Thorin's First Thundersday of Harvestfall, 1442, Gloam-Barrow Den, second boss battle arena.

The silence following their victory was unsettling. It was tension redistributed—like weight shifting on a frayed rope.

With a nervous shift, Elyssia pulled out one tonfa and fidgeted with it, feeling the weight of the weapon in her hand. She produced a square of cloth from her pack and used it to wipe down the weapon. Her hands focused on the task, but her mind was elsewhere—on her team.

They had improved since yesterday's dungeon run—her timely corrections had rooted out most of their early bad habits.

But they could do so much better. They still lacked the instinctive teamwork of a group, honed by years of playing together, working as a single unit.

They were not there, of course not. All they really needed was time—and perhaps a touch more subtle guidance. Elyssia knew it was best to avoid vocalising every minor flaw her highly analytical mind noticed.

Vaelith, for example—efficient, precise, dangerously curious—had finally stopped asking permission before casting knock-back spells. That was progress. But her damage uptime lagged behind—she still needed to internalise the casters' ABC. She did not trust her instincts yet. Instead, she hesitated. Calculated. Trying to divine whether any particular move was the ideal one. Eventually, she would get it—but that took practice. But her performance would benefit from making faster calls. Casting any spell would be better than agonising over the perfect choice.

Leoric had proven quite adaptable, and an excellent shot. His footwork had tightened, his call-outs were crisper. However, all this came at the cost of the use of his traps. Of course, the party's wall-to-wall play style was far from ideal for his class' preferred fighting style—creating kill zones and dragging enemies into them.

She did not have a chance to assess his performance with his debuff arrows. The nature of the enemies they fought so far had prevented it. The undead had too many immunities, and they died far too quickly. They were the wrong target for accuracy or defence debuffs. Elyssia would have to wait until they fought stronger enemies, when such things mattered. On the other hand, she had seen him use plenty of holy arrows. That made her confident in his ability to select the right elemental or slaying arrows in future dungeons. Learning an enemy's weakness and then exploiting it.

And then there was Kaelyn. Elyssia frowned.

Kaelyn had the most raw battlefield intuition of them all—seamlessly switching from buffs to heals to damage with no need of any prompting. Her Sanctuary invocations always landed when they were needed the most. Like most veteran healers, she did not follow a clean rotation. No routine, no declared strategy. She triaged and flowed—always intervening where her presence mattered most.

Like a pianist sight-reading a new piece and somehow playing it flawlessly.

Still, something about the priestess gnawed at the back of Elyssia's mind. Kaelyn's reactions were often unpredictable. In itself, that was not unusual. Especially not in tumultuous times like these… Today was an out-of-the-ordinary day, no matter which angle she looked at it. It only made sense every member of her party handled their unique situation differently.

But there was more. Kaelyn no longer moved like the confident seductress they had first met. The Spanish idioms had vanished from her speech. Even her silence was unfamiliar.

Of course, Kaelyn's situation was complicated, and Elyssia did not know her that well. But she certainly did not act like someone upset about her sudden transformation. Sure, she avoided the topic—just like someone nursing an open wound. But her behaviour did not match that kind of pain.

And then there was the "we."

Elyssia had noticed it earlier in the day—Kaelyn using that pronoun in situations where it clearly did not refer to the party, to Leoric, Vaelith, or Elyssia.

At first, she had chalked it up to a bit of theatrical flair. A priestess's royal "we." Fitting enough, considering Kaelyn's flair for performance.

But then she remembered their private one-on-one talk in Luminara's market alleys. Elyssia had answered Kaelyn's questions about her own coming-out as honestly as she could. Kaelyn had avoided a direct reply.

Instead, she had simply said, "We'll think about it."

And she had sounded so serious. Not unlike someone sidestepping a hard truth. More like someone gathering opinions and planning to hold a proper debate.

Elyssia exhaled slowly, fingers tightening slightly on her cloth-wrapped tonfa.

I need to keep both eyes and ears open—there's something going on with that girl.

And I don't want to be caught unawares.

She watched as the priestess silently examined the robe, still cradling it in her hands like it was the most precious thing in the world.

The sylvani stood up, clicked her tongue and sheathed her weapon again.

"Water and mana break," she called out. "If you've got food buffs left, maintain. If not, now's your window."

"Got it," Leoric said, already pulling the strap on his supply satchel. From inside, he withdrew a compact roll of arrow shafts, a pouch of fletchings, and a wooden case of softly glowing arrowheads. One by one, he began assembling replacements for the arrows he had fired earlier.

Good.

Elyssia allowed herself a rare smile. A ranger bringing crafting supplies into a dungeon was rare—even in her day. It meant he had grown past the stage of relying on the inferior free arrows.

Vaelith muttered something arcane and flicked her wrist, conjuring her usual invisible chair with a shimmer of displaced dust. "Give me two minutes and I'll conjure fresh water. Any requests?"

"Oh! Can we have fruit punch lemonade?" Kaelyn asked brightly, peeking out from behind the stitched fabric. "On ice?"

Vaelith gave a small, fond smile. "I don't know, it'll be the first time. I'll see what I can do."

Slowly, Elyssia drifted closer to the priestess.

"I'm curious," she said, settling beside a cracked pillar and folding one leg beneath her. "Why that drink, specifically?"

Kaelyn joined her on the ground, laying the robe carefully across her knees like a delicate offering.

"It's… something Papá used to make in the summer," she said quietly, a nostalgic tone apparent in her voice. "His own weird mix. Tart and sweet. He always made some during heat waves."

"Fond memories, then?"

Kaelyn looked wistful before she replied, "Something like that."

Once again, Elyssia did not push her. That tone—the gentle dodge, the hint of warmth wrapped around something sharper—was quickly becoming familiar.

She studied Kaelyn's profile. The look on her face was not quite sorrow. It was closer to longing—but distant, unanchored. Like someone mourning a person they had never known.

There are some regrets here. A sense of loss. Maybe not hers, but carried all the same.

She turned her gaze away, giving Kaelyn space.

I won't push. But maybe she'll decide to open up about it eventually.

Leoric was checking fletching alignment by eye, one arrow at a time.

A ritual circle Vaelith finished tracing glowed brightly. The magic caused a pale red liquid to swirl within the empty glass pitcher.

Elyssia let the silence linger between her and Kaelyn, not as distance, but as a kind of shelter.

Whenever you're ready, I'll be listening.

When she glanced over again, she saw the priestess' fingers drifting along the seams of the robe, as if deciphering something written in thread.

"Your drink's here," Elyssia said, indicating Vaelith, who was walking towards them, arm extended.

"Here you go," Vaelith said, offering the glass with a crystal-red liquid, the sound of ice cubes gently clinking, floating at the surface.

Kaelyn looked up, blinking again, then gave a sheepish smile. "Ooh. Thanks."

She took the glass gently in both hands, droplets already beading across the surface.

"Are you going to wear it, or just look at it?" Elyssia asked, tilting her chin toward the boss drop still folded across Kaelyn's knees.

For a moment, Kaelyn remained silent. Her eyes drifted towards stitchwork, then returned to the glass in her hands.

"Yeah, in a sec," she murmured.

Elyssia gave a small nod. The robe would go on when Kaelyn was ready, and not a moment before.

Vaelith stood there awkwardly for a second, then pointed at the glass. "Gave it my best shot. Fruit punch lemonade on ice, like you asked. Added a tiny touch of mint. I hope that's okay."

"It's perfect," Kaelyn said. Her voice was light, almost sing-song. She cradled the glass with both hands, brought it to her lips, and took a sip.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

For a moment, she held the drink, savouring its chilled sensation. Then she swallowed.

"It's perfect," she repeated. But her voice cracked on the second syllable.

Her smile wavered. She stared at the glass.

"It's just like I imagined," she whispered. "Tart, but sweet. Cold enough to make your teeth hurt. It's really good. I love it."

Her shoulders shook. Just once.

Then she laughed—high and wet. "I love it," she whispered again, even as the first tear slipped down her cheek.

Vaelith moved closer, head tilted, clearly as confused by Kaelyn's reaction as Elyssia felt.

Kaelyn wiped at her face with one wrist, careful not to let go of the glass. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm crying—I'm not even sad. I just—"

She swallowed again. Her next breath hitched.

"It's just that… it's not right. Not the same," she admitted softly. "I thought it would work. That it would help me remember. I thought I knew how it would taste."

Leoric paused in the middle of examining the alignment of one of his new arrows.

Kaelyn looked down into the glass as if trying to read her reflection. "I was there. When Papá would bring out a pitcher, pour everyone a drink. Everyone would stop whatever they were doing and gather."

She paused. "Except… I wasn't really there. I didn't get my own glass."

Nobody interrupted.

"It's not bad," she said again, desperately. "It's good. It's really good."

Her hands shook, just slightly. "It's just… I never had it before."

Leoric, still crouched over his half-finished arrow, spoke up quietly. "How do you know it's perfect if you've never had it before?"

Kaelyn did not look up. Her answer came in a whisper. "Because I was there."

She did not explain further.

"But… you just said you weren't?"

Her fingers tightened around the glass. "Which is why I've never had it before."

The silence lingered—soft, respectful, heavy.

But just as Leoric opened his mouth to ask another question, Vaelith moved. She raised one finger in his direction, signalling for him to hold on.

Then she knelt down in front of Kaelyn, slowly, like approaching a wounded animal. Her fingers curled lightly around the base of the now-damp glass, steadying it—but not taking it away.

"Hey," she said gently. "I… I didn't mean to mess it up. I'm sorry."

"No…" Kaelyn blinked at her through watery eyes. "You didn't mess anything up."

Vaelith's brows furrowed. "But it wasn't right."

"No," Kaelyn said. "It was perfect."

"It wasn't perfect. I made you cry."

"No, you didn't!" She shook her head vehemently. "I made myself cry."

"It's okay," Vaelith whispered. "That's the part I want to help with."

Kaelyn opened her mouth—then closed it.

Vaelith reached up and gently brushed a strand of hair behind one of her ears. "I know what it feels like to want something from before. To reach for a memory and find out you were never really inside it. Not the way you thought."

Kaelyn's breath caught. Her grip on the glass loosened slightly.

"It's not just your family or your dad, is it?" Vaelith asked. "And it's not the drink. It's… you."

A beat.

Kaelyn remained silent. But she did not push Vaelith away, either.

"You're not the one who got the drink back then," Vaelith said. "But you remember it."

Kaelyn gave the tiniest nod.

"Then…" Vaelith's voice dropped to a murmur. "Could it be that… There are more than one of you?"

Elyssia raised an eyebrow. That would explain the use of "we".

Kaelyn looked down at the glass.

"… I was always there."

Another silence. Not tense—just full.

"I see." Vaelith did not break eye contact. "Do you have a name?"

Kaelyn hesitated, just for a breath.

"It's Kaelyn," she said. "I've always been Kaelyn—"

Then her gaze flicked toward Elyssia, hovering on her for half a second.

"—but… maybe use Lyn if you want to address me specifically."

Elyssia blinked. Then, a small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "So I wasn't being presumptuous, after all."

Kaelyn—Lyn—let out a quiet, shaky laugh. "You kinda were. But… it felt nice. I told you I didn't hate it."

So, it was her, then, during that conversation?

How many faces of Kaelyn had Elyssia seen so far? Three, perhaps?

The one they met on the first day, who commanded attention—the seductress.

No, that did not quite fit, not anymore. If Lyn had always been there, as she claimed, then perhaps "seductress" was the wrong term.

That Kaelyn had been an actress. "More Hilda than Zelda," like she had said. It made so much sense now.

A performer who projected strength, who wore control like a costume. Who strutted and smirked and threw her voice like a lifeline. A girl crafted to own the room—because maybe, for most of her life, she had never been allowed in the room at all.

A response to distress, a pendulum swing—corrective mechanism to address past hurts.

If Lyn was the side who felt everything—present, but invisible; unseen, and unheard—then Kaelyn had been custom-built to be louder than life. A counterbalance to all the years spent silent.

Kaelyn, however, could not have been there at the family gatherings, drinking lemonade. Not her, bombastic as she was. Which meant someone else must have been. But who, if not Lyn, with her cracked-open heart and trembling hands, or Kaelyn, with her perfect posture and practised grin?

Elyssia hated having to conjure back the name she had read in that article yesterday. It felt like a deadname now—like a name Lyn had shed, or maybe outgrown.

However… if Ryan had been the one there, in those memories—if he had been the boy at the picnic table, watching his father pour the drinks… Then, where was he, now?

And suddenly, the way Lyn clung to the idea of unlocking the shifter class made sense.

Maybe she was not doing this for Kaelyn's sake. Maybe she was not even doing it for her own.

Maybe she was doing it for him—the boy trapped inside.

The one who could not bear to be seen in the body they now shared.

Elyssia's expression changed little—but she nodded, slowly and deliberately. "Alright. Lyn it is."

Leoric said nothing, but gave a tiny, lopsided smile and a single, respectful dip of the head.

Vaelith's lips curled upward. "Thank you for telling us."

Lyn breathed out, as if she had been holding something in for a long, long time. And maybe… maybe she had.

She sniffled, then brought one hand to her face, sweeping at the tears she discovered running freely down her cheek. Then she did the same on the other cheek, but more tears quickly took their place. Between sniffles, she swept again, and again, faster and rougher every time.

Vaelith produced a handkerchief from her satchel. She gently grabbed Kaelyn's wrist, pulling it down from her face. Then, ever so gently, she started dabbing the tears away.

She then glanced in Elyssia's direction. "Can we get a few more minutes? She's in no condition to continue right now."

Elyssia gave a slight nod—one that acknowledged both the request and the trust it implied. Then, without a word, she stepped away from the centre of the group, her boots scuffing softly against the ancient stones. She wandered over near Leoric and, with a soft grunt, settled beside him on a low ledge that ringed the chamber.

The air was still thick with magic—ambient, charged—but the hush between them felt heavier than any spell.

Leoric glanced at her briefly, then towards Lyn and Vaelith and finally returned his eyes to his arrows. He did not break the silence with questions. There was no need.

Elyssia folded her arms.

"She's like a fractured blade," she murmured. "Still sharp. Still hers. But reforged around the pieces that cracked."

Leoric exhaled, a quiet huff more than a laugh. "Aren't we all?"

Elyssia tilted her head slightly, conceding the point. But her eyes did not leave the pair at the centre of the room. Lyn curled slightly inward, shoulders trembling, while Vaelith tended to her with patient care. Like a mother watching over a child.

Elyssia's voice dropped lower, barely above a whisper. "I should've seen it earlier."

She shook her head. "I'm curious," she started. "Did you notice the look in her eyes when she said it? Like she was bracing to be punished. Like saying it out loud was a mistake. Something she wasn't supposed to tell us."

"Yeah." Leoric nodded. "Maybe they didn't all agree about coming clean."

They sat with that truth for a while.

Elyssia reached for her waterskin, uncorked it, and took a long sip. She lowered it slowly, then corked it again and set it aside. Her hand landed on one of her knees, her leg fidgeting briefly before falling still.

"It's strange," she said eventually. "Before VR, I used avatars that felt more real than me for years. But I never felt like they were separate people from me. Just… ideal selves—versions of myself with the volume turned up."

Another pause. Then, quieter: "Makes me wonder how many do the same."

Leoric gave a small shrug. "The world's full of all kinds of people."

"What about you?" she asked.

"Hmm? Leoric?" He hesitated, rolling a finished arrow between his fingers. "I guess I made him into an aspirational self. Not my ideal, exactly. Just… someone I wished I could've been."

"What's the difference?" Elyssia asked quietly.

Leoric did not answer right away. He just stared at the arrow in his hand as if it might reveal something he had not yet figured out.

Then rubbed the back of his neck. "I dunno. I think… idealised me is still the old me. Like—same shape. Just polished. Braver. Funnier, maybe."

He glanced down at his boots. "Like, I think if you asked me to build my ideal self, I would have still made a girl. Just maybe not exactly the one I was. Taller, perhaps, so I wouldn't get looked down on as much. That sort of thing."

He paused, then he added, "But Leoric? He wasn't supposed to be me. He's the person I never got to be. He embodies qualities I never associated with myself—someone I desperately wished I could've been, but never believed I would become."

He gave a quiet shrug. "Leoric doesn't feel like a dream. He feels like a fantasy. The 'me' from an alternate reality. Something I never should have reached. Yet here I am."

Elyssia frowned a little. She always imagined her Wind sylvani was her ideal self, but Leoric's definition makes her reconsider. Why was it she considered this her ideal self, when it was so different from her original body? Was it because, as a trans woman, she was already imagining herself as a woman?

Maybe that was the fundamental difference between her and Leoric. He did not see himself as a man until he started changing into one. He would never have imagined himself as Leoric, because he had been, inside his mind, still convinced he was a woman.

"He feels like a fantasy," Leoric had said.

Elyssia's fingers closed slowly around her tonfa. She noticed Vaelith glancing her way. Lyn was no longer sniffling or crying. It was time to move on.

She rose to her feet, nodded to Leoric, who started packing his things, then walked up to the others.

"Ready, Lyn?" she asked, offering her a hand. "If you are, we've still got a third of the dungeon left."

The girl looked down at the robe across her knees.

"Yeah," she said. "Let me just slip into this first."

"Hey… It's just a suggestion, but," Vaelith said, cradling Lyn's hand that held the robe with one of her own. "If you want, maybe you can find a specific style that you like. Register it in the visual armour system, and switch to it when you're in control. That way we can tell it's you? I'll help as much as I can. Let me know if you or anyone else would like any kind of clothes, and I'll make it for you. Any one of you."

"You would…?" Lyn said, as if she did not believe her ears.

Elyssia blinked.

That… was a brilliant idea, actually. It was one of the known benefits of life in VR for plural folks. The ability to save different outfits and change on the fly as different alters gained control. This was particularly important for antagonistic systems.

And when paired with the shifter class's fluidity… it might offer them more than survival. It might offer them a choice. The ability to present to the world the way they truly wished to be seen.

"Of course," Vaelith said. "Oh, and while we're on the topic… If you want to take part in the group cosplay shot, we can always add you in post-prod. So think about it, will you? If one of you is going to dress up as Hilda, you could always dye the same outfit and dress as Zelda."

Lyn looked at Vaelith, stunned. Then she nodded—once, fiercely. "Thank you," she said, and her voice shook. "I will…"

Not from sadness this time, but from being seen and heard.

She stood up and, with a small flick of her hand, opened a user interface only visible to her. But Elyssia did not need to see it to know what was happening.

A soft chime echoed—barely audible—as a pale scan-line swept her avatar from head to toe, shimmering like sunrise against morning mist.

When the light cleared, Lyn stood there, finally garbed in the stitched-up bloodmage robe—black as night and crisscrossed with eerie seams—but the rest had changed, too.

Gone were Kaelyn's earlier sultry thigh-high stockings and dainty slippers. In their place: matte-black tights, practical and unassuming, and heavy-soled boots with thick buckles and reinforced toes. Not stylish—functional. Grounded.

She wore fingerless gloves, the kind that left her dexterity untouched but shielded her palms. The sleeveless dress left her arms and shoulders exposed. Her neckline was pinned modestly with a brooch shaped like a falling star.

It was still the same robe they got from the chest. But the way she wore it made it truly hers. Not to seduce or intimidate, but simply to be.

Lyn gave them a nervous sideways glance. "Is it too much?"

Elyssia shook her head slowly, her voice quiet but steady. "It's just right."

Leoric exhaled through his nose and smiled. "Cute. Can immediately tell it's you. That's not something Kaelyn would have worn."

Vaelith chuckled softly. "It suits you beautifully."

Lyn looked down at herself, hands brushing across the stitching. She held back tears, her eyes glistening.

"I like it too," she whispered.

Then she straightened her shoulders, took a breath, and said—

"Okay. Let's go finish this dungeon."

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