Quest of Transcendence (Who We Really Are)
Fluttershy Goes A-Questing
If you closed your eyes, the first thing you'd notice would be the cool, crisp mountain air.
That, and the sounds of parents fretting and fussing with trekking equipment in the parking lot.
Mr. Shy said, "I rechecked your pack, hon. Are you SURE you want to bring ten green signal rockets? How would you possibly be here long enough to use that many?"
Mrs. Shy nodded. "Even ten RED rockets seems like a bit much."
"And so much animal food!" Mr. Shy chuckled, but it sounded forced. "Are you planning to start a zoo, while you're up there?"
Fluttershy didn't like to argue. But it got so tiring either way, listening to parents worry about the wrong things.
Mercifully, a ranger walked up, his hiking boots clomping across the asphalt. "You know," he said, "everyone has to do this on their own." He smiled at Fluttershy. "If you aren't sure that you're properly prepared, you can always go back and do what you think you need to do to get ready." His face went serious. "But if you believe you ARE ready...everyone has to do this in their own way. No matter what their parents think."
Fluttershy squeaked, "Thank you."
He smiled again, showing his white teeth. "My name's Timber Spruce. And if there's ANYTHING I can do to make your visit to the Everfree Reserve more pleasant, just let me know."
Fluttershy thought, you're probably already imagining what a pretty girl I might become, when I Transcend. What a letch.
"I'll let you know," Fluttershy said meekly. The slender, delicate-featured teenager silently resolved to be even more careful and work even harder to never, ever, need any help from that oh-so-friendly smooth talker.
He probably wasn't really a bad sort. But Fluttershy wanted to do this in Fluttershy's own way, without any help from a ranger.
Timber Spruce said to Fluttershy's parents, "If your kid wants ten of each kind of signal rocket, that's their right. One of the biggest ways people get into trouble is to try to hurry, and not have a backup plan." He asked Fluttershy, "Do you plan to send up one rocket each evening?"
Fluttershy said softly, "The first rocket in the evening, and after that I'll send up one rocket at each dawn. That way, if I do need help, the dawn's light will help searchers find me. And if I don't need help, everyone will know from the rocket's green color that I'm ok. And if I get into a lot of trouble, and don't have enough red rockets for some reason, I can send up more than one green rocket at a time, if I have them."
"Wow," Timber said. "You've really thought this out. Some kids don't want to get up early, even on their Quest." Timber's elbow nudged Mr. Shy. "Teenagers, am I right?"
Fluttershy's mother said, "Fluttershy is very responsible. If a ranger approves of our kid's chosen schedule, I'm not surprised."
Timber remarked, "I see you folks have assembled your hang glider. Have you decided where you're taking off from yet?"
The teenager whispered, "I'm not flying."
Mr. Shy said, "Honey, we've talked about this. Flying is the fastest and easiest way to get to the Mountain of Transcendence." He pointed across a wilderness valley, at a clearing partway up the Mountain. "All you need to do is land in that meadow, and you're practically most of the way there."
"No."
"It gives a lot less chance for any dangerous wild animals to get you--"
"No." Fluttershy's mouth set in a scowl. "I'm not any good at flying. I'm a lot safer with the animals."
Fluttershy's mother said, "Don't listen to those jerks at flight school. You'll do ok."
While both parents tried to build their teenager's confidence about her flight skills, Fluttershy opened the pack, carefully sorted through the contents, and repacked everything.
The teenager put both arms through the pack's shoulder straps, fastened the front strap buckles both high and low, and walked out of the parking lot, into the forest.
No one could follow, or interfere. That was part of the rules.
No one to tell Fluttershy what to do, or how to do it, or what they were sure Fluttershy's inner self was really like. How Fluttershy should look at the end of the journey. To lean on Fluttershy and ask for a phone number "for when you finally become such a beautiful girl."
Fluttershy expected to become a girl both inside AND out, to match the way Fluttershy felt inside.
But damn them for presuming upon what they thought Fluttershy should become, and what kind of girl they thought she should be.
Fluttershy growled in a voice louder and deeper than most casual acquaintances would ever expect from such a small and timid-looking person.
An answering growl came from up ahead. Fluttershy smiled. She would have company on the first part of her walk.
Bears were some of her favorite people. She liked them so much better than some humans.
***
Fluttershy had been walking for hours, and she hadn't heard a single car radio or engine noise. Around the Mountain of Transcendence, a lot of human machinery didn't work very well. Even airplanes stayed well away from it.
Hang gliders were safe...if you were a good enough flyer. But Fluttershy preferred to use her own two feet.
Her own two feet had never betrayed her. And as she'd learned in flight school, her own lack of skill in flying had failed her all too often.
Fluttershy approached an upward slope of mostly rock, too steep to walk up. She laid down her pack, and pulled out a map.
This was the spot. She had a choice between going left, which would take an extra day...or around to the right, which would only work if the river was low enough to ford.
The weather was clear, with no rain expected for days. There hadn't been much rain in the last few weeks, either. The river should be low enough.
But Fluttershy wanted to know for sure.
She dug into one of her pack's detachable extra pouches, and pulled out a plastic container of jerky. Fluttershy had made the jerky herself from roadkill, earlier that spring. She laid a chunk of jerky atop a rock, poured a little water onto it, and made a sound that was almost but not quite a half-strangled, high-pitched croaking, one of the more than one hundred different calls of the common raven. This was a rare vocalization, one that even most naturalists would never hear.
From above she heard an answering call.
The large black bird descended almost silently, barely adjusting its wings and tail to float down precisely where it chose. It extended its legs to land atop the rock. It poked experimentally at the dried, salted meat with one foot, and with its beak. Finally it stepped atop the meat, holding down the main chunk with its feet as the beak ripped off small pieces and carefully swallowed them.
"Missus Raven?" Fluttershy said. "Have you looked at the river lately? The big stream, off to the northeast?"
The raven swallowed its current tidbit. The bird croaked and cawed, and made gentle liquid sounds in its throat, like water flowing slowly around rocks in a stream.
"Like that? Not OVER those rocks, just around them?"
The bird provided more examples of how the river sounded.
"It sounds ok," Fluttershy said. "I think I'll try it."
The raven cawed.
"Thank you too!" Fluttershy asked, "Would you like to eat lunch together?"
"Caw."
Fluttershy slowly reached into her rucksack, moving even more slowly when she pulled out her packed lunch. The potato-and-three-beans salad still felt cool from the refrigerator, and from the early morning's outdoor chill.
Fluttershy always enjoyed visiting with her animal friends, both old and new.
***
When Fluttershy reached the river, she took off her walking shoes and socks, and stowed them in a waterproof bag. She didn't really NEED to, but she thought it would be a good idea. Her bare feet should get better traction on the rocks, and if she slipped into the water, her socks wouldn't get all soaked.
Also, she thought, maybe it would be pleasant to wade a little, and cool her feet in the stream.
After a brief moment standing in a shallow pool, she hopped back up onto the rocks. She balanced easily, leaping from one rock to another until she was almost all the way across. She tried wading again, to find the water was chillier than she liked there too.
With a little giggle, she hopped out of the water, and sat down to rest on the dry, sandy riverbank.
She had crossed the water, and saved a day on her trip. Of course, if she wanted to, she could go the long way around on her way back. She could go either way, really. Even though she'd never gone all the way into the Reserve before, she felt very at home there.
After unpacking and eating a little snack while her feet dried, Fluttershy put her socks and shoes back on to continue her journey.
***
Well before the sun touched the horizon, Fluttershy picked a raised, bare area of ground to camp on. She set up her pup tent, gathered fallen wood, built a small fire, and sat on the ground to watch the sunset. Small songbirds sang to her, and she sang back.
Fluttershy set up a small signal rocket about halfway between her camp and the trees, pressing its launching stick into the ground. As the sky darkened, she emptied a pouch of premade stew into a little pot, and heated it over the fire.
As the stars were coming out, Fluttershy took a burning stick from the edge of the fire, and returned to her signal rocket's launch site. She lit the fuse. Fluttershy ran away as the fuse made hissing, sputtering noises. A minute later, the rocket launched with a mechanical wail of escaping exhaust. Fluttershy watched the rocket ascend into the sky, leaving a glowing green trail behind it. At its highest point, the rocket exploded into a green fireburst.
Signal sent: Fluttershy's first day of questing had gone just fine. Better than fine, really, but you could say only so much with a limited selection of rockets.
***
The map didn't show an exact place where Transcendence would happen. Maybe it happened in a different spot for every person. The trail branched into some spotty dotted lines, which petered out into a vaguely shaded region that wrapped partway around the mountain.
Fluttershy trusted that she would recognize the spot when she needed to. Or it would recognize her. She needed only make sure to note good landmarks that could lead her back to the trail again. Fortunately, some rangers had set up a line of tall poles, and hung colored ribbons on them. If Fluttershy returned around the mountain by walking more or less the opposite direction of how she'd gone, she was sure to find them.
After a mile or two of wandering through the special zone, Fluttershy felt something. She looked around.
Some people had told her there was a cave. Maybe there was a cave, hidden in the rocks and brush...maybe right under her feet, with an entrance somewhere she couldn't see.
In her heart, Fluttershy always felt like a girl. When she looked into the mirror, she felt that her reflection was partly right, but partly wrong too. For most of this last year, she'd been trying to grow her hair out longer. But now that her hair WAS longer, she usually tied it back in a ponytail, to try to be less conspicuously pretty and keep it out of the way. That was partly because she hadn't completely transitioned full-time in public yet, only part of the time. She was only a full-time girl in private, and with her family and friends. In public, she sometimes favored a less obvious style that leaned more neutral than extremely girlish.
Even though she sometimes found her 'girl look' less than perfectly relaxing in public, she still felt more herself with it than without it. That was how a girl was supposed to feel, right?
If no one else was around, Fluttershy felt more physically comfortable in short to medium-length skirts than in trousers. But when she wore skirts in places where there were lots of other people around, especially short skirts...she didn't like the way some boys looked at her.
She didn't really like when certain boys looked at her delicate features and slim figure, and...she couldn't explain it, exactly, but she felt she would rather they didn't notice her, or didn't take such an interest in her.
But there were some boys she liked, too. Maybe it would be different when she was completely a girl both inside and out, and a woman. Girls and women learned to handle these things. Didn't they? Fluttershy's mother had already been giving her child some pointers.
Fluttershy didn't feel right as a boy at all. And she didn't want to be an enby. Enbies confused her, kind of. She didn't have anything against them as friends, but she didn't want to think about dating one.
She liked pretty things, and gentleness, and cuddling soft creatures. She supposed in the years to come, when it was time, she would probably like cuddling human babies too. They couldn't be any worse than some of the messy little beasts at the animal shelter. Darlings all of them, but some of them were a little bit naughty.
Fluttershy saw a bunny on the grass. She wanted to feed it a snack. Instead of searching her pack, she looked around and noticed a blackberry bramble. She approached it, and spotted a berry that she doubted any bunny could climb up to. Fluttershy reached as far as she could, and grabbed the morsel.
She'd almost fallen into the thorns herself, before she pulled herself back. That wasn't good. But now she knelt and made tiny, soft sounds at the rabbit, who approached with only a little fear.
The rabbit nibbled the berry out of Fluttershy's hand.
Fluttershy felt faint. She half-crumpled forwards, holding herself partway up by pressing her hands and forearms against the ground, as the rabbit retreated.
As Fluttershy's mental focus returned, she felt as if the world was moving around her. Or maybe she was moving, her entire body. The legs and feet under her slipped an inch or two, somehow, and her hands slid across the grass.
Her whole body felt a little different. What had changed? She felt herself with one hand. The expected parts had changed, of course. But she thought it was more than that, too.
When Fluttershy finally stood, she felt the entire scene around her had changed slightly, but it was hard to say exactly what the differences were. The blackberry bush was still there. The trees and shrubs were still around her. The flowers, the grass...even the rabbit watched her, though he had retreated eight or ten feet away.
Fluttershy shook her head at this mystery. What makes the entire world different yet the same?
She had an idea. She returned to the blackberry bush, and reached out. Now she could reach more berries than she could before, and more easily. She took a few, and sat down to tempt the rabbit with the morsels.
If she could reach more berries, and everything looked slightly different...she must have grown taller. It was the only explanation she could think of.
Even after her strange near-collapse, the rabbit was no more fearful of her than before. Maybe a creature who lived here was used to this sort of thing...people walking into the forests and meadows, crumpling to the ground, and standing back up again, a little different than they'd been just a minute earlier.
As the rabbit ate from Fluttershy's hand, she said, "Guess what, little bunny? I think I've always been meant to be a girl, really. But now it's official!"
Fluttershy thought about what it would mean in her life, to be taller. She would be able to reach high shelves more easily.
Sometimes she liked to climb trees to be with her bird friends. Would it be easier to climb trees, now that she was taller? She thought it probably would be. There was one tree at the high school that always gave her some trouble getting started. She'd be able to reach that first branch more easily now...probably without even having to hop and jump, and feel that she looked silly doing it. She'd always waited until no strangers were around, to climb that tree. If people were around when she hopped and jumped, they might all stare at her. She didn't really like to think about that.
Fluttershy's breath caught in her throat for a moment. What about boys?
Fluttershy knew certain girls who complained that because they were 'too tall,' boys didn't seem so interested in them, or at least not at first. A lot of boys liked girls who were shorter and smaller than themselves. At least those were the first girls they seemed to go for.
Fluttershy thought she might prefer not to be the first girl those boys 'went for.' She would probably prefer a slower approach. Much slower.
Would some boys find her intimidating now? In a world where Fluttershy sometimes felt intimidated or scared by nearly everyone and everything, that seemed only fair.
If some people needed someone else to be small to make themselves feel big, Fluttershy didn't need them.
Fluttershy took a deep breath. She'd had no idea gender could include things like height. Or did it? Maybe it was just some kind of weird side effect. Maybe it was something that happened when you picked raspberries on the Mountain, or if you played with rabbits just before the special moment when you Transcended your old gender.
Maybe it was a coincidence.
But Fluttershy was sure of one thing: she didn't regret it.
She expected to enjoy being her truer self.
***
Two days later, as Fluttershy walked towards the parking lot, someone stepped out into the path ahead of her. For a second, she thought it was Timber Spruce. But no, it was someone else with a similar build.
Fluttershy said nothing. She recognized the beginning of a frightening dream she'd had weeks ago, but she said nothing.
The man smiled. "I guess you just completed your Transcendence?"
Fluttershy barely nodded.
He stepped closer. "Now that you're a woman...wouldn't you like to find out what it's like? I mean, everything."
Fluttershy said in a small voice, "The Mountain is sacred. The Reserve is sacred. You shouldn't be here. People who interfere...bad things happen to them."
The man's mouth twisted. "You might as well find out right now, what it's like. If I was doing something wrong, the mountain would have already stopped me. I'm here. The mountain wants this. It wants us to do this."
Fluttershy lifted her face to the heavens, and screamed an inhuman, howling scream. It lasted a long time. She took a deep breath, and made the terrifying sound again.
"What the buck?" the man said. "What the buck is WRONG with you? Are you crazy? You crazy birch--"
A large shape leaped from a shadowed space among nearby bushes and trees, striking the man's upper torso and taking him down into a sideways skid. Something crunched bone, and crunched again. The man quivered a little, and lay still. He was dead. Or if he was alive, he was helpless, unable to move.
The shape was a puma, almost as large as the man. In a "fair fight," maybe the man could have at least injured it with a knife or a rock before he died. But even before it started, this fight had had nothing fair about it.
The wildcat yowled, low and mournful. It yowled again.
Being careful not to startle the cat, Fluttershy walked slowly up to it. She petted its face and part of its neck. "There, there," Fluttershy said. "Thank you for saving me. I know you don't like to get into trouble with humans. But that was a very bad man. There wasn't anything else you could have done."
After soothing and calming the animal for a long time, Fluttershy went back to her pack. She pulled out her camp shovel.
She hadn't told her parents anything about her dream. She'd told her parents she was bringing the shovel to help her make camp. She would use it to bury her poo deep in the ground, instead of having to double- or triple-bag her poo and pack it out.
But the same dream that told Fluttershy the exact day she should go on her quest? That was the same scary dream in which, partway through, the man had stepped out and confronted her. That was the dream in which the Mountain had spoken in a slow, deep, rumbling voice, and had told Fluttershy she should remember her animal friends, and bring a good shovel.
With the sound of metal scraping against sand and gravel, Fluttershy started to dig a deep, deep hole.
Whoever that man's family and friends might be, they would never suffer the shame of knowing how he had met his end. How he had deserved to die.
But at the same time, unless the man had told them something of his plans in advance? They would never have the peace of mind of knowing what had happened, whether the man was alive somewhere, or dead.
Fluttershy just did what the Mountain had asked of her. That was part of the deal, she supposed.
When she reached the parking lot, and reunited with her parents, she never told anyone about that last part of her Quest.
Sportsball
In his bedroom, a high school freshman crooned a song by the Poinsettia sisters. Strands of his purple hair had fallen forward to cover his face like a veil, hiding his masculine features.
He sang in a sultry, falsettoish voice:
"We're sitting by the lake
Our bodies side by side
Your wing so close behind me
Feels like a carnival ride
I get so excited
It's hot but I got the chills
If you don't reach out and touch me
I know that I...will
Find a ma--GIRL!
Find a GIRL
Who will!
She'll hug me, and squeeze me...
I want a girl who will!
Kiss me like a girl who will...
Make me feel loved...
A girl who will kiss me.
The door crashed open. "Rarity? You got an extra notebook I can have for school tomorrow?" Sweet Bell blinked, staring at his older brother.
Rarity's hips moved back into a straight line with the rest of his body. His flirtatious-looking head tilt...untilted, and the playful smile on his face turned to a serious scowl. One hand brushed his hair back from his face, and his other hand tossed a hairbrush (or pretend microphone) onto the bed.
"Sweet Bell? You know you shouldn't just barge into my room."
Bell snorted. "We're just guys here. What are you doing in here that's so private, anyway?"
"It's...just because, Bell. How would YOU like it, if after I Transcend, I barge into your room? If I invited all my girlfriends in to give you girl cooties?"
Bell grimaced. "Ok, ok, I'll try to remember to knock next time. But Rarity? I think...there's something a bit weird about you."
Rarity snorted. "Stop saying stuff like that."
"Sorry. I'm sorry. But can you pretty please tell me about the notebook?"
Rarity dug into a desk drawer. "Here." He tossed a notebook at Bell, who reached out and caught it easily.
"Rarity? The way you..."
"What? The way I WHAT?"
"Never mind. Thanks for the notebook!" Sweet Bell ran out of the room.
Rarity sighed.
***
As Rarity left school the next day, a teenage boy called out from partway across the schoolyard. "Hey, Rarity! We're one player short for a baseball game. Wanna help us out?"
Rarity pursed his lips. "I don't know. I...I was thinking of doing something else."
The boy walked closer. "Aw, c'mon! This is my one night off from my parents' restaurant! And the other guys said if you don't play with us, I don't get to play either."
Rarity's eyes narrowed. "Is that so?"
"We've got an odd number of people."
Rarity snorted. "So why don't you ask Carrotcropper to join you? I'm sure she'd do a FINE job. Much better than I would."
Leaning in close to Rarity, Dishwater said quietly, "That's the problem, I guess."
Rarity's eyebrows rose questioningly. "What exactly do you mean, Dishwater?"
Dishwater whispered, "I don't get much practice at baseball, so I'm not very good at it. And since you don't play it much yourself, the guys thought...with you on one team, and me on the other...we might balance each other out."
Rarity drew himself up haughtily. "Are you saying the only reason you're asking me to play baseball with you is, you expect me to be BAD at it?"
"It wasn't my idea!" Dishwater pleaded. "It's not my fault. It's just...I want to get to play, and have some fun for once. And it's a chance for you to have some fun too! Maybe we'll BOTH get better at baseball. And then maybe some cute girls will watch the game, and they might think..." Dishwater nudged Rarity with an elbow. "YOU know. They might look at us like, if we ask them out on dates, they might say YES. Wouldn't that be great?"
Rarity sniffed. "You KNOW that by the time we graduate from high school we're both going to Transcend anyway. That's going to change a lot of things. Maybe those girls won't like us anymore, when they're men and WE'RE women. Or whatever we might become."
Dishwater enthused, "But maybe they will! And we haven't Transcended YET. This is our chance to learn what it's like to do things as boys...er, young men. This will help us understand men better, when we're women. That's a big advantage in life. The same advantage that other women will have too." He nudged Rarity again. "Come on! I don't want to be the only one left out!"
Rarity sighed. "Very well," he said. "I can't stand to see you beg. Let's go play baseball, and try to kick ball!"
Dishwater's mouth opened in a confused grimace. "Uh, Rarity? That would be soccer."
Rarity shrugged. "Baseball, soccer, whatever. Let's go use some bats!"
Only minutes later, Rarity established again and again, by embarrassing experiment, that if a ball flew towards him too fast, he feared it might hurt him if it even grazed him, and he did NOT enjoy even trying to catch it.
But at least he was able to stop some grounders before they rolled and bounced out of the ballfield. His throwing wasn't much better than his catching, but his teammates tried to make do.
Rarity scored some runs as a batter, but that was mostly because the other team's pitcher tried to go easy on the unfortunate, unathletic boy. Maybe it also helped a little that after a few innings of frustration and occasional screaming as an outfielder, when Rarity was at bat he started to imagine that the ball was Dishwater's head (but wearing a batting helmet, so instead of getting a concussion he would just yell a lot.)
When Rarity went home afterwards, he was tired, hot, sweaty, dirty, and disgusted with everything and everypony, including himself.
But at least Rarity enjoyed taking a nice, cool shower, and getting clean and fresh in time for dinner.
***
After dinner, Rarity's mother said, "Rarity? I think we should have a little talk."
Rarity followed his mother and father into the living room.
Cookie reached up to adjust her purple bouffant. "The thing is..." she said, "I know you're just barely a freshman...even though you ARE in high school now. But it seems..."
Rarity's father Hondo interjected, "It seems like you're...mature for your age."
Rarity said indignantly, "If you think I've...I've NEVER!"
"Whoa there!" Hondo said, his brown mustache wiggling. "Nopony said you were. I'm sure you haven't been getting up to anything really bad. That isn't what I meant at all. What I meant was..." He made throat-clearing noises. "Um..."
Cookie said, "I've heard you singing. All of us have. The other day, the way you were DANCING..."
Rarity grimaced. "If Sweet Bell has been telling you--"
"It isn't like that at all!" Hondo insisted. Sweet Bell refused to tell us anything, when we asked about you. He's very loyal, even if a little misguided."
Cookie said, "Even though just about everybody is destined to Transcend, most children get to spend a happy childhood in their...original assigned birth gender, before they start to go through the changes and feel their older self coming in. Before they feel that they WANT to Transcend. But it seems like you've never fit very well in your birth role."
Rarity sighed. "Yes, I know. I've always been a failure and a disappointment to you. I've never been good at half the things I should be."
Hondo said, "Never call yourself a failure or a disappointment to us!"
Cookie agreed, "There's so much about you we're proud of!"
Hondo said, "If you're a little different...maybe that isn't a problem! Maybe you're just...mature for your age. I know some people think it's scandalous for a teenager to Transcend early, because the teen might not be ready yet. But maybe you're just...getting ready earlier than most people do."
"It doesn't HAVE to be a bad thing," Cookie said. "So you're different. But different doesn't have to mean bad." Cookie stepped forward to hug Rarity. "You'll still be my precious little darling, right? Even when you're a girl instead of a boy? Just tell me you'll still love me as much as I'll still love you."
Rarity snorted. "I'm sure I'll still love you, Ma-MA and Pa-PA. Even if I turn into a hundred-foot dragon." She laughed. "No matter how angry you can make me sometimes. Implying even a hint of impropriety on my part...well, you can see how I might have taken it the wrong way."
Cookie nodded.
Hondo said, "Of COURSE we understand. It's just...sometimes people can be weird about these things. These things can be hard to talk about."
Cookie squeezed Rarity tighter. "We're not trying to make you rush into anything, dear. We just want you to know that if you decide a somewhat different schedule is right for you, we support you a hundred percent."
"Thank you," Rarity said, "both of you. You have no idea how much this means to me. A lot of people have been treating me like I'm...not as good as other people. Like there's something wrong with me."
Hondo insisted, "There's nothing wrong with you. You're going to be the best daughter ever, and the most wonderful woman. Even if you're already getting a little extra practice for when...well...who you're GOING to be."
Cookie smiled. "What he said."
In her head, Rarity was already trying to balance the different kinds of negative judgment and accusations of scandalous behavior she expected to face, just for being her own girlish self in her own time. The lies some people might make up about her.
Rarity sighed. A lady couldn't always control what other people said about her, but she could always do her best to keep her own conduct above TRUTHFUL reproach.
She just hoped that would be enough to keep her head above water. That 'society' wouldn't do too much to push her under, and make her wish for anonymity. That haters and gossips wouldn't drown her in malicious speculations and slander.
Would she be forced to run away to some distant city like Manehattan, just to lose herself? Or to a little town like Pearburg or Turnip Junction, where nopony would even think to look for her?
She hoped not. She hoped to build a career in fashion...and who could ever build a fashion career in a little town like that?
To Be Who We Really Are
"Because this a discussion AND support group," the ruddy-skinned woman said, "I'd like to start by reassuring you all that I am not here to judge you. We are not here to say that some people are right and some people are wrong. We are here to talk about how everyone can find ways of living that are right for them."
Several people looked back at Cheerilee. Were they shy? Were they so accustomed to being criticized for the results of their parenting, that they didn't want to speak up? Soon she would try to find out.
Cheerilee added, "And how those ways of living can be healthy for them, AND healthy for society, even though some narrow-minded people might say otherwise."
A young woman with dark brown skin and straight black hair raised her hand. "I've been doing some reading about that," she said.
Ever since Cheerilee had seen this girl walk into the room ten minutes early, the group leader had been wondering about her. The early arrival looked rather young to be the mother of an adolescent in the throes of a gender crisis. Had she been a teenage mother? Or was she someone in a more unusual caregiving role? Maybe the eldest of a set of siblings who had lost their parents?
"Some reading?" Cheerilee asked.
"Yes. I've been reading some books about the normal course of development. According to a SCIENTIFIC view of the standard development model, infants have relatively little interest in their own gender. But parents try to impose gender markers on their children anyway. Pink clothes versus blue clothes, a big hair bow strapped on the head of a child who's barely old enough to have much hair yet...teaching a small child to 'act tough' just because the child happens to have been born with a willy. Things like that."
"Yes?" Cheerilee said.
"But it's all a sham, of course. Parents set their children up with premature or 'larval' gender, so when those children get older, the children can go through the normal process of recognizing that their assigned so-called birth gender is wrong, and develop independence and self-assertion by demanding to be recognized for who they really are."
Cheerilee nodded. "And so they can go through the Quest of Transcendence, of course."
The young woman said, "Let's not even talk about the Quest yet. I think the hypocrisy starts when parents go through the motions of pretending they want to impose a particular cisgender on their children...when what those parents REALLY want is for their children to rebel against it, and to rebel precisely on schedule. Can children really develop the ability to stand up for themselves, by going through the exact so-called rebellion that the parents are WANTING their children to go through? Can you learn to assert yourself by asserting exactly what your parents are hoping you will assert? Can you learn to think for yourself by thinking exactly what your parents are hoping you will think?"
On the other side of the group, another woman said, "Our Twilight. Such a thinker." She chuckled.
Cheerilee said, "I've already introduced myself as Doctor Cheerilee. In this kind of group, usually we all introduce ourselves at some point in the first session. Let's go ahead and do that."
"I'm Twilight Sparkle," the young woman said. "And that's my mother, Twilight Velvet."
"Could we go around the room in order?" Cheerilee asked. She looked at the young woman sitting next to Twilight.
The colorful-haired young woman said, "I'm Rainbow Dash. I know Twilight and I aren't supposed to be here because we're 'just the kids,' but I say we should be here! You shouldn't be talking about us behind our backs."
Next to Rainbow, a man said, "I'm Bow Hothoof, Rainbow's father."
Next to him, a woman said, "And I'm Windy Whistles." She grinned. "We're so proud of our daughter."
Bow said, "And we MEAN that. If she's our daughter, that's just great! Daughter, son, enby, whatever Rainbow wants to be, we know Dashie will be just great at it."
Windy cheered, "Dashie will be the best ever!"
Beside Twilight Velvet, a middle-aged man said, "And I'm Night Light. I'm Twilight Sparkle's father." He looked around the room. "Are we the only ones here? I was expecting more people."
Cheerilee smiled fixedly. She suspected that with Twilight Sparkle plus Rainbow Dash's whole family, this group might be oversupplied with the kind of people who, maybe without meaning to, tend to hijack and take over a session. Maybe someone put them in their own group together on purpose, to get them out of everyone else's way.
Cheerilee said, "We've heard some words from Twilight Sparkle about gender development, both the standard model, and some criticism of that model. Does anyone else have anything they'd like to say? Maybe even something about what's going on with each of you as individuals?"
Rainbow Dash said, "Yeah! I'm a girl and I think that's just great! I don't want to stop being a girl just because some other people do!"
Twilight blushed. "We're not saying other people SHOULDN'T stop being girls, or shouldn't transition in the other direction, or whatever is right for them. It would be really terrible to trap anyone in the prison of the wrong gender role, and deny who they really are."
Rainbow said, "I want EVERYONE to get to be the awesome people they want to be. But I don't want to be told I don't get to be awesome too. Even if for me that means being an awesome girl and the coolest woman ever."
"Well," Cheerilee remarked. "It sounds like you have everything all figured out. I don't even know why you're here."
Night Light said, "My understanding is, some parents TRY to trap their children in their larval genders. They think their little Snookums works so well as a girl, or as a boy, and they don't want their kids to grow up. And those parents can really mess up their kids in a serious way."
Cheerilee nodded. "That can be a problem, in some familes. Sometimes the parents themselves don't recognize how much pressure they're applying to their children. When children and parents have spent so many years together--the children's entire lives--sometimes the channels of communication can become very subtle. Sometimes everyone involved has trouble fully recognizing what's happening."
Twilight said, "But that's not us! Rainbow and I are happy with who we are! We want to be allowed to be our real selves. And that means not being forced to...to..."
"I don't want to grow a dick!" Rainbow said. "No one should be able to make me!" She frowned. "Not even a little intersex one. I don't care if lots of people DO say those are really cute."
Twilight said, "There are historical analogs to false overgeneralizations about 'proper' adolescent development. A century ago, in some countries, many parents of certain social classes sent their children away to single-gender boarding schools to be raised and educated. As those children went through puberty, many of them discovered that they were at least a little bi. They had what were euphemistically called 'romantic friendships' and 'schoolgirl romances.'
After a moment of awkward silence, Cheerilee asked, "And your point is?"
Twilight clenched her fists. "People treated lesbian and gay relationships as just...something that immature people do. But once you finish growing up, they said, you'll grow out of it."
Twilight's eyes flashed with anger. "But the truth is, gay and lesbian relationships are as real and as valid as any other kind! And bi people are real too! Just because a school limited its students' options, and some bi students fell in love with the only kind of people their own age who they had the chance to get to know, shouldn't make bi people and lesbians and gays not count! It doesn't make them immature! What it really means...it just goes to show we shouldn't mess with kids' heads and tell them their feelings aren't real!"
Cheerilee took a deep breath. "Twilight, you seem to have very strong feelings about something that happened more than a hundred years ago."
Night Light said, "I suppose she does. But does that make her wrong?"
Velvet added, "Twilight first became interested in this by reading historical fiction, but then she took a more scholarly approach. I've seen the papers she writes about it, and she's even showed me some of her original sources. I think she really does know what she's talking about."
Cheerilee bit her lower lip. "She writes papers about this? For school?"
Twilight Sparkle blushed again. "I...um...under a pseudonym...never mind."
Rainbow said proudly, "Twilight has a doctorate by mail."
Cheerilee said in a carefully neutral tone, "By mail?"
Rainbow bragged, "When she sent her dissertation off to the--"
"Shut up shut shut up DO NOT OUT ME!" Twilight Sparkle said angrily. "Sorry."
Rainbow admitted, "I shouldn't have said anything. I'm sorry too."
Velvet said cautiously, "Twilight, dear, may I at least say the name of the journal?"
Twilight Sparkle scowled. "Sure, why not? Let's talk about how smart our daughter is. Some people might think she's a deviant, but at least she's a BRILLIANT deviant."
"It's not to brag, dear...I just think it might help Doctor Cheerilee to better understand you as a person." Velvet looked at Cheerilee. "I hope you DO understand what I mean?" Velvet spoke the name of the journal.
Cheerilee shrugged. "That's a bit out of my area. But it IS a respectable venue." Privately, Cheerilee considered that anyone can make unverifiable claims about their or their child's supposed genius accomplishments, or anything else, including life experiences. And even when something real is there, sometimes things get...exaggerated. Someone who saw something once, or did something, becomes a supposedly flawless expert on every way to see or do everything that has any connection with the thing. Even if Twilight HAD published a dissertation on a certain specialized historical phenomenon connected with adolescent development, that did NOT make her a perfectly authoritative expert on ALL areas of adolescent development.
Cheerilee sighed. She didn't want to turn this into an inquisition, or an investigation into professional credentials.
"I will say," Cheerilee remarked, "our session today has gone in a somewhat different direction than what I'm used to."
Twilight looked at the floor. She half-mumbled, "I just think we can learn from history, and from what different societies have done. We can see that there can be more than one right way to do things. And it's ok for people to be different."
Rainbow said, "It's ok for some people to NOT go on the Quest of Transcendence, if we really don't want to. And I really don't want to grow a dick!" Rainbow shuddered. "I'm sure for a lot of people, it's just great. But I know it isn't right for me."
Cheerilee's mobile phone started playing a song. "Ok!" Cheerilee said. "I think that was a great first session. I look forward to seeing you all again next Thursday."
Cheerilee stood up to chat with any stragglers, but she was ignored. Everyone else launched into a six-way discussion of heated whispers and gesturing as they walked out the door.
Oh well, Cheerilee thought. At least she already had a continuing series of meetings scheduled with this group. She would get to officially check and certify whether these people really were or weren't abusing their children by not sending them on the Quest.
She thought it would turn out ok, one way or another.
Apples and Pie
"I'm not really all that...gendery, I guess," The plump, pink-haired baker kneaded a big ball of dough on the Pie family's kitchen counter. "I mean...sure, I love you and all. In more ways than one. But I don't think what my body is like, or what kind of clothes I wear, or stuff like that, makes much difference to it. I'm still ME, you know?"
Standing directly behind the baker in the cramped kitchen, Applejack nodded. "Ah understand how ya feel. Even though Ah don't feel entirely the same way mahself."
Pinkie asked, "Do you think we'll feel different about things, after we Transcend?"
Applejack snorted. "Feel different about WHICH things?"
"Well...each other."
Applejack took a deep breath. "Pinkie, Ah think we'll always love each other. Or Ah sure hope so. But we've only known each other a few months. It's too early to know how things will turn out...if we'll love each other THAT way." Applejack sighed. "It's not that Ah don't love you. But Ah reckon Ah know what it's like to make long term plans for the rest of mah life. You an' Ah haven't reached that stage yet."
Pinkie tried to smile. "You're right, Applejack." A flour-dusted forearm reached up to wipe some sweat from Pinkie's face. "So...what IS it like for you, to make long term plans? When do you think we might be ready?"
Applejack's lips pursed. "Well, ya know Ah've been workin' on the family farm practically since Ah was a toddler."
"Yes."
Although Pinkie couldn't see the gesture, Applejack nodded. "Ah love the farm. It's like a part of the family. And a lot of Apples for hundreds of miles around love the farm too. It's where we have the Apple family reunions. And where we grow some of our family's best apple tree slips, for other Apple farms. It means more to me than Ah can say."
Pinkie smiled playfully. "I think you just said it. I already knew the farm was important to you, and now I know it even more!"
Applejack chuckled. "So ya understand."
"Sure!" Pinkie said. "Even if we get married someday, we can't move to another town at least until Apple Bloom graduates from high school! So she can help take care of the farm full time!"
"Huh." Applejack looked doubtful.
Pinkie's smile wilted. "What?"
"Ah was thinkin', probably a lot longer than that. Ah expect to become sort of a family matriarch. You've already seen me dress up in country western lady style at some dances."
"Sure! You look GREAT as a lady! I'm so eager to see you as a lady ALL the time, when the time is right for you! I mean, if that's what you want, and what you become. If you end up as some other gender, that's fine too! Because I know no matter who you grow into, you'll always be the Applejack I love."
Applejack hugged Pinkie from behind. "Ah love you too."
Pinkie took a deep breath. "Just one question, Applejack."
"What's that?"
"Do you think MAYBE...if we still want to, when the time is right...we could do our Quest together?"
"Huh. Ah reckon maybe we WILL want to do that."
"And one other thing, Jackie."
"What's that?"
"I think you can kiss me as much as you want, right now, so long as we don't get anything in the dough while I'm kneading it."
Applejack snorted. "Let's see just how much you can stand to be distracted." Jackie kissed the back of Pinkie's neck.
Interdimensional Correspondence
Dear Prince Sol,
Recently I discovered a new category of universes. Some of the worlds are inhabited by ponies much like us, and some by bald apes. In these worlds, each inhabitant DOESN'T get to choose the destination of their own puberty, or anything else about it.
Even in these worlds, many inhabitants understand that puberty can be a very wrenching and painful process, with permanent effects that are very difficult to undo. But their societies still treat zero options puberty as the one mandatory path, or as almost mandatory. Isn't that the craziest thing?
After visiting a few of these worlds and seeing what they are like, I am so happy not to live there.
Your Faithful Student,
Prinby Twilight Sparkle
Author's Note #1
When I believe the Author's Note includes material essential to a proper reading experience, I have placed that material where downloading the story as a text file will not remove it.
There are some differences between the bizarre, magical world in which most of this story is set, and our world!
Pronoun customs differ somewhat, partly because of 2. below.
In our world, it is a LOT more common for people to directly experience more of the clues to their eventually realized true gender earlier in their lives, rather than as late as partway through their teenage years. Or do some people in this story's world just BELIEVE that for 'properly developing' people, the full onset of gender dysphoria should be relatively late? Do many people have a nearly infinite capacity in ANY world to tell other people that they are doing gender 'wrong' by not fitting some 'standard' template?
In our world, before medical intervention to alter your body for gender reasons (other than POSSIBLY just to defer puberty to give you more time to work out what you want to do) doctors normally have pretty strict rules about how long you must live openly full time as your preferred gender, to make sure you will really be comfortable with it. This story is a little fuzzier about that.
Author's Note
Some of this material might also be pretty important to a proper reading experience, but, well...I compromised. 
I would like to thank Chatoyance for giving advice, even if or when I didn't take it properly.
I'm honestly not sure whether this story owes an enormous debt to Chatoyance's transgender memoirs (link) or not. If you go read that tale yourself, to find out whether you enjoy it as much as I have, you should understand its events happened in a different place and time (as one key difference, I believe the bottom surgery situation is much improved nowadays.)
Where do ideas come from?
I could claim this story to be based on any (or all) of the following, with considerable redundancies among them:
- At least several different Greco-Roman myths. The ancient Greeks and Romans had a LOT of stories about gender changes and other transformations.
- An extreme rewrite of my "almost completely different" story that I showed to a couple of people before I wrote this version. (Like, if I don't tell you this is a rewrite of that story, would you even recognize it? THAT extreme.)
- A very distinct reimagining of an idea also seen in SigmasonicX's "Fruit of Transformation." (link) (Apologies to SigmasonicX)
- Controversial, debatable writing tip: CENSORED. Sorry, probably the only people who should try this are the people who can think of it themselves.
When someone who would perhaps rather not be named told me that an earlier (and VERY, VERY different) version of this story might make some people's heads explode, I concluded I MIGHT be on the right track...IF I could better modulate and adjust the head-splodiness.
Archmage Ansrit's reactions were helpful too, in at least one possibly surprising way.
Hey! I can still link to the Pride and Positivity 2021 celebration. (link) I hear the Transgender Law Center could use more than one kind of help. (link)
