were in stark contrast to her grey-ish skin. She looked distinctly undead. I tried to remember how many undead liches the player had to slay as the Hero of Eferton. There had been a few.

“It’s just me, Daniel.”

He seemed to relax a bit, and then looked at Lisa, as if to remind himself that things weren’t always what they seemed, and he took a deep breath.

“What… happened, Sabine?”

She tried to smile. “It looks like neither of us survived that fight.”

Daniel looked at Lisa, hurt. “Did you--”

She interrupted him, holding up her hands defensively. “I didn’t touch the girl!”

I raised a hand. “That was me.”

Daniel blinked a few times, incredulously. “You?!”

I nodded regretfully. Sabine, as she always did, amazing, powerful Sabine, came to my rescue. She stood next to me and wrapped an arm around mine. She was so small next to me, but it felt like she was a mountain I could lean on. Her and Kazumi both were so much stronger than me and our difference in size only made that more obvious.

“I thought she was…” Sabine said and turned to Lisa. “You. No offense.”

“None taken,” Lisa said.

“She just acted in self defense,” Sabine added, and squeezed my hand.

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “This body was a lot stronger than I thought it was.” Lisa coughed softly and I saw her hold her hand in front of her mouth. It looked like she was trying to hide a smile. She probably still had quite a bit of pride in her old abilities, and that was frankly understandable. The Demon Queen had probably been a formidable foe. I wondered how she’d react if she knew how I’d responded to physical conflict in the past few months. Would she laugh or chide me? I thought it best not to find out.

“What happened then?” Daniel asked patiently.

“She saved me,” Sabine said. “Or tried to, anyway.”

“So you’re… a smart zombie?” His brow furrowed. “I’m afraid I don’t understand…”

“Lich,” Sabine said. “I’m my own phylactery. It’s a bit weird but it works for us.”

“And you’re…” he cocked his head. “Both… all three... Or just…”

Sabine laughed, and a lot of the tension dissipated. It seemed like they’d gotten over the worst of the weird hurdle, and the relationship between them seemed to snap back to that of old friends.

“Right the first time, Daniel. All three of us, yes.” She looked at Kazumi and myself and I felt my face flush hot. I lost count of how many times I’d been grateful people couldn’t see me blushing, purple skin and all that. “You never figured that out,” she added, a little derisively. She sounded sour, but with a smile to soften the accusation.

Lisa didn’t seem to notice and raised an eyebrow. I’d never learned how to do that. “Impressive,” she said, with a soft smile. “I never found the time…” she paused. “I lie. I never found the people.” Another kiss on the cheek from Daniel cheered her up from her little reverie.

“I’m glad you’ve all… I’m glad we’ve all found ourselves. And, it looks like, each other.”

She looked over at Sally, who was awkwardly leaning against a back wall, not exactly a part of this, despite her ability to make Sabine go red in the face in record time.

“You seem like you’re doing better as well, Ms. Stone.”

Sally just waved and nodded vigorously. “Hell yes.”

The call came to an end soon after. Sabine told us that the magic was dissipating on its own. We explained very quickly to Daniel and Lisa that we’d basically tried to summon their ghosts, and that that’s how we’d opened the window between our worlds. It was, as Lisa said thoughtfully, something to be explored again in the future. But right now, it was more important to draft plans for the rescue. We didn’t have a lot of time to lose, after all. Dramatically, Daniel pointed out that the legions of Wydonia, scattered as they’d been, now marched inexorably to my Kingdom, and that, once they realized just how weak my borders were, they’d wash over us like a tide. Our time was measured in weeks, not months.

We had work to do.