The ride back started in silence. The type of heavy silence filled with a mess of tangled thoughts. Martin vaguely registered that Caroline also had her share of thoughts to sort, which suited him fine.

The problem with his own thoughts was that they were so messy it was impossible to pick out single threads to process. Whenever he tried to focus on a particular topic, an association or feeling would steal away some of his concentration. Progress was slow and winding.

Eventually, his thoughts were interrupted by Caroline. “How are you feeling?” she asked carefully, like she was poking a ticking bomb.

“The jury is still out on that one,” Martin responded in a joking tone. “A better question might be what I think.”

“Okay, I’ll bite,” she replied with a probing smile. It was rather obvious she was glad to see that the mood had not immediately turned pessimistic. “What do you think of your current situation?”

Martin met her eyes for a few moments before gazing towards the constantly passing scenery. “Rationally, I believe the positive aspects of the situation far outweigh the negative aspects. But my feelings may need some time adjusting to that thought.”

Without even looking, Martin could tell that Caroline was respectfully awaiting for him to go on, without wanting to push him too much. Why not? It was as good a way as any to sort his feelings and thoughts. And frankly, she made up half the people in the world aside from himself that knew the details about his current predicament. He caught himself wondering exactly why Caroline decided to help him out in the first place, but filed that in the ‘ask later’ box in his brain.

“Well, the biggest advantage by far is that I suddenly have a future, which is more than I can say about myself some hours ago,” Martin started confidently. On this topic, his feelings and thoughts were in sync.

“Let’s see… I rationally know that I’ve suddenly earned somewhere around twenty years of extra lifespan, in a way. Unfortunately, I fail to really feel excited about it. It is nice to feel my body being so energetic, though.”

“I do feel excited about living in a world where magic is real, even though I have technically always done so.” To be honest, he was rather surprised by how much this pleased him. Sure, he had always been a fan of fantasy, but being capable of throwing fireballs himself had never been high up on his wishlist. Maybe because it was way too unrealistic to even consider.

“On the downside, I will probably never be able to be with my family again, at least not as ‘family’.” Like the last point, his feelings surprised him on this topic. Yes, he was sad about it, but nowhere near as sad as he had expected to be. Maybe it had yet to sink in?

“I’m also less than thrilled to go through puberty again. I feel once should be enough. I mean… pimples! Also, my height bothers me. I lost something like… 30 centimeters? It feels really weird, but I guess it’s something I’ll grow used to given time. Heh. Pun not intended.”

He paused. Both of them knew he was dancing around the pink elephant in the room, and there was only so long it allows myself to be ignored.

“Then there’s my … gender. I … never considered myself a misogynist before. I know women and men are equal, at least for all the important purposes. And yet I don’t feel comfortable with this.” He motioned towards himself, as if that was necessary.

Was he fishing for sympathy? Maybe he was. It was hard to tell when he felt he was standing knee-deep in self-pity. Much of it because he felt ashamed about his own feelings, so it was a sort of downward spiral.

Caroline’s reaction, however, was not primarily of pity. She was doing her very best to suppress a snicker.

Martin let out a little sigh. “It’s fine, you are allowed to laugh if you feel the need to.” That seemed to open the floodgates, as the light snickering evolved into full-blown laughter. Fortunately, Martin had no reason to let it affect him. After all, the outburst was not aimed at him as much as his clothes.

While he was happy to have gotten a set of clothes that fit a bit better than his old ones, they were only marginally better. Mrs. Clover was only slightly taller than Martin’s new body, but much thinner. And she had chosen to donate clothes she didn’t need anymore, probably because she hadn’t worn them for a half a century. Who could have imagined she had still kept her hippy clothes in the back of her closet?

The result was less than spectacular, unless he wanted a career as a weird clown. Long wide sleeves, flowers and peace symbols everywhere, and flares, all in a package too wide to properly fit. He had gracefully rejected the headband that at one point had been part of the outfit.

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Even if it was weird, Martin found it curious that this was the third time the older woman had broken into laughter just by looking at him. Thankfully, this time lasted a lot shorter than the last one. Caroline soon calmed down and steadied her breath. She was still a bit too chipper for a serious discussion, but she was at least making an attempt.

“Well, maybe you’re just afraid of the change and will grow comfortable with it given time?” She suggested. Martin was very happy she was not giving him a hard time for suggesting that being a woman was in itself bad.

“Well, it’s not like I have any choice, is there?” Martin smiled weakly.

“You do, actually,” Caroline disagreed with him, suddenly completely serious. “There are tons of people in the world who are uncomfortable with themselves, and even plenty of people who specifically dislike their birth gender. You’re familiar with transgender people?”

Martin knew of them, but that did not qualify as being familiar with them. He shook his head.

“I do not claim to be an expert on the matter myself, but I know that many of the people disagreeing with their gender go to various lengths to fight it. The lighter reactions might include dressing like a tomboy or a sissy, at least according to the negative comments these people receive. Then there are hormone treatments or even operations on the more drastic side of measures. Oh, and suicide. The group is high up on the number of suicide attempts.”

The thought of killing himself caused a freezing shudder to run down Martin’s spine. He was not even close to such thoughts, and hoped he would continue to stay away from them.

Caroline went on: “I’m not saying those solutions are wrong. Well, except suicide. That’s wrong. But the other solutions. Just that … I’d rather see you comfortable with your new gender without such strong reservations… eventually. I understand it’ll take time.”

It struck Martin how supportive and knowledgeable Caroline was about this. He found himself wondering how his former classmate had learned of these things. The Internet? Or through someone she knew personally? A thought suddenly flashed in his mind.

“Caroline, could it be that you have a relative with similar conditions? … or rather, had?”

Martin could tell that the sudden question took Caroline by surprise. She did not deny the hypothesis, though. Instead, she looked gloomily at her feet.

“My … brother. He — or rather, she — was never really happy with himself — herself. I don’t know when it started. At some point, I became aware of it, but I never took it seriously until she attempted to end her life. She failed, and was given medication and a psychiatrist. Everything looked better for a while, and then… she succeeded in her next attempt…”

No need to specify exactly what she had attempted. It was extremely obvious Caroline partially blamed herself for the result. Probably thoughts along the lines of ‘if only I had…’ and ‘I should’ve noticed ... ‘. Easy conclusions to draw. But dangerous. Fortunately, her feelings on the subject seemed to have dulled with time, though they were still jagged enough to cause her emotional pain.

“I don’t think your brother would have wanted you to blame yourself for his death,” Martin tried comforting Caroline. It felt a bit odd to suddenly switch to the giving side of comforting, but these were absolutely his true feelings on the subject.

“I’m sure your brother feared forcing guilt on his family more than anything. Maybe that was the reason his first attempt failed.” Okay, a bit more conjecture now, but it was not completely unlikely. After all, that was one of his own concerns during the most depressing years of his life. He had never attempted suicide, but he had certainly entertained the thought.

“It’s okay. It was a long time ago. I’m fine now,” Caroline lied. They both knew it was a lie, but it was the sort of lie that was necessary to avoid continuing the discussion. “I’m sorry for pulling the attention towards myself when we were actually discussing your predicament.”

“Well, I don’t know how much more there is to say about that subject,” Martin replied noncommittally. “Actually, I do have one more thought. I am aware that I was somewhat unfit previously, but …” he pulled at the skin on his belly. “I … don’t know why, but this bothers me. And the fact that it bothers me bothers me. Does some part of me want to look like a model, now that I’m a girl? If I’m uncomfortable being a girl, why would I want to be attractive on top of that? It makes no sense to me.”

Caroline struggled with her words on how to respond to that. Not so strange, really — Martin never expected Caroline to solve his emotional struggles.

“Don’t worry about it,” Martin assured Caroline before she managed to puzzle together a satisfactory answer. “I’ll have to figure out my own feelings, given time. And I can honestly assure you that I’m nowhere close to even considering suicide.”

The older woman looked somewhat delighted to no longer be backed into a corner, forced to answer unreasonable questions. She had apparently run out of other questions to immediately ask. Silence descended on the cart, apart from the rhythmic sound of the horses trotting on.

After a while, Caroline broached a different subject: “Now that you’re no longer a man — at least on the outside — would you consider picking a more female-sounding name? Or perhaps it’s better with a gender-neutral name?”

Martin nodded to acknowledge the question. He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking. A name came to his mind quicker than he had expected.

“Tina,” he stated loudly. “It’s the name of a character from a game I played in middle school. She suddenly discovered that her origins were not what she thought they were, and set out to find her place in the world. Well, there’s a lot more to it than that, but I think it’s oddly fitting.”

Caroline nodded in return. It was as good a name as any.

“Besides, it reminds me of Martin,” Tina smiled. “And it’d be a bit too conspicuous to call myself Martina.”