Cards Reshuffled

It can be difficult sometimes to sort out exactly what is the ‘true’ person, as opposed to the face you see. If you’re fortunate, the true person will be somebody you can care deeply for, no matter the age, face or gender. If you’re unfortunate…there might just be a barbed whip somewhere in your near future.

Excerpt from ‘Ruminations Of A Master Bard’

Zaerini awoke by a beam of sunlight tickling her nose, making her want to sneeze, and still only half conscious she batted at it with her hand, trying to make it go away. For a few moments she felt confused, uncertain about where she was. Of course, this was pretty much regular for an adventurer, what with sleeping in so many different places, and she knew she’d soon work it all out. A few seconds later she noticed that she wasn’t alone in bed. There was somebody crushing her right arm, more or less paralyzing it, and there was an arm draped about her waist, holding her close. She lay absolutely still for a few moments, hardly daring to hope. Edwin? Did we somehow… Then she opened her eyes and turned her head towards the other person, and the memories suddenly came crashing home. Oh…now I remember.

Edwin was still definitely in female form. She was deeply asleep, snoring a little, and Rini took the opportunity to get a closer look at her. If she looked hard enough, she could recognize traces of the wizard’s male features, but feminized, as if he had been turned into his own female twin. I suppose he has, if you think about it. Still a lovely eyeful though. It was certainly so. She’d always found Edwin a very attractive man, and he was no less attractive as a woman. The wizard had a face that was seductive rather than pretty, with firm features, long eyelashes, full red lips and a rather bold nose. Long dark hair was spread out across the pillow, thick and lustrous, and her fingers itched with the need to play with it. What she could see of the body hidden by the sheets was equally appealing, lush and ripe. It was odd…she knew that full elves fairly frequently had same gender relationships, more often than humans, and as a half-elf she supposed she might be similarly inclined. But she’d never really taken that kind of interest in women before, so this came as a bit of a surprise. Or maybe…it doesn’t matter all that much if it’s a man or a woman. Not as long as it’s still Eddie. I suppose that makes a lot of sense, really.

Finally she couldn’t resist any longer. She carefully reached out her hand, capturing a strand of dark hair between her fingers, playing with it. Edwin stirred a little in her sleep, and after a few moments her eyes opened, looking somehow larger in her female face. Still his eyes though. Those beautiful eyes… “Hey…” Rini gently said. “How’re you feeling?”

“What?” Edwin said, sounding utterly disorientated. “What are you…why are we…?” Then realization slowly dawned, and her face fell. “Oh…now I remember. It wasn’t a nightmare, was it? (At least the ‘bed’ part of it is nice…but the horror still remains.)”

“Afraid not. Think maybe we should get up? Not that I exactly want to…but we should go on looking for a cure for you.”

“Yes, of course. Not that I’m not perfectly capable of finding one myself, but the shorter time I have to stay in this miserable shape, the better.” Edwin hesitated a moment. “Perhaps just a moment longer though?”

Rini noticed that the other woman’s arm was still encircling her waist, and that was entirely to her satisfaction. “Sure,” she said, snuggling just a little closer. “Whatever you want.” And I wouldn’t mind more either…but I think I’d better not bring that up. She’d be spooked, I think, what with everything else.

The two women lay in silence for a while, enjoying each other’s presence, as the sun rose a little higher in the sky, causing a widening patch of golden light to spread across the dark blue bedroom carpet. Tiny motes of dust danced in the air beneath the high ceiling, whirling like pixies. I could stay here forever, I think, Rini thought. Forever with him…or her…sounds just about right to me. Just the two of us, with nothing to interfere. Just us.

Finally though, she could no longer put off a question that needed to be ask. “Um…Eddie? Maybe Jaheira has told the others already about what happened, I don’t know. But if she hasn’t, would you like me to do so before you go down? Prepare them a little?”

Edwin suddenly stiffened. “Go down? Like this? I can’t do that!” Her voice sounded utterly desperate. “I’ll be a laughing stock!”

“But you have to. You’ll need to eat sometime.”

“I can eat in here. (Not that I feel exactly up to it.)”

“But we may need to do more magical research, go through Nalia’s library…”

“So bring it here!”

“And if that doesn’t work, we should take you to a temple.”

“You can bring a priest! (But not that Helmite, if he sees me like this he’ll laugh hard enough to make his stupid armor explode.)”

“Edwin,” Rini said, getting into a sitting position and briefly touching the other woman’s cheek. It was odd to notice how soft it felt. “You can’t stay in here forever, you know that. And maybe they will laugh, I don’t know. And then you’ll just pull out your best insults, the really blistering ones, and I’ll cheer you every step of the way.” She grinned mischievously as she suddenly thought of something. “Say…it might be fun to turn things around a little bit. If we are to meet other people, you’ll need an alias anyway, so as to avoid awkward questions. Isn’t that so…Edwina?”

The look on the wizard’s face was a mixture of indignation and shock, but then the corners of her mouth twitched upwards a little. “Edwina? What kind of hideously cumbersome and tasteless name is that? A woman of my stature needs something far more magnificent and impressive.”

“Oh, all right. How about ‘Edwinella’? Or ‘Edwinette’? ‘Edwinara’? ‘Edwinora’?”

Rini suddenly shrieked with laughter as a pillow hit her smack in the face, bowling her over in bed, and she was swift to retaliate, giving her companion as good as she got. The battle fortunes came and went, but the human woman was still taller and stronger, and after a while the still laughing half-elf found herself pinned on her back, with the wizard half sitting, half lying on top of her. Both of them had so many feathers in their hair that they looked like they had been outside in a snowstorm for hours, and they were pretty flushed from the battle.

Edwin leant forwards, close enough that they were practically touching noses, and there was a very intense gleam in her dark eyes as she whispered into the half-elf’s lightly pointed ear. “No ‘Edwinette’. Not unless you want some kind of humorous curse of your own to suddenly afflict you. (Something to make all her clothes transparent…I like that!) We’ll make it ‘Edwina’ if it is necessary in order not to confuse all the glacially slow minds of the hopelessly thick simians downstairs.”

“All right, all right!” Rini said, still grinning widely. “It’s a deal. Sorry about laughing. You know I was only teasing you a little, I meant no harm.”

The wizard’s face suddenly turned very serious. “When it’s you…” she slowly said. “When it’s you…it is different. Completely different. You…can laugh at me any time you want to. Any time.” She opened her mouth as if to say something else, and as she moved a little further forward, their breasts accidentally pressed against each other through their clothes, making them both gasp with surprise.

Oh gods! Hot…so hot! Rini was suddenly finding it extremely difficult to think, as twin lances of fires seemed to be rushing from the points of contact and directly into her brain, disconnecting her higher brain functions from the primary lust centers, leaving her with just a few very basic concepts. Mine! Mine! Want more! MINE!

From the way Edwina’s eyes widened and her breathing halted, she was experiencing something very similar, and she was blushing a deep red. “I…er…I…” Suddenly she scrambled out of bed, looking extremely embarrassed as she started frantically searching for her damaged mage robe.

Damn. We had better get her back to normal as soon as possible. This way, if she doesn’t go insane with frustration, I certainly will. Sighing, she rose to get dressed.

Meanwhile, in Athkatla…

“No, no, no, no, NO!” Lord Logum Eckel admonished, waving his finger in the air. “Say it again.”

Aerie cleared her throat. “Th-the Sun in M-murann will tan an even b-b-bun.”

“No, not like that, you foolish girl! Not a b-b-bun! A bun! A bun! Go on, say it again!”

Aerie gritted her teeth. She was standing in the middle of an elegant sitting room, one of many in Lord Logum’s Athkatla Mansion, and she had long since come to the conclusion that her standard tactics needed to be modified a little for this particular slave. While he was taken in by tears and sweetness, he also had a deeply ingrained need to feel superior to all around him, and the best way to make him happy was to make him think that he was the one instructing her to be a ‘proper lady’ and ‘making her more secure’. So she would put up with the condescending remarks and tedious lengthy lessons on her ‘true nature’…for now. And when I’m done with him I will come up with some amusing way to dispose of him. Perhaps cutting his tongue out and stuffing it down his throat would be good. Talking himself to death, so to speak. “The Sun in M-murann will t-tan an even…an even b-bun.” It wouldn’t do to ‘learn’ confidence too quickly either, that might make the man suspicious, foolish though he was.

“No! Good heavens, NO!” Lord Logum threw his hands into the air and started pacing back and forth across the carpet. His lower lip was pouting disdainfully, and his waxed hair was sticking out wildly. “Wretched creature, can’t you see it? You condemn yourself every time you open your mouth, in the eyes of those shallow people who cannot see beneath your milksop façade and to the beautiful soul within! Stop mewing like a timid mule, take a deep breath, straighten your back…yes, like that…now try the other exercise!”

Aerie folded her hands primly together, straightened her back, gave him a look of pure innocence, and spoke again. “In S-s-sundabar, M-mirabar and…and…and K-kuldahar, the…the b-bar is under par…”

“Arrrgh!” Lord Logum’s eyes were rolling wildly by now. “No! No! Confidence, I told you! Confidence! Do better, or make yourself useful. I’m certain I have some laundry that needs taking care of somewhere…”

Aerie made her lips tremble violently, and her eyes fill with tears. “I…I’m trying! I c-can’t help it! I thought…I thought you wanted to help me!”

“Of course I do, you stupid girl! And I’m doing it by giving you exactly what you need – some much needed backbone.” The lord gave her that disturbing smile again, the one that made a thin string of drool form in the corner of his mouth. “I’ll give you exactly what you need, just you wait. And if I’m perhaps a little harsh, it’s only meant to benefit you. And you will be a good girl and try again, won’t you?”

“I…I suppose so.” And I’ll give you exactly what you need too. A few heated needles rammed into your…

It was at this moment that the butler stepped inside, announcing a guest, one Sir Felix Twittering, who happened to be a friend of Lord Logum’s. Sir Felix turned out to be a tall young man, with flowing long golden locks, elaborately curled and perfumed, and a fair, androgynously pretty face. In fact, it took Aerie a few seconds to realize that he was in fact a he, and she wasn’t entirely certain whether he had realized it himself.

“My darling girl!” Sir Felix gushed after having been introduced to Aerie. “I had heard of you, but never did I guess that the truth would be so lovely. Eckel is a lucky man to have the pleasure of your company. Oh…and your hair is so pretty…are those curls natural?”

“Y-y-yes,” Aerie said, smiling timidly up at her new victim. Unlike yours. Hm…a spell of baldness should torture him sufficiently before he dies. First I’ll make good use of him though.

“Hmpf,” Lord Logum said. “She is pretty enough, but she is a cold-blooded murderer…”

WHAT?

“…of the Common Tongue,” Lord Logum went on, blissfully unaware of Aerie’s startlement.

Phew.

“Ah, but she is so sweet and pretty!” Sir Felix went on. “So utterly feminine! So unlike those harsh, coarse women you see everywhere these days, and so delightfully naïve! Even more lovely than my darling sister, whom I have always considered the loveliest woman in all of Amn. My fair lady, is there anything I can do for you?”

“Why yes!” Aerie said, fluttering her eyelashes. “In fact there is…there were these mean and…and n-n-nasty people I was traveling with…and…and they hurt my p-poor feelings very badly!”

“Say no more, my lady, say no more! A true Twittering always defends the pretty and fair-spoken against the coarse and the ugly! I’ll fetch you their heads in no time!”

“Oh! That…that is v-very brave of you…but…but perhaps not yet? I’m…I’m a very c-compassionate p-p-person you know, I’d like to…to talk to them first. But if you could find them for me…?”

“Certainly, fair lady!” Sir Felix bowed deeply, golden curls sweeping the carpet. “And…I am off!” He dashed out the door, or he would have done if he hadn’t run straight into the doorpost. “Ow…” he muttered as he staggered out the door. “By poor dose…dow I wod’t look as pretty…”

“Enough with the prattle,” Lord Logum irritably said once Sir Felix had left. “We need to go on with the lesson at once.”

“Y-yes…of course…” And just wait until I’m done with you, and have the leisure time to teach you a thing or two. A barbed whip tends to make people very eloquent and outspoken. I’ll have you screaming out those ridiculous ‘exercises’ of yours. “Is…is Sir Felix’ sister also a friend of yours?”

“He doesn’t have a sister,” Logum sneered. “He’s simply fond of dressing up in women’s clothing now and then. Quite confused about which gender he’s supposed to be. Why, half the time he calls himself ‘Felicia’.”

“Oh…I…I see.” The quality of the Amnian thralls had better improve soon, or I’m going to get very cross. Come to think of it, I am that anyway. And when I’m cross, people suffer.