Talia had volunteered her bed to Cat, on grounds that she didn't sleep in it anyways- she was always either sleeping with me or with Faith, or with both of us at once.

  Over the few days, with some help from both Emily and The Father, I mao use enough Divine magic to fully cure my brain damage, and I was, save for a spicuous scar in the ter of my chest, fully healed from our time in the Bck Desert at long st. I got better in time to take my Pt Exams, and I was fairly fident in my performahere. I definitely wouldn't have to take the first year of beginner courses, that much was certain.

  "Alright, here's what you do," Cat said. "You know the G chord and the C chord. I've got this one miimer. Yonna strum a clear, G chord, no buzz, and then yonna strum a clear, C chord, same way, and yonna do as many chord ges as you manage in one minute. I'm gonna write it down, yonna take a little break, and then we're gonna do it again four more times."

  She'd been teag me how to py the guitar, and while, vely, we did have the right kind of guitar, we were then fronted with the fact that we only had one guitar, and so couldn't py at the same time.

  At the same time, however, she knew of a sort of guitar that we didn't have, and knew how to struct it, too. Or, rather, how it was structed.

  The solution to both of these problems was simple, for the sort of lunatic I was: once I was well enough to safely use power tools, I made a pair of these so-called "electric guitars" in my workshop, and an amplifier that we used only oo firm that they did, in fact, work; as it stood, these guitars being quiet when used without an amplifier was a blessing, as I was not very good at guitar yet.

  "Alright, that's twenty chord ges," Cat said, as the timer dinged. She wrote down the number, and nodded. "Good work, seriously- that's better than my first time doing this."

  "Ow, my fingers," I said, shaking my left hand.

  There were things I could say about how, as an elf, dexterity-based skills came to me easier than they would for a human, and that I had an unfair advantage over Cat. However, I wasn't doing unbelievably better than she was, so there was no point in saying that. Unless... Oh, I know.

  "Y'know," I said, as my fiips tio sting, "as an elf, I've got a bit of an advantage over humans when it es to learnierity-based skills. But, well... I gotta say: the fact that these strings hurt so fug much is proving to be one hell of an equalizer, huh?"

  "Yeah, you gotta build up the calluses," Cat said, nodding. "Takes a while, but ohey're there... Just gotta py for a few minutes a day to keep 'em there. Simple as."

  I nodded back, the pain slowly fading. "Ugh. This sucks."

  "Mhm. But hey, once you py a guitar, that's a good way to get id."

  "I want you to look at my girlfriend and tell me I need help with that."

  Cat burst out ughing.

  In the evenings, I started including Cat in the hypnosis sessions I was doing with Emily; Cat wao learn Are magic too, apparently, so that she wasn't pletely reliant on whatever her "system" gave her. After a few days, in which Cat absorbed things even more readily than Emily had, I moved on from just hypnosis to a very basic spellcasting exercise, that would make their fiips glow. her of them had mu the way of magicka reserves just yet, but already, I could tell that Emily had a natural advantage over Cat.

  In the daytime, Faith and Talia had been teag Cat what they knew of martial arts, including a few basic sword forms; Cat didn't yet have a real sword, and I didn't have a spare oo give her, but I'm sure getting one for her at Mount Fate of all pces should be pretty straightforward.

  Slowly but surely, she was being given the absolute bare minimum basics she'd o not immediately die in the first fight she gets into.

  "Hey," Cat said, te one evening, after her magic lesson had cluded. "Listen, I, uh... Fuck, I know this is weird, but..." She inhaled deeply, and then sighed. "... I have sex with you? Or yirlfriends? Just... someo's how my Css works, and I feel like I'm gonna learn a lot faster if I start doing this."

  "Aren't you a lesbian?" I said, quirking my eyebrow.

  Cat cupped her and tilted her head to the side, sidering me carefully.

  "...Eh. Bastante bonita por un chico," she said.

  "Bastante brusca por una chica," I retorted. "Look, you wanna fuyone else, fine, I don't care. Talk to them about it, it's their decision. But I'm ertaining your delusion that I'm secretly a transgender woman."

  "Wait, you know what those are?" Cat asked.

  "Well, yes," I said, blinking. "Elves have uood the cept for rather a long time, y'know. Humans like to pretend they don't, of course, but it's getting harder for them to pretend, these days."

  "...Huh," Cat said. "Usually the hard part of crag an egg is getting them to realize they just choose to be a woman if they want to."

  "I am well aware of the option," I said. "I have chosen otherwise. I am a heterosexual man on purpose."

  "Well, I nning on breaking this news in the process of expining the cept to you, but, uh..." Cat coughed awkwardly. "Well, I've got a dick. Didn't have one before I came here, I'm cis, but whatever that artifact did to me, it gave me a cock, too, and... Holy? It's dope as hell. It doesn't make me feel like less of a woman, it's more... Holy, I feel like more of a woman now, just in a very specific way- y'know, I'm pretty butot super femme-y and girly, I like to be on top, and this just... It's nice, y'know?"

  "...Good for you?" I said. "I mean, to be ho, there are a lot of reasons I'm not having sex with you, one of which is that I'm an Elven Mage-Knight, and if I ever want to ride a Uni, I'm not allowed to have penis-in-vagina sex. But, uh... God, this sounds stupid, but, I want you to know that the part where you have a dick is not what I'm taking exception to, and if I thought you were bisexual like Talia is, then I'd be far more okay with us fooling around."

  "I mean, thanks, but... not what I meant?" Cat said.

  "Hm?"

  "I'm saying that you could be a domineering butan with a dick too, if you wao," Cat said. "I get the feeling you like being in charge, and that you're kinda surrounded by subby chicks- which, ially, fug jackpot- so I just wanna make sure you know: you totally be a woman and still act exactly the same way you do now. Ain't gotta do makeup and wear dresses, just keep walkin' around in cowboy boots, jeans, and a bck leather duster, and you will have femmes- and some other butches- fallin' all over 'emselves to hang on your arm."

  I digested this carefully, and... Some part of it ealing, I had to admit- the sort of person she was describing erfect maty favorite sort onist in all that lesbian pulp fi I kept reading, and I couldn't help but identify with them to some extent.

  (Briefly, I wondered about my monthly subscriptions, back at Antiope's shop. I couldn't teleport myself at all, let alohousand miles back to Redwater and then again to get back here, but... Hell, we had trains, and Antiope could very much mail me my subscriptions every month. It'd take a few days to get here, sure, but that just meant New ic Day was a different day of the month. I'd have to write to her and ask about it.)

  But, as I returo the matter at hand, once I stopped being distracted by the logistiy funny papers, I had settled on an ahat Cat probably wouldn't like, but which she would hopefully uand.

  "Look," I said quietly. "I'm... I'm an elf, Cat. Elves arely well-liked or respected in Imperial society- we're sidered ily effeminate and unmanly. Our me real men, and our women are exotic beauties who should be trophies for the real men, the manly human men. I... I've never beearget of it myself, but Talia has, and it is a miserable experience, for every other human man you meet to look at you like a pieeat, to treat you like an object that he somehow has to win away from whoever the current unworthy owner is. It sucks, Cat. And as someone who already has to deal with racist human bullshit for everything else elven about me..." I sighed, closing my eyes. "...I 't deal with it, Cat. I'm not strong enough. I'm not Talia, I 't grit my teeth and shrug it off like she , I just- I 't, Cat, even if I wao."

  Cat stared at me, a sorrowful sympathy in her eyes.

  She pulled me into a tight hug, and I retur vigorously. As nice as hugs were, as much as they usually made me feel better... the hollow ache in my chest, that always fred up when I thought for too long about the miserably unfair dition of being an elf under Hikaano rule, still wouldn't go away.

  "I'm sorry," Cat whispered. "It's nht. It's awful. But... Yoing to outlive all those shit-ass motherfuckers, you hear me? Yoing to help build a better world over their dead bodies, day by day. Because the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends iably towards justice."

  I nodded wordlessly.

  "...I'd have to ge my name," I said. "Who ever heard of a woman named Joseph? But... names are hard. And all the feminine names I think of are just the names of people I know, who might feel weird about me stealing their name."

  "Hey, I've ged my name already," Cat said, patting my back. "I do it again, if you think Catherine sounds like a good name."

  "You don't have to-"

  "Holy, I'm not feelin' 'Cat,' myself," Cat tinued, bulling past me. "I'm not sure what to use - I mean, I used to be Emily, but... Iunno, just feels too girly and demure for me. No shade to the other Emily, she's great, love that bitch, but it ain't right for me."

  I chuckled quietly. "Well, good luck with that."

  "What, not gonna help me?"

  "Names are hard, and I'm bad at 'em. Ask someone else."

  "I will," Cat said, nodding. "Tomorrow, though. It's te, and we o sleep."

  "Right. Goodnight, Kitten." I patted her on the bace more, a go of her, stepping back to end the hug.

  "...Oh fuck you, that should not work on me as well as it did," Cat muttered, before huffing, theatrically stig her hands in her pockets, and heading off to her (Talia's) room.

  I smirked a little, but... it faded, as I thought some more about what she'd said.

  Why was I sidering it so much? I've already thought about this before- I know I could be a woman if I wao, but I didn't want to.

  I sighed deeply, and headed to my own room. Hopefully the feeling would pass before m.

  AnnouAs always, if you like Iro and wao keep making it, the best way to do that is to leave a ent, here or on my discord server.

  Also, I'm taking suggestions for publius chapters iween books. The ideas I've currently ge from "The remaining Kings of Hell react to the political upheaval caused by Paimon's death" to "Joseph Iro visits a neighbor and pys dominoes." Anything goes.