There comes a certain point after denying reality that you break. That the world you knew to be true dissolves into nothingness. It hadn’t really hit her when the Duchess had died. It hadn’t hit her when Penelope returned. It hadn’t even hit her when the prince called off their engagement. Then the Duke cut off her hair and she realized perhaps the most inane thing she could in that moment. She really, truly, sincerely wanted to be a woman.

  “C’mon my dy, get up!” Mirabel scolded.

  Ariadne Espestrierre was the adopted daughter of one of the more powerful duchies in the kingdom of Oriandyr. So far it had gotten her nothing but hurt. She was, to put it simply, a repcement. She looked much like the daughter they thought lost, Penelope Espestrierre, and she lived as her for almost ten years. Until she came back.

  It was a strange deal, even stranger when the duke realized she was a boy, but still she had accepted it. Penelope’s brothers of course hated it, the duke merely tolerated her. However the duchess had been beset with grief, she needed Penelope to live, and although the duke wasn’t a passionate man, he did truly love his wife.

  “I said, get up my dy!” Mirabel cried. It was an uncouth way for a maid to treat a Duke’s daughter, but Mirabel wasn’t really a maid and she wasn’t really a Duke’s daughter so she didn’t mind. The one thing she kept that was not given to Penelope was Mirabel, another urchin from the slums she had hired to act as her assistant. She was primarily the one who managed the several urchins she paid for information, acting as a little network throughout the city. The only way a boy from the slums could survive the politics of being a noble dy with no preparation or training was to leverage what you had. It had taken time to refine her social graces, but dirt and the rumor mill were easy and immediate.

  “I don’t want to.” She muttered.

  “At least let me change the bedding before you keep moping.”

  “Fine.” Ariadne acquiesced. As a noble woman she should exhibit grace and politeness. Instead she threw herself to the floor.

  “My dy, why are you being like this?”

  Ariadne sighed. There were so many answers to that question that she doubted she could list them all. However her mind brought forth the most banal and petty of them all.

  “I’m ugly.” She said running her hands through her choppy hair.

  “So that dickhead cut your hair off, it grows back.”

  Ariadne ughed a little at that. Calling a duke a “dickhead” could very well get her killed.

  “I knew that would get you.” She smiled. “Just give it some time and you’ll be back to your pretty self.”

  Mirabel was also the only one besides the duke who knew her secret.

  “Mirabel.” She said unsteadily. “I think I really want to be a girl.”

  “Was that ever in question?” She said pausing in confusion.

  “What do you mean?” She asked still ying on the floor.

  “No one who wanted to be a man would try as hard as you to not be one, no?”

  “I felt it was fulfilling an obligation…” She mumbled.

  “What man would love dress shopping as much as you?”

  “I don’t know… I suppose I thought I was just excelling at my role.”

  “But now you do not?”

  “But now I do not.”

  “Well I’m gd you’re feeling more yourself my dy. Now get off the floor, if you from only a year ago saw you she would be ashamed.”

  “She would think I’m hideous.”

  “Well her opinion can only be relied on so much.” She said finishing changing the bedding.

  “Thank you Mirabel.”

  “Of course, my dy. Are you finally ready to eat something?”

  “No.” She said with a deep sigh. “Bring me a pair of scissors.”

  “For what?”

  “I want to clean up the ends.”

  Mirabel grinned.

  After a slow but steady process, Ariadne had a slightly choppy bob that went down to her chin. It wasn’t a look that any noblewoman would be caught dead in, but she didn’t pn to leave the manor anytime soon. Mirabel insisted that she eat something, and she did if only to keep the older girl off her case. Then she helped her get dressed for the day despite it being well into the afternoon. A tightced corset and some padding in the bosom and hips and she was her old self, or as close as she could be without her long hair.

  She looked at herself in the mirror. Pale skin, a lithe build, and bright magenta hair, an unusual trait, although strange hair colors were often caused by magic exposure in the womb. It was one she shared, of course, with Penelope. There were few differences between them, even now, Ariadne was an inch taller, and had a slightly stronger jaw, while Penlope had a slightly rger nose, inherited from the duke. The biggest difference between them though was their eyes. Penelope had emerald green eyes, while Ariadne had a subdued violet. It was one of the differences between them she actually liked.

  She left her room and headed to the library not really knowing what else to do with herself. She had no tutors or teachers anymore, no expectations of conduct. The manor was mostly empty, with just enough staff to support the single Espestrierre living there, which was a butler to manage the pce, a chef, a coachman, and a few maids just to dust and help out those two servants. She passed a maid on the way there, but she didn’t dare look at Ariadne, she had a reputation after all.

  It was what had nded her here, banished to their keside manor. Two years prior the duchess died of a magical influenza, leaving Ariadne with little to no support in the household. Perhaps that was the start of her shing out, the stress of never knowing if they were going to kick her to the streets again. Then Penelope came back and everything became, much, much worse.

  Her “brothers” who had grown to at least tolerate her quickly dropped any pretenses. Many of her clothes were redistributed to her, many of her other things as well. Her birthday, her room, the worst was her name. For awhile they called her “old Penelope” until she told them a different name. Even now Reynard said “Ariadne” like it was a joke. She hadn’t reacted well.

  She shed out. She yelled. She bullied Penelope, stole her things, ruined her school supplies, tried to turn the other girls against her. She was even successful for a time. It reached a breaking point when she pushed her down a set of stairs. It wasn’t really intentional, the girl had always made an effort to try and reconcile and she had a stubbornness about her. It was misleading almost. Penelope was unconditionally forgiving and gentle, but she dispyed such things with an unyielding force. When Penelope tried to hug her in the heat of an argument she just… pushed her away. Unfortunately they were at the top of a staircase.

  The next week, at the academy ball, Prince Liam called off their engagement. Publicly. It instantly made her the most scandalous woman in high society, even if no one expected the engagement to actually happen. After all she was just from a branch family, to their knowledge. The truth made that even more impossible. Nonetheless she was known as a spoiled, violent girl, which made maids avert their eyes when she walked by. She sighed and continued on her way to the library.

  The library was particurly rge for the size of the manor which she was grateful for. She had a problem to solve now, and she needed information. She had contorted her body into the shape that was necessary, the shape she realized she now wanted, for years, and although she had never heard of someone like her, people changed their bodies with magic all the time. Mostly with elixirs, which she wasn’t necessarily opposed to, but she was unsure if she would find what she wanted. Elixirs gave people the attributes of monsters or spirits, they interfered with the use of mana beyond the magics they granted so they weren’t always highly esteemed, but they were the quickest and easiest way to strength in this world. They also tended to give… inhuman traits which meant they weren’t particurly popur amongst the nobility.

  That didn’t stop her from reading through a few encyclopedias on them. She tapped her foot anxiously as she pored through them, even finding a few promising leads. There were a few all female monsters and spirits, and several had notes, more like warnings for men, that they would make the user… more feminine, but to her understanding they didn’t seem to change certain parts of the anatomy, at least not in smaller doses.

  She moved on to her next best guess which would be light sorcery, the magic of healing. She didn’t find anything like what she was looking for, but the church tended to be tight lipped about light sorcery as they had something of a monopoly on it. It required a life-bond with a light spirit, and they tended to linger around churches to the goddess. Magecraft was simirly unhelpful, there were some very niche magics, but they didn’t seem applicable based on what little she understood. While passing by it though her eyes settled on a book about witchcraft.

  She was surprised to see it among the magical texts. It wasn’t illegal, nor was it particurly amoral compared to any other magic, but it was scandalous. Most nobles who practiced it kept it tight lipped and even then there were only a few. She picked it up.

  She nervously thumbed through the tome before eventually sitting down at a table and reading it. She knew a bit about witchcraft already. Of all the ways to practice magic it was a bit of an oddball, it was simir to sorcery in that the practitioner made pacts with the spirits, but unlike sorcery, they made pacts with multiple spirits instead of forming a lifelong bond with one. Additionally they didn’t make pacts with the elemental spirits, but instead the fey, demons, angels and the like. Because of that however the things they could do were perhaps the most varied.

  It had been a fluke truly. She had looked at it more out of curiosity for such a sacious book to be in the collection, but she found something. Something that stilled her heart for a moment.

  “The succubus can be invoked for all manner of powers depending on strength. Although this varies from demon to demon, they are generally able to do at least a few of the following: Use hypnotic charms, draw attention, manipute fire or smoke, manipute scents, cast illusions, alter flesh.”

  She wordlessly got up and took the book to her room. It wasn’t something she seriously considered doing at first. Alter flesh could mean anything after all, but she kept reading the book and rereading it. Over and over again. It was informative. There were too many kinds of spirits to really name them all, but most fell into either demons, fey, or angels. Demons seemed like the easiest to work with, although they had a complex legal system. Fey were far more mercurial and relied on strange etiquette and tradition, and angels rarely made pacts with witches, although some people had more luck with that than others.

  There were even some things you could do without the spirits. She had no real idea why forming a contract between a branch and a bunch of sticks could make a flying broom, but it could, and although she briefly thought of trying to do so she opted not. It was too undignified, even riding side saddle. She wasn’t a real noble but she had twice the pride of one.

  She hesitated for quite some time, the page on succubi open. She questioned whether she would really want to do this, whether she really wanted to be a girl that badly. She couldn’t help but think about something from a long, long time ago. She had been ten at the time.

  “Why do you get to stay up so te mother?”

  “It’s the privilege of being a beautiful woman. I don’t need much beauty sleep”

  “Will I be a beautiful woman someday?” She asked. It was strange thing to ask, even now she didn’t know why she did. It caught the duchess off-guard as well, but she quickly recovered.

  “Do you wish to be?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then I dare say you’ll find a way, you have a good start after all, you already look like me.” She said humorously, pointing her nose in the air and bringing her hand to her chest in a dramatic dispy.

  Ariadne let out a little ugh at that, in the here and now.

  “I’ve found a way.” She whispered.

  It took her three days to work up the nerve to try and summon a demon. Three days of rereading the book and sometimes just staring at it before she finally asked Mirabel to get the ingredients she would need for the summoning. They weren’t particurly complicated, all mundane, salt from the kitchen, a vial to hold Ariadne’s blood and a knife to go along with it, and charcoal.

  “What in the goddess’s name are you doing with this stuff?” She asked.

  “I’ll tell you ter.” Ariadne said.

  “You and your secrets…” Mirabel grumbled. Despite ostensibly being her best friend, Ariadne didn’t tell Mirabel everything, an old habit that had never proven useful on her but persisted still. Although in this case she didn’t want to talk about it too much if nothing came of it, it would only make her feel foolish.

  When night came she set up the ritual circle with the charcoal, circling it in salt, and then tracing both with blood she had drained earlier in the day.

  “I call to you succubi of the second circle, I summon thee.” She whispered. “I want to change my flesh.”

  For a moment she thought nothing happened, before she looked around and suddenly the most beautiful woman she had ever seen stood in front of her. She wore nothing but a menacing grin, and had horns pced atop her head of auburn hair.

  “You said you want to change your body?” She inquired in a pyful tone. “I’m the best at noses, or lips, not too great with eye color though things tend to go a bit awry.”

  “Y-yes.” Ariadne replied steeling herself. “I want to be a woman.”

  The demon looked confused.

  “Are you not one already?”

  “Ostensibly.” Ariadne replied.

  The demon ughed at that, it almost made Ariadne rex. Almost.

  “So you are a human male technically, yes?”

  “Yes.” She said quieter this time.

  “I can’t do what I think you want.” She said provoking a disappointed look from Ariadne. “You would need a very powerful demon and a very intensive contract to do a full body transfiguration.”

  “But it can be done?”

  “Of course. Demons are masters of flesh if they are masters of anything. Obviously we have our specialties, but…”

  “Are there… other ways.”

  “You’ve just called me and are already trying to find an alternative to making a deal tsk, tsk.” She said with a grin.

  “A-apologies, I thought you said you couldn’t?”

  “There are probably other ways, I’m not a schor of magic. Perhaps a particurly potent elixir, even one using gifts of my kind might work, but I doubt you’d like the side effects. I can do something for you however. Honestly I think you’re better off doing it in parts, faster and cheaper probably.”

  “Parts?”

  “I could py around with what alchemical compounds your body produces first, that’s within my power and a good starting point.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because it will make your body more feminine over time, which means any other transformations would be less expensive. Plus I’m a bit out of my depth otherwise.” She joked.

  “What does more feminine over time mean, exactly?”

  “Nicer skin, fat will go to your hips, you’ll get these.” she said motioning uncouthly to her bosom. “You won’t go bald if that runs in your family, that kind of thing.”

  A small surge of hope welled up in her.

  “That sounds… agreeable. What are your terms?” She said with a pulse of joy.

  “The standard, a mana tithe. It’s cheap, but it’s constant. I’m thinking a gem a week.”

  “How much is that?” She asked feeling out of her depth. It went against her instincts, but this wasn’t a human she was bargaining with.

  “This your first time?” She asked with surprise.

  Ariadne didn’t answer.

  “Fine, hold out your hand.”

  Ariadne did so, not wanting to annoy the spirit. She took a deep breath as she knew what was going to be said.

  “Damn, it’s almost all you have. I hate to say it but you really don’t have a lot of throughput.”

  “I’ve been told.” She said bitterly.

  “Well it’s enough for this, if you still want it.”

  “What about half a gem.” She said against her better judgement. She rarely took what she got.

  “Listen kid I respect it, but I gave you a good deal because it’s not hard and I felt sorry for you. Take it.” She said with a bit of annoyance.

  “Fine, I accept your terms.” She said begrudgingly.

  A paper appeared before her.

  “Sign when you’re done reading.” She said sounding satisfied.

  Ariadne read over the parchment, it looked like it was written in blood, and considering how she had to summon her she was fairly sure it was. The terms were as described, and she signed quickly. She finally learned the woman’s name, Nerilux.

  “Where do you want the mark?” She asked. Witches had marks for every contract, they normally were hidden, but asserted themselves when in use which in this case might be constantly.

  “Somewhere hidden.” She said.

  “Done. Pleasure doing business with you Ariadne. Congratutions on becoming a witch.”

  Ariadne felt a surreal rush as the magic affected her, and as she heard the demon’s words. Ariadne wasn’t the overly friendly type, but she had been briefly a major pyer in high society and she knew when to be nice.

  “Thank you, Lady Nerilux.” She said. The demon smiled in surprise at that before disappearing leaving Ariadne alone in the room with the scent of blood in the air. She fell down on her bed and fell asleep.

  changelingcharm