Des stayed on Kayla’s abandoned blanket, watching her friends with varying levels of concern. So far, everything seemed to be going well—none of their recently-arrived loved ones had freaked out and demanded immediate passage back to the real world, or simply rejected the whole situation as a hoax, or anything like that. Even not including urban fantasy genre tropes, the world was full of people who made little or no effort to really accept something new and outside their personal experience, and who then concluded that it was either evil or untrue. It didn’t have to be something that rewrote all comprehension of the nature of the universe and physics.

She fervently hoped that the current trend continued.

Riley got up from her own blanket and came over to join Des.

“Are you okay?” she asked gently.

Des tilted her head to look at her quizzically. “Yes. Why?”

“Can’t help but notice that you and Erica have no one here, and you’re closer. And able to actually answer.”

“Sor’ of,” Des sighed.

“What, because a couple of consonants are hard to say and a few others slur a bit? Okay, T and D are rather significant ones, but I’ve heard worse. And they’re not exactly absolute. We all understand the sound is there in words like kitten and button even though there’s no actual T being pronounced, just a sort of stutter in the middle—it’s called a glottal stop, by the way. Sometimes sounds slur—how many people say Tuesday with an actual clear T? There are tons of ways to pronounce T and D, when it comes right down to it. How many depend on specific dialect, but local Ontario English definitely has a bunch. And you obviously have a large vocabulary that’s giving you synonyms you can use sometimes. I’m not saying it isn’t a nuisance, but you’re already pretty good at working around it and you’ve had less than two weeks. My money is on it getting easier with practice at choosing the right words and finding ways to pronounce things that approximate the standard version enough to be understood.”

Des considered that. “Maybe. Hope so. Is overall more effor’ a’ say things. You know surprising things.”

Riley chuckled. “Yeah, I’ve had to research a lot of different subjects to do my job. Which does include helping newly-awakened faelings adjust to an extremely diverse variety of fae forms. One of my uncles actually specializes in speech therapy, and prioritizes faeling clients. He’ll reduce or waive fees, even. He’s generally more than happy to help the family mediums when we have questions. It’s going to be awkward trying to discuss things from here, but once I can, I’ll call him and see what he says, if you like.”

“Maybe. Is no hurry. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. But the original question stands. No one’s missing you or Erica?”

“Erica lives alone. Is aroman’ic an’ happier with books an’ green things. Bes’ frien’s all here. Me, JC, Theo. Brother an’ gran’father will miss bu’ slower.”

“That actually makes perfect sense for a green fae. It’s pretty common for them to be some degree of aromantic, with or without some degree of being asexual as well. Some are downright asocial, at least as far as fauna.” She paused. “I did make it clear, I hope, that when I say things like that, they’re overall broad-strokes tendencies, definitely not absolutes, and every individual is unique, and there is emphatically nothing wrong with anyone not matching those tendencies even remotely?”

Des nodded. “Know tha’. As for me...” She shrugged. “Ca’s safe a’ Kayla’s house.”

“I met them. They’re adorable.”

Riley could appreciate Ramses and Ryu?

“Bes’ frien’s are here—all here, nao. Family no’ expec’ a’ see me always. Girlfrien’ alrea’y leaving. Job no’ miss ye’.”

“Oh, no. All this is happening in the middle of a breakup?” She laid a hand over Des’. “That’s awful timing. I’m sorry.”

Des shrugged. “No’ a surprise. Was, mm, four months? She no’ like’ when she learn’ I like girl clothes.”

“Which I’m guessing means you weren’t a girl at the time?” Des nodded confirmation. “Did you tell her?”

“Yes.”

“And she decided to leave just over that?”

“Mmhmm.”

Riley shook her head and heaved a deep sigh. “Some ways, I’m really grateful for the perspective my weird chaotic life gives me. Getting upset over clothes or even a non-absolute gender identity—which is super common for faelings, especially assigned-male-at-birth faelings, I might add—strikes me as incredibly superficial. Although I’ve met lots of people who did not have my weird chaotic life and were still able to keep things like that in a reasonable perspective, so she really has no excuse. But I bet it still hurt, even if you were halfway braced for it, which I bet you were. And the timing is ghastly.”

Des shrugged again. “No’ thinking abou’ breakup while here surviving an’ changing an’ looking for a way home.”

“There is that, I suppose, and that handy psychological resilience factor faelings get for a while might have helped, too. It still shouldn’t have happened.”

“Prob’ly never happen again. No’ sure how relationships will work nao.”

“You haven’t really seen anything outside this island. There are a lot of people out there who know about faelings and have no problem with the occasional bit of accommodation. People adjust to people who matter to them in lots of ways. I see it all the time, because my job frequently means that I find myself seeing intimate aspects of people’s lives at a vulnerable time and yet I’m an outsider, not part of it. There are big obvious ways, like learning how to best help someone with, oh, mobility limitations, sensory impairment, psychiatric issues, but it happens in countless little ways too. That happens exactly the same way between two faelings or between a faeling and a human as it does between two humans who have never seen a faeling.”

“Mmm. Maybe. No’ wan’ a’ be someone’s fe’ish gen’erben’er ca’girl.”

“Yeah. Unfortunately, there’s a bit of that out there too. I’m guessing by the phrasing that ‘fetish genderbender catgirl’ is a specific thing somewhere that I haven’t come across it. I don’t get a lot of time to really indulge in pop culture.”

“Is a common fan’asy online. Although,” she added thoughtfully, “usually less feline than me. An’ usually much paler. Usually perky young girl with ears an a...” She couldn’t say ‘tail’ in any way that made sense, so she flicked hers around into reach as an illustration instead and gestured to it. “Of’en submissive. Is an anime thing. Of’en unhappy boys changed into happy ca’girls. Or much more feline, anthro ca’. Is a furry thing.”

“Ah, I see. But your own subconscious chose a unique middle ground that isn’t either, but strikes me as very viable without much that’s impractical, and overall visually gorgeous. Any kind of faeling is at some risk of being fetishized, but you’re definitely likely to have admirers with varied intentions.”

That wasn’t even remotely a surprise, although unexpectedly flattering.

“For what it’s worth, I can kind of relate. I am absolutely no good at following traditional gendered behaviour. I can’t be. I have to be assertive and determined and sometimes downright pushy to do my job well, and that matters to me more than almost anything. There are guys who are into that, like, really into that, but on my time off, I just want to unwind, y’know? I don’t want to be in charge of anything more complicated than the remote control for a TV.”

Des snickered. “Some guys are prob’ly much less complica’e’.”

That made Riley laugh. “Probably. Mostly I’m attracted to guys, for some definition of the word, but I’m not that hung up on it. No better luck in that direction, either. Throw in all the travelling and everything, and there’s a reason that active mediums are rarely in stable relationships. I know, it isn’t the same, exactly, but even for those of us interested in romantic relationships, there are an awful lot of other factors and expectations and junk that can interfere really badly.”

Why were jobs that involved helping other people so often the ones with high personal prices?

“Anyway. You know people like that are out there already, so any warnings from me are pretty much redundant, other than just confirming that they also exist among people who associate with faelings in various ways. Medium families, or the families of faelings or of the occasional sociable sort-of-wizard like Niko or the even more rare sociable true wizards like Alcaios. Human psychics. The occasional human who stumbles into the whole thing from a different direction.”

“Soun’s like many people.” Far more than they’d thought. This bizarre reality just kept expanding.

“Yep, there are lots. And some are potential friends or lovers. The diversity is extremely high, incidentally, so the one bit of advice that I would give you is to make sure that all terms are clearly defined. Base assumptions can vary drastically, and in the worst case, then a medium ends up involved trying to unravel the misunderstandings before it can explode. Possibly literally, in the case of one fire faeling I encountered under those conditions.” She turned in place, scanning the pasture. “As an extension of that whole subject... I’m not currently seeing anywhere I need to intervene, but you can read your friends much better than I can. Are you seeing anything that looks like potential trouble? Kayla seems to have whatever’s up with Zach under control, otherwise I’d check in over there. JC is presumably fine talking to Niko, Erica’s outside the stable, you’re right here... which leaves Theo, Suzi, and Alison to worry about. Y’know, this is a big group to keep track of, it’s kinda easier when I can just focus on a smaller number.”

Des shook her head. She was quite certain that, barring something truly drastic, all of her friends would prefer to cope with this themselves, without interference. Emotions were so strong that there was an incomprehensible tangle of them somewhere in the middle of the seven-sided psychic bond, and it was stronger than at any point previously, which made sense, but she wasn’t getting any sense of anyone wanting backup.

“Are okay. Give them...” Time was hard to say. “Space.”

“All right. I’ll trust your judgement on that. So what are the odds that those cute furry boys of yours will decide to let me cuddle them someday, absolutely on their terms of course, and what will they think of being able to play here in the pasture safely with a tree and a stream and even some mild winter over there outside the walls?”