Divine Dreamer

Chapter 6 - A Totally Normal Date, With No Mental Health Issues, Transphobia, Or Magic

Nora: [So what are the limits of your magic?]

Melanie: [I don't want to talk about it where the government can potentially see]

Nora: [Oh right, sorry]

Nora: [but I have so many questions!]

Melanie: [sorry]

Melanie: [can it wait till Saturday?]

Nora: [fine, but I get to take you out for ice cream]

Nora: [its not a real date without ice cream]

Melanie: [okay,,,]

My excitement for the date sort of mixed with nervousness at being expected to explain the whole magic thing. Of course I did my best to not poke my magic or divinity too much the rest of the week. Though my recovery definitely went faster now that my temple had its centerpiece mostly restored. It made channeling magic not affect my body as much and my body sort of healed naturally?

Like uh I noticed the claw marks from before healed up way to fast, and then uh maybe did a little self-harm for science with my claws. I healed quicker than I should. Not wolverine fast but enough that small scrapes and bruises wouldn't stick around too long and my body felt better faster after my divinity wrecked house. Not that I could actively channel more magic to fix it any faster as that'd backfire spectacularly.

On Tuesday I destroyed my German exam. Easy peasy. The comp sci class was much harder and uh, maybe I didn't do my best on it. Nora ended up offering to drive me home again but my last exam was late and I didn't want to keep her waiting.

My last exam finished Wednesday, another comp sci class but much easier. And with that, finals were over, yet even with my magic cheating I probably didn't do too much better than I'd normally have with the exception of German.

I spent Thursday not having to worry about classes and I didn't have work till Monday so uh, yea. I hung out in the temple (while my body curled up invisibly next to my desk. The temptation to fix up the mosaic only broke through my attempt to clamp down on my impulse control a few times. Instead I focused on copying more wikipedia articles and since I didn't need to translate anymore, I could go soooo much faster. I started filling up books pretty darn fast and that's when Zaria suggested a dedicated library in one of the many unused rooms.

Being very careful to manage me for my own protection, Zaria and I worked a little bit at a time cleaning up the room and having me make shelves. She even had me make her a broom so she could manually clean. We shelved the wikipedia books in there and I added a book from my own bookshelf at home to it, because uh, magic temple library.

Zaria, the scholar, practically vibrated with excitement that she downplayed. The nerd (affectionate) apparently enjoyed having lots of exclusive knowledge on the way the world works including a bunch of stuff that at one point was revolutionary scientific knowledge. Either way she made sure to keep me from spending all day working on magical copy work to please her.

That all continued until the fated day, Saturday. The worst part was explaining to my family that I was going out, and then sort of lying and mumbling about going to hang out with friend. Them asking about who and when I'd be back and yea. Not actually much of a conversation.

Of course I knew about the date part, that’s why I stood in the bathroom trying to figure out how to make my ugly illusion look like old me but like, nice… Yea, not even divine power could make old me look good. Not without making her look like a her rather than a him. 

Also it just hurt to look at. That uncomfortable feeling of looking into the mirror and seeing someone else staring back. Thankfully it remained just an image, an illusion, my body felt right even if the mirror showed something wrong.

After another minute I surrendered and headed upstairs to peek out the front door, because Nora said she was on her way. My tail excitedly/nervously whipping about the place. The word date firmly embedded in my mind. My need to run around in circles relegated to a little fox body in a distant but tangible reality. Every moment felt like twelve whole eternities! Gah!

Step mom walked past heading down to the laundry room and I caught my tail with my hand to keep it from thumping into her. "Your friend on his way?" she asked.

My temple fox body cringed hard but I remained not cringing as hard as possible to the misgendering of Nora. "Y-Yea." Sure I'd been vague but it still felt bad.

"Good." She nodded and with that step mom took the laundry basket down and started doing her laundry. It was a weirdly curt interaction but most of our talks were. Friendly but brief and sparse.

I released my tail, and then spotted that same old silver car as before rounding the bend before pulling into our driveway. Without a word I stepped outside barefoot under my illusion and scampered over to the passenger side.

Nora waved and the door unlocked before I hopped in. "Hey cutie."

"Hi." I gave her a little wave while avoiding eye contact as I did. Then raising my hand to clean the underside of my claws with my fangs. A nervous stim.

"Okay that definitely is a dead giveaway for the illusion. But I have a solution." Throwing the car out of park and into reverse she pulled out of the driveway. "No one's gonna know you where we're going, so make your tail invisible and your claws look normal and try out looking like yourself."

I stared forwards as we pulled onto the main road. That never occurred to me. It's not school or home and basically no one knew me anyway so… so I went ahead and dispelled the illusion and then made my tail floof invisible and then my hands and feet look less feral. Actually just the boot illusion on the feet. One ordinary girl.

Wow I was going out as a girl, with another girl!

On a date!

In public!

"Oh right I forgot you didn't have clothes." Nora had peeked over at me. "Yea, you don't have a bra for those do you?"

My face flushed as I realized she peeked at my chest, which my hoodie failed to hide. My one hand sorta held the seatbelt from crushing my chest, cause uh I'd just sorta started doing that during car rides because boobs turned seatbelts into a terrible experience, or maybe I needed a bra. "I don't. I can't go out by myself and my parents might notice the bra. Also bras are expensive and I only work two days a week."

She sighed, eyes focused on the road. "Make a transfem a goddess and she still suffers under capitalism. What about using magic to make money?"

"Well uhm…" I thought about it, creating money from nothing would be difficult. Creation happened to be the most exhausting, though I could handle a piece of paper. However alteration could turn a rock into cash easier. Oh I could change a dollar bill into another one that costs more! Hmm, that was a crime but if the bill was atomically a perfect copy of a legal dollar then no one would even notice it had the same number.

Now wanting to test it I pulled out my wallet and got out a single and a twenty. Observing both I focused on transmuting the one into a copy of the twenty. Of course that meant not holding the seat belt off my chest and it was kinda awkward given how I was sitting but I focused and channeled power into altering reality. The drain not nearly as bad as I feared because the start and end state were so similar. Almost trivial. Almost.

A moment later I created a twenty dollar bill out of a single. I held it up to the light to check for the lil strip thingy.

Wow. I wouldn't need to work anymore unless the IRS caught on to the fact I conjured money out of thin air. They probably would. Maybe altering tech would be easier? Technically it'd be altering electrical signals which would be like the lowest power output ever. I'd need to test technomancy later. "I can magically make money, yea."

"You know I was gonna pay for everything since I asked you out, but if you want to use magic I won't complain." We stopped at another light. "Oh and you need clothes. Can you make those too?"

"Uh… Maybe? I-I've never worn a bra so I wouldn't know how to make one that fits right, but… wait I could have transformed my clothes into other clothes this whole time! I'm dumb." Looking down I reshaped the hoodie and shirt into the dress I wore in the temple. Just a black sundress, shaped around my tail and my boxers were underneath it.

Nora started giggling. My driver distinctly trying to focus on the road while I kept figuring out new uses for my magic. "Have you not been experimenting?"

"Last time I experimented I almost over channeled and died. Zaria said I needed to take a break from things while I got through finals."

"Who's Zaria?"

And that led into me spending the rest of the car ride to the mall explaining my friend who wandered into my temple and helped me figure out the goddess thing. Also how she was nice and smart and helped me out constantly, and made sure I remembered to eat and drink and rested. Also everything else, except for the part with the uh one talk about how we see each other. I just sort of paraphrased. She's ace and we're friends.

Following behind her, we strolled through the strip mall. Normally when I went out I wanted to go home asap to avoid being seen but oddly enough I only wanted to do that a manageable amount today. Oh and all the clothing shops had these cute outfits and such and suddenly I could wear them?!

It only occurred to me after the fourth shop we passed on our way to ice cream that I could recreate the cute ones in my temple and then try them on later. So I did that for like two whole outfits.

"See something you like?" Coming to a halt she turned to face me. A grin resting on her face.

"Maybe." I wiggled.

"Want to go in and try stuff on?"

"But the ice cream—"

"Can wait." Reaching out, Nora grabbed my hand and pulled me into the shop. The door dinged and someone greeted us which Nora politely brushed off. "Alright, which one did you like? This one?" And she gestured towards a mannequin with a black hoodie thing but without the hood and a shirt and skirt under it.

It was the one.

Blushing because uh handholding I managed to nod in response.

Immediately, Nora started pulling out the things and holding them up to me trying to find my size. Grabbed a few and ushered me over to the changing rooms.

Thus I stood in a changing room as a girl, with girl's clothes and a mirror and I looked cute and I'd been hand holding with another girl, and an intrusive thought reminded me of the collar. Oh gosh, oh gosh, oh gosh!

Upon attempting to remove the sundress I realized a critical flaw with how I made it. The tail hole couldn't open. Ugh. More divine power spent making it bigger and then slipping it off which led to the part I'd never taken one off and I sort of took a bit to contemplate how it'd even come off. Solution, magically embiggen it and slip out.

New outfit went on and my tail floof made everything difficult, cause it sorta moved the skirt and the hoodless hoodie thingy that was longer than a normal hoodie.

A knock on the door. "You okay in there?"

"Y-Yea it's just um…"

"Don't like it?"

Tucking my tail between my legs I slowly opened the door peeking out and finding that sales person staring and we made brief eye contact and my tail started swishing as I immediately looked away and tried not to be too autistic in public. Closing the door I contorted and stimmed and rocked back and forth because eye contact awful and terrible.

Nora pushed the door open and spotted me being weird and bad. "Hey, you okay?"

I locked up. Couldn't move, not safe, people could see. My head nodded because that was the fastest way to make her go away.

Instead, she pushed on into the room and closed the door. "What's wrong? Can't talk?"

My head shook.

"Type?"

Pulling my phone out of my dress pocket, I typed. [Sorry. Made eye contact with lady and it hurt and uhm need to stim.]

"Then go ahead. Also you look super cute."

My tail immediately started swishing at the compliment. The outfit moved and uh we were in an enclosed space together and both girls and she called me pretty and told me to stim and uhm. My hands flapped a little.

Her hand landed on my head. "Okay looks like that outfit doesn't go well with your," Nora dropped into a whisper, "Tail."

I nodded. Yea, and it was kinda cute. Would've liked different colors but I could change that. I could change everything! Being a goddess had its perks. Though the skirt and hoodie thingy weren't exactly fixable. Well, I could make a split in the back of the hoodie thingy if I wanted to have it with my tail. Maybe I could keep it?

"Uhm… I think I want this thing but not the rest, and uhm, can I uh change?"

Nora blushed as she realized that she was in the changing room. "Right." and she hurried out and left me to change back and I kept the thingy I liked ditched the rest and uh, magicked up a few more twenties because what the heck was this price?! I could buy so much ice cream with that kind of money! Overpriced clothes.

Oh and the hoodie thing was called a cardigan.

Anyway with a lil bag we continued our journey towards ice cream.

Then we arrived at ice cream and went in and since I had lots of magic money I got the biggest thing with all the mix-ins and toppings and a waffle bowl and I was swaying back and forth excitedly as the guy handed over the monstrosity of deliciousness.

"Goddess you're adorable." Nora held her own ice cream cone in hand, and let me pay because I insisted.

We sat down outside, and ate and uh gosh I'd gotten a lot of ice cream filled with brownies and two types of cookies and sprinkles and a lil bit of fudge on top and wow I was starving.

"So what are you majoring in?" asked my date between licks.

Swallowing a chunk, I spoke up. "Computer science. You?"

They chuckled "Of course you're a programmer. Let me guess you want thigh highs and a blahaj too."

I wiggled. Blahaj's did look huggable, and thigh highs would be nice… "Maybe."

That got them doubling over with laughter, and almost dropping their ice cream, which I saved with magic. Not that Nora noticed. Magic subtle unless I wanted to be flashy. "Mhm, thought so. Anyway, architecture major here." She took another lick. "You got any special interests?"

My eyes stared off to the side while I munched on more of my treat. Did I have special interests? The internet said that was an autism thing but like I liked things but I liked them a normal amount. I didn't memorize dinosaur facts or anything. Like I spent most of my time dissociating or playing video games. Maybe video games? I felt like most folks knew more than me there. "I don't think I do."

"Hobbies?"

"I play video games sometimes." I mumbled staring down at my food now feeling like a fake autistic. I was doing bad at date, and was gonna get a bad grade and then fail and then she wouldn't want to see me ever again.

More and more thoughts piled up and as a little fox in the temple I curled up in a corner where no one could find me being a failure. Only it wasn't enough, I shapeshifted into a dragon and began anxiously stressingly clawing the temple floor. Massive claws digging gouges in as all of the feelings got turned into repeating the same clawing motion over and over and over and over and over.

"Melanie?" Zaria walked in and approached me as I kept staring at the ground clawing further into the bedrock.

"Sorry."

Her face fell into a sad look. "Melithera, please tell me what's wrong."

The prayer lodged itself in my brain and the temple spoke with my voice. "I'm messing up my date."

"How do you know?"

"I-I well I can't keep the conversation going and I'm boring and don't have interests or things going on and I'm just useless and worthless and now she knows and—"

"You're being hard on yourself again. I very much doubt this Nora thinks of you as such." Zaria moved closer and placed her hand on my massive forelimb. "I'm sure your date is going better than you think."

Turning my serpentine neck to stare down on Zaria I hissed, "But I'm in here instead of out there with her!"

"Can you not leave?" That question stabbed my heart. I could leave. I should go back to my flesh. I knew that. It'd already been minutes and Nora probably noticed, and I needed to go back.

…For some reason I couldn't go back out even though I should and I needed to. Clearly I was being terrible by not just undissociating and going back to my body. Did it even count as dissociating if I existed physically in my temple? My therapist from the mental hospital called it dissociation but magic was real.

Right magic, I could force myself back into my body. So I tried to will myself back into my fleshy mortal fox girl self…

And still stood as a dragon with Zaria rubbing my leg reassuringly. "Melithera?"

"I can but I'm not even though I need to."

"So you tried?"

"Yea but not hard enough." I shifted into a small fox and pawed at the big gouges. Using my will I started moving the rubble dug out back and fusing it back to the floor, fixing the wound.

Kneeling beside me she picked me up and placed me into her lap. Zaria's hand stroking down the length of my back. "Then it sounds like you can't. Have you ever been unable to go back before?"

"No? But I usually don't need to go back until I want to and then I simply do. Or someone shakes me and calls my name a bunch, or there's a loud noise. Or I feel my phone vibrating in my pocket." Except I have gotten in trouble for not paying attention or making dad wait because I zoned out waiting for him to show up. But I spent all my time sitting in a chair at school or sitting in a chair at home, or lying in bed at home, so it didn't matter.

Again my body sat in a chair while I zoned out.

"It sounds as though you might have a problem with your mind disconnecting from your body." Zaria summarized just like my last therapist.

Well that… yea okay but I never had issues with dissociating from this body, though I did learn how to hang out in my divine realm which was like a second layer of disconnecting from my body. Dissociation inception. "Maybe, but I don't know how to fix it. I tried magic, but it didn't do anything."

"If magic could fix your mind I have a feeling you wouldn't break down crying into my arms so often."

I nuzzled into my friend's lap, coiling up small. "Well I accidentally influenced my dad's mind to make him go away twice. So I can affect people’s minds."

"But you're not a person, you're a goddess. Things work differently for you." Patting my head she remained right, probably. Zaria happened to be really smart and intuitive about everything. Even if sometimes she lacked the words to express things.

Before I could respond I felt a tug on my awareness. Distant and close at the same time.

"Melithera, please talk to me." prayed Nora. Her worry bled through loud and clear. My attention now centered on her but not from inside my body but distantly looking, and right next to her sat me staring off into space.

The prayer hung in my mind as I focused on feeling out that sliver of myself that sat next to her. I took a breath, and another. My eyes slowly refocusing as I felt my bare feet on the concrete ground and the fresh pollen filled spring air, and the noise of people going about their Saturday afternoon.

I wiggled my fingers and looked down at my ice cream that was now about a third of the way melted. Then my attention drifted up to Nora sitting across from me. My eyes immediately then went right back to my food. "S-Sorry I zoned out. Thank you for uhm, the prayer. It helped."

"Another magic thing? You were out for almost ten minutes." Peeking up, they seemed to have finished their ice cream. Nora scooted closer during that ten minutes and now sat basically right next to me.

"Not really it's uhm-uhm…" I looked around and yea there were people out here and they might overhear and was that one guy looking at us? Oh no. Oh fuck. My throat seized up and words wouldn't come out as I trembled.

My date reached over and patted me on the back. "You don't need to talk about it if you don't want. Maybe finish your ice cream?"

That seemed like a good idea, though I couldn't help but notice the guy leering at us now. I reached out with my spoon and started eating the rest in small bites. Still delicious but I couldn't really properly enjoy it because I kind of wanted to cry, but in-public happened to be the worst place to cry.

Once I started digging into it I realized I'd lost a lot to melting and that made me feel bad. I'd messed up my own food and wasted it. I wanted to undo it.

I wanted to undo the melting enough I felt my power leaking out to fix the problem. That desire reached the threshold where it began to force the universe to obey. It didn't even take that much effort to refreeze the ice cream into its prior state, and thanks to the waffle bowl’s tall edge the refreezing couldn’t be seen unless you were leaning over my shoulder watching me, like Nora.

Eating the rest, I then got up robotically and walked over to the trash can and tossed it away. Only when I turned back around, I noticed the guy hadn't been watching me, he'd been watching Nora. He looked angry.

Something that my date noticed and they scowled back. "What's your problem?"

He stood up and approached walking with a swagger. "Get lost—" A transphobic slur spewed out of his mouth.

Nora brushed it off and hurled and insulted him back. To which he responded back more aggressively and I just wanted him to stop and stop and stop.

Just like with dad, his fury melted and he looked a little unfocused. Nora's next retort not even reaching him before he just walked away. Of course everyone around took notice of the situation and the strangeness of him walking away and me being off to the side near the trash can and folks looked to me too and to Nora.

It only took her a moment to get up, grab my hand and drag my trembling frozen-up body away. And once we made it far enough away, she wrapped her arm around my shoulder and pulled me into a side hug. "I've got ya. Let's get you to the car." Their grip strong and basically supporting me the whole way back.

At some point I realized I'd been crying. I didn't know when I started but once I noticed it got worse and I broke down sobbing into their chest. Then I realized they'd just been the victim of transphobia and then turned around and started comforting me and that just made me feel worse.

I fumbled to get my phone out and couldn't even see through the tears. My desire to say sorry apparently enough to get my phone to display it. [sorry]

"Look I'm used to it, we live in a red state. But thanks for whatever you did, you were far nicer with the magic than I would've been."

[sorry for ruining the date]

"You didn't ruin anything, and look, no more sorries. Date's not over yet, and I've still got a couch perfect for cuddling on in an apartment that won't have anyone showing up for hours. I think I could use some cuddles after that." Fastening their seat belt and making sure I did the same, they patted my head and then started driving off.

She was right, cuddles sounded nice.