I dislike mirrors. I can’t say I’ve always disliked mirrors, but it’s been true for a long time. Mirrors are cruel, wretched things, insistent on showing unwanted truths.

As I step inside the dressing room and survey the scenery, my gaze instinctively turns aways from the floor mirror–cheval glass, they’re sometimes called–that I placed there just moments ago. I don’t want to do this. I hate it.

Cheshire hugs me from behind and murmurs in my ear, “You’ve got this. This is the last time you’ll ever have to see the old you. So give it a look, and we can figure out how to make the new you. Just look in the mirror and tell me what you want to change.”

My fists clench, and I grit my teeth, but I know she’s right. I know I need to do this. So I face my reflection.

It’s a funny thing, but my face looked so much better on Homura. Maybe my recollection is being colored by Reska’s point of view, but it was so much easier to dismiss all of Homura’s imperfections as just normal human variation. But when it’s the girl in the mirror?

“All of it,” I tell Cheshire, knowing what a useless comment that is but still compelled to speak. “I wish I could rip it off. I wish I didn’t have to deal with any of this stupid sack of meat and bone.”

“Specifics, love. We’ve got to start somewhere. What about your teeth?” I can see her in the mirror, practically hanging over me, expression focused and intent.

“I hate my teeth.” Once I get started, it’s easier to keep going, the words finally flowing out of me all at once. “I hate how crooked most of them are, and I hate my dumb little overbite, and I hate that I’ve never taken care of them and nobody ever made me take care of them when I was just a dumb kid that didn’t know any better. I don’t even want perfect teeth, just… no, actually, if I can look like anything, then make my teeth perfect. Make them clean and straight and white. Keep the fangs, obviously. I want perfect vampire teeth.”

“Your wish is my command,” Cheshire says, and then for the first time in my life my teeth are beautiful.

“Okay, um. Chapped lips. I really just don’t take care of any part of myself, so my lips are always chapped and I chew at them until they flake. Fix that.” My lips smooth out, and I run my tongue along teeth and lips both to get a feel for them; they don’t just look nicer, they feel nicer.

“How about your skin?” she asks.

I grimace. “Horrid.” My skin is rough and I can see a few traces of acne, the unsightly result of poor skincare and a bad habit of picking at my face. “I want my skin smooth, soft, unblemished.”

I blink and it’s like looking at a different person; my skin is supermodel-perfect, practically airbrushed. “Holy shit.” I reach up and touch my face. My fingers trace over skin that’s smoother and softer than the best blanket I’ve ever held. It’s incredible. It’s sensory bliss.

I stare into my reflection’s eyes, and more requests come pouring out. “The bags under my eyes, get rid of them. Actually… can you like, bake makeup into my skin? Like how some people get a tattoo that looks like eyeshadow?”

“Sure thing!” Cheshire chirps. “The sky’s the limit here, Allie. Pick whatever you want.”

I smile, and I notice my lips again, and that gives me another angle. “Okay, give me dark eye makeup, and shiny black lipstick, but they’re actually just my face now.” The changes happen instantly, and when I smack my lips and touch the skin around my eyes they don’t feel like there’s any makeup there at all.

That leaves my eyes themselves. My… ugh. “I have complicated feelings about my eyes,” I admit to Cheshire. “Growing up, I had multiple people in my life joke about how, because my eyes are brown, that makes them ‘the color of shit’ or sometimes just ‘full of shit.’ And that got to me. I hated having brown eyes. It wasn’t until like, much later, very late teens, that I made a conscious effort to try and be more okay with my eyes. ‘Cause I mean, they’re just brown. Lots of people have brown eyes. Attractive people have brown eyes! And my eyes aren’t really ugly; they’re not the most interesting color of brown, but I’ve had people express jealousy over my long eyelashes. I feel weird for how much I’ve cared about it in the past.”

Cheshire smiles at me in the mirror. “Eyes are important to people. We put a lot of meaning into eyes. Tired eyes, kind eyes, cold eyes, sharp eyes. My eyes mark me as a changeling, and they’re the only aspect of my appearance that I can’t really change; no matter what animal I turn into, I’ll always have this exact shade of heterochromia. For the record, I think your eyes are pretty as they are, but I don’t think you should let old baggage stop you from looking exactly as you want. So: what kind of eyes do you really want to have?”

“Heh. I mean… what kind of self-respecting vampire doesn’t have unnatural eyes? Can you cycle through yellow, orange, and red, so I can get a feel for each?”

She does so, and I watch my eyes flicker through different hues. I have an appreciation for yellow eyes, and I think orange eyes can look good, but ultimately neither of them really pop like a nice bright red. And besides, red’s more in my color palette. But I do have one other thought…

“Question: can you make it so that, like, my eyes change color? Like, could we set it so that my eyes get brighter and redder, maybe even slightly glowing, whenever I feed or cast a spell?”

My eyes flash a burning crimson, and Cheshire grins. “You bet I can. Among the many wonderful benefits of your body being smoke and mirrors is that it’s pretty easy to set up a conditional modifier like that.”

The bright light fades and my irises return to a more modest red, but I am ecstatic. “That’s so cool. Okay, I’ve gotta keep that in mind going forward, because there’s so much we can do with that. Um, next change: eyebrows. I hate how thick and messy my eyebrows are, I want them thin and clean.”

“Done.” She snaps her fingers–for effect, I imagine, since she didn’t need to do anything previously–and my eyebrows sort themselves out. “Any other face changes, or are we good to move to body stuff?”

“Yeah, I have a bit more I want to do, but, I’m not completely sure on the specifics. I want a more ‘elegant’ face, I guess. Higher cheekbones, maybe, and a more delicate nose. Vampy aristocratic.”

“I can work with that.” Cheshire sculpts my face, making subtle and not-so-subtle tweaks to my facial structure until it looks more or less like I was imagining: a fancy vampire lady.

“That actually looks really good,” I say, fascinated by hearing my voice coming out of a face that is getting less recognizable by the minute. “Last thing is hair. I want to try a few things.”

I have Cheshire set my hair color to black, then white, red, and even a few shades of pink briefly. I lengthen my hair, then shorten it. I even have her change it from straight to curly, then back. I settle on black hair for higher contrast with my pale skin and red eyes, but I’m still not sure on the length and style.

“Do you know anything about hair?” I ask my geist. “Because I’m realizing that I know like two hairstyles and have never styled my own hair and don’t really know how to. A shorter pixie-ish cut doesn’t seem quite right for the character I want to play, but plain long hair seems boring.”

“Hmm.” Cheshire taps her chin and leaves her place behind me to start circling me, peering intently at my hair. “Let me try something.”

My hair grows long again, and then Cheshire grabs a hairband from amid the styling supplies, bunches my hair into a ponytail, then spins it into a bun and keeps it steady with a few bobby pins. She lets a bit of hair out to either side so that I’ve got two locks of hair framing my face, and the end result is a cute and modest loose bun. Together with the red eyes and my new facial features (and the faux-makeup), I’m really starting to look like a vampire.

“That’s amazing,” I tell the catgirl. “Uh, though, if it gets messed up I don’t think I can fix it.”

Cheshire waves a hand dismissively. “That’s what I’m here for. I’ll happily do your hair whenever you like.” Cheshire smiles at me, and I feel oddly like blushing. Oddly in that it’s not an embarrassed blush or a horny blush, but almost… it’s hard to pin down. There’s just something nice and sweet about her offer, something comforting, even if it’s coming from a creature I can’t allow myself to fully trust.

“Thanks,” I manage, not fully able to control the catch in my voice. “That’s, um, that’s hair, then. You said body, next?”

“It’s your show, Alice,” she reminds me gently. “You get to pick. But yes, if you’re ready for it, we can take a look at altering your neck-down now. Of course, you’ll probably want to see your body, so that dress might have to come off. For accurate measurements,” she adds, and I can hear the suggestive smirk in her voice as clearly as I can see it on her face.

I’m back to feeling awkward and embarrassed. I mean, rationally, she’s seen my life and has definitely seen me naked and wow that’s a thought. Cheshire has probably–almost certainly–seen me naked. Possibly through my own eyes. Okay. Well. Just. Filing that away to freak out about later.

But regardless, it’s not like I’m that self-conscious about being seen in my underwear. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m an exhibitionist, but when I can ignore the dysphoria I’m perfectly fine showing off my body for attention. Hells, I was going to let an incubus fuck me just so that he’d like me more. And I’ve even changed in front of Cheshire, while replacing my ruined shirt at the nightclub. So what’s different this time?

It comes to me quickly: context. It was a very functional action at the club, just rote changing of clothing. But here, we’re discussing my body. We’re changing my body. There’s a more personal element to it, and a certain sexual/romantic element with the intimacy and the fact that what’s attractive is inherently a part of the discussion. And even the “showing off for attention” part feels meaningfully different, because the relationship the attention is coming from is one that I have a lot of complicated feelings about. If I stripped for Cheshire, would that be an act of calculated attention-seeking manipulation, or is my desire for Cheshire to find me attractive something deeper and more vulnerable?

Because I do want her to find me attractive, I realize. My traumatized, abused, broken monkey brain is irrationally terrified that Cheshire won’t find me attractive and will abandon me because I’m not pretty enough for her, not good enough for her. She’ll call me ugly and leave me and then I’ll be alone again. Like always.

Please don’t leave me. Please, please don’t leave me. I need you.

I swallow nervously, and I take off my dress.

I was expecting the underwear beneath to be fancy and frilly, given the dress itself, but it’s just plain and functional. And now I’m standing there, looking at myself in the mirror, at my half-naked body. Pale skin. All the self-harm scars faded back in, the last effects of [Indulgent Vitality] dispelled. Thin arms; thin overall, technically, but pudgy around the waist and stomach, some flab on the thighs, and nubby breasts barely filling her bra. Stretch marks here and there but especially around the knees. A bit of light hair growing in on the legs and stomach and armpits.

Her bra? My bra. Because that’s my body in the mirror. My stupid ugly worthless hidous body. Too thin in all the wrong places and too fat in others. Marked and scarred. Grotesque.

“So what do you want to change?” Cheshire asks, gaze sliding over my body.

“Everything,” I snarl. “All of it.”

She gives me an unimpressed look. “Let’s go at this from a different angle, then: what do you want to keep? What traits of your body are worth preserving?”

I hesitate. I want to answer “Nothing,” but I know that’s not true. “I… I like my skin. I like how pale it is, and I like the scars. Sometimes. I- I want them to stay, at least. And I like having small tits. But I wish I were less fat, and smoother skin, and maybe a little bigger hips, and skin that’s closer to really truly vampy pale.”

“You’re not fat,” Cheshire points out. “Like, even slightly.”

“But I could be thinner,” I argue. I pinch a bit of stomach fat and wiggle it at her. “I’m thin, sure, but I’m also pudgy. And I’m not as skinny as when I was a teenager! I know for a fact that I’ve gained weight.”

“Since you were sixteen? Yes, shocking news, you gain weight as you grow up. Bitch, you are a twig. If anything, you should fill out a little more so you don’t look like you crawled out of an unmarked grave.” Cheshire pats me on one bony, stick-like arm.

“Ah, but consider: I’m trying to look like a corpse! I want to be a vampire, remember? And doesn’t your magic system reward synchronization of form and meaning? Ergo, it would actually be beneficial to my magic to be as thin as possible, and I don’t even need to starve myself to do it! Why binge and purge when you can just stuff your face and then magically alter your body to your desired weight?”

Cheshire gives me a new look that says she is neither blind to nor impressed with the blatant eating disorder underlying my chain of logic. “Sweetie, when was the last time you saw a vampire woman in media who wasn’t voluptuous? Genuinely, can you actually think of a vampire character you’ve seen who looked like a corpse and not a model?”

I grumble, but she’s not wrong. I mean, I might think those shows and games are cowards for their portrayals of vampires, but I know that I’m rather unique in feeling that way.

“I think that you would look great and very vampy with a fuller chest,” she suggests. “Which is not to say that I think you should do that, but I think you need a better argument for why not than ‘to look like a vampire.’”

“Flat is justice,” I insist.

“Weeb shit is neither a valid argument nor a sound argument.”

“Ugh.” I roll my eyes. “Look, everyone I’ve ever talked to who had big tits said that they were way more hassle than they were worth. Besides, they’d fuck with the gender aesthetic I want.”

I immediately realize I’ve made a tactical error when Cheshire’s face lights up and she leans in. “And what gender aesthetic is that, Alice?”

Shit. I’ve fallen right into her trap. I hesitate. What do I say here? How much? Do I be evasive about it, or go full infodump?

She called our infodumps cute.

Heh. Yeah. I guess she did. I breathe deep and brush a strand of hair out of my face. “Okay, so… I’ve kind of always wished that I could have been born a cis girl… so that it would be easier for me to dress masc and have masc hobbies. I wish that I could just fully embrace the like, nerdy tomboy aesthetic, without having to worry about getting misgendered. I mean, fuck, I’ve played Warhammer, Cheshire, and I’m obsessed with Magic: the Gathering. I was a Blizzard fan for years until Blitzchung, Shadowlands, and the abuse lawsuits. I play JRPGs and Pathfinder and Stellaris and Dota, and dear fucking gods do I watch a lot of anime. Those are some extremely male-dominated spaces, and it feels so weird to be a trans girl in those spaces, because I know it’s distinctly not the cis girl experience in those spaces. There’s this constant reminder that it didn’t feel odd to exist in those nerdy interests as a kid because I was existing in it as a boy, not a girl. I got into World of Warcraft because of my aunt, and plenty of women play WoW, but a sizable chunk of the fanbase is horribly misogynistic and none of that was ever directed at me when I was playing the game growing up. And, to be clear, I like how immersed in some of those spaces I am. I like having that familiarity with nerd culture. But I hate the voice in my head highlighting what masculine interests I have, because even though I know it’s bullshit and that plenty of cis women share these interests, it still gets under my skin.”

“And how you dress?” Cheshire asks. “How does that play into it?”

“I like boy clothing. I like to do the spinny in the skirt and I like wearing a dress over top of shorts or leggings, but I mostly wear gamer tee shirts and plain jeans. I hate heels, and I can’t be bothered to learn how to do my makeup or hair. And when you’re a cis girl, none of that gets people to say that you’re not a real girl. But when you’re trans, every item on that list feels like another point of evidence invalidating the truth of your identity. So… yeah.”

“You want to be an atypical kind of girl, but you have difficulty getting people to accept you as a girl at all,” Cheshire interprets, and I nod reluctantly in reply. “Well, lucky for you, you don’t have to worry about that anymore. So, Alice: what kind of girl do you want to be?”

I cross my arms and chew on the question. “I think that high femme is not my style. But at the same time, I’m not really tough enough or sporty enough for butch. I’m a weird bookworm.”

“Futch,” Cheshire suggests.

“I guess that fits.” I scratch my head, nervous about this next part. “I have also, ah, debated going by different pronouns. I’ve tried she/they before, explored that space. I’ve even put some thought into it/its pronouns to express some inherent inhumanity, but I’ve never had the guts to try that with people and I feel like it would just get used against me by shitty transphobes. In the end I just default to she/her because it’s easier for people and because it’s the most definitive ‘I am a girl, damn you.’”

Cheshire cocks her head curiously. “Do you want to go by any of those, with me? I’d have no problems incorporating them.”

“Ah, no no no, that’s not necessary.” I hold up my hands and laugh nervously. “It’s fine, really.”

She smiles knowingly. “We can always come back to it later. But, I do want to interrogate some of what you said: you want to express inhumanity, but you also want to be recognized as a woman.”

“I mean, yeah, I guess. Part of me wants to be ‘pretty’ because of societal conditioning, but more of me wants to be a creepy fucking vampire. I want people to look at me and assume I’m female, but in a vaguely androgynous range where I can pull off different looks depending on how I’m feeling that day.”

Cheshire nods. “And does that give you ideas on how you want to change your body?”

She definitely led me here. I don’t know if I should be annoyed or grateful. “Yeah. Make me slender, my skin smooth and soft and pale, and rebalance fat away from the stomach to just a bit more in the hips and chest. Still thin, just a bit shapely, barely noticeable depending on the outfit. And get rid of all the hair on my body that isn’t on my head.”

Cheshire complies, and my form changes again. It’s a subtle change, but clear to see, and I can’t help but feel a wave of delight as I look at myself in the mirror and feel my hips with my hands. My skin is almost porcelain-smooth, and with the lack of a pulse it feels almost unliving.

Wait. Idea. “Cheshire, you said my body isn’t fully physical anymore, and you called it ‘smoke and mirrors.’ What are the limits of that? Could I lower my body’s surface temperature? Make it impossible to feel a pulse? Change the perceived texture feel of my skin?”

“All that and more,” the catgirl confirms with a grin. “You could even give yourself faux-retractable claw nails that just transform back into regular nails when you’re not using them to scratch someone’s eyes out.”

“Okay, well, first of all, please add that. And make them, I don’t know, maybe black for the edge, or pink for the gap moe factor? Maybe pink lips too, actually, for the same reason? No, that would look terrible. Oh, how about make my nails and lips dark red.”

“Done and done,” Cheshire says, and it is.

“Hella. Okay, so, my idea: I want my skin to feel like porcelain. I want it to feel cold, and smooth, and there’s no pulse. And I want my scars to look and feel more like cracks in the porcelain than scars in tissue… so actually, get rid of all the small and shallow scars so it’s just the ones that will stand out. And the skin will be pale as porcelain too, a genuinely monochrome white.”

Another blink and shift, and now my skin is even more like porcelain than before. There’s something almost doll-like about it. “Hey, Cheshire, this is a weird question, but, since I’m a demon and less bound by the laws of physical reality, could I just, ah, choose not to have urinate or defecate? Like, if my body isn’t really real, then, when I’m eating, isn’t it more about the concepts associated with eating? So can I just skip the demands of the crude physical equivalent?”

Cheshire nods. “Yes, you could alter your form to eliminate the need for physical waste expulsion. In fact, I went ahead and already did that for you when you first became a demon.”

“Awesome. In that case, I’d like to… uh, hmm, what’s a not-weird way to say this?” I stumble a little over what I’m trying to say. “Basically, give me doll anatomy. No nipples, and nothing down below. Just smooth porcelain.”

Cheshire snaps her fingers and says, “Done,” and I don’t have to peek to feel the changes take effect.

I’m starting to get into this now. There’s so much potential here. “Okay, I wanna get weirder. Creepier. If I can have retractable claws and eyes that shift color, what else? I want a jaw that unhinges and fills with razor-sharp teeth. I want to be able to rotate my head like an owl. Can I do that?”

“Yes and yes. Give it a try.”

I open my mouth, then open it farther, to the point it would normally start to hurt, but instead the sides of my mouth split painlessly, my jaw keeps lowering, and all my teeth become vicious fangs. I shut my mouth and it all returns to pseudo-normalcy. Then I look behind me, and turn my head so far it’s actually on backwards.

I turn back to the mirror, and I feel a bit of glee. “Make my tongue longer and pointier, but in a way that doesn’t affect my speech.” My tongue grows, and I can feel it reaching impossibly deeper into my mouth.

Okay, what else? I could give myself tattoos, maybe, or weird skin patterns, or fur or scales, but do I have good ideas for any of those? “Hmm. I’m debating adding doll joints but I feel like that might be taking it too far?”

Cheshire asks, “What’s inspired the doll kick?”

“Good question. I mean, I liked the doll girl in Bloodborne a lot, and the doll girl in Elden Ring, but… could be that doll I met on arrival, too. Dolls are great for horror, you know, and they fit into this really interesting empty space, this sort of uncanny valley between human and not. You could make an argument for that contributing to my Truths, actually; dolls inspire Fear, but they are also loved and bonded with, something that falls under Blood.”

Cheshire wiggles happily. “Ah, look at you, wrapping your brain around the Truth system. Very cute. If you don’t want ball joints like a doll, you could add some bite marks on your neck instead.”

“Oh that’s a good idea! Okay, yeah, do that.”

Two pinpricks appear on my neck, with just the slightest smear of blood. And now… I genuinely can’t think of anything else to add. So here I am: a doll vampire demon with porcelain skin and crimson eyes.

I smile at my reflection, and for maybe the first time, I’m happy to see her.