Mistwoven Healer

Benny opens her eyes to see a world of calm water. Heart full of hope, she looks down at herself, only to find a familiar wave of disgust and revulsion rolling through her like a wave. No, her body hasn't changed, not yet, at least, and maybe not ever. Despite all the time hoping, she still hasn't fully convinced herself that it's actually possible.

Forcing down the familiar self-hatred, Benny takes the time to observe her surroundings in detail.

Benny stands in the center of a large, serene lake of still water, surrounded on nearly every side by massive cliffs that stretch hundreds of feet into the air. There are no beaches at the edge of the cliffs, only sheer rock climbing up to an empty blue sky. The only break in the enclosing cliffs is what appears to be an entrance into a forested area, where the lake flows into a calm river.

Looking at her feet, Benny finds that she's standing, seemingly impossibly, upon the water itself. It supports her weight easily and feels light and springy — as if she were being held up merely by the surface tension alone. Any movement sends small waves rippling across the still water, with her as the origin.

"Um, Serena, Rain?" Benny asks, cringing at the sound of her voice. "Are you here?"

Predictably, no one responds — she's alone out here.

What happened? Rain said that his soul gem was under threat, and so Benny made the only choice she could think of. Despite her misgivings about what becoming a sentinel could mean, she was not going to let this chance slip through her fingers. If time allowed, she would have absolutely utilized Rain's offer of taking a few days to consider, but if Benny was being honest with herself, she made this choice a long time ago.

To Benny, this is her chance, a chance at the life she always dreamt of during long nights lying awake — the culmination of every birthday wish, broken wishbone, and fallen star. It's the one thing Benny wants, more than anything else, hidden from almost everyone over a lifetime of pain.

Shaking her head, Benny forces herself to focus on her situation, using the pain of the still-raw cuts on her upper thighs to ground her.

What is this place? She said the words to start the bond with Rain, and now she's here. There has to be something here, right? Well, there's only one place Benny can really go, and so she starts walking towards the mouth of the wide river, flowing out into the area covered with foliage.

The entire experience is surreal, each step sending out ripples as she hikes across the surface of the lake. The sun beats down overhead, making the rippling water shine like the surface of a mirror, but within it, as if walking under the water and mimicking her movements, she sees a young woman with long pink hair.

The young woman is, at once, everything Benny wishes she could be. Short and small of build, very much unlike Benny's tall, bulky frame. She has a cascade of pink hair that falls all the way down to her butt and eyes that glow with swirling pink and blue power.

As Benny walks, she finds herself watching this eerie reflection of herself more than she actually watches where she's going. And yet, she can't help it. That reflection in the water, rippling and distorted, is everything she's ever wanted and more. The type of person who can love herself, who doesn't feel self-hatred or self-disgust. In Benny's mind, merely becoming this person would instantly solve all of her problems.

Serena would lecture her about how things aren't so simple, if she were here. About how simply changing how you look doesn't change the person inside and that learning to love yourself is a journey, not an instant switch. In that moment, though, Benny doesn't care. Whether this is the first step on her journey or simply a blue pill that will allow her to forget her worries, Benny wants to be that woman in the water more than anything else. Enough to force away the concerns of war and death that Serena warned her about.

After only a few minutes, Benny manages to cross the large lake over to the entrance of the wide, lethargic river. The river, too, she finds, is completely surrounded on either side by large cliffs but now has small banks for plant and animal life to live on rather than just a sheer drop.

Merely by stepping into the mouth of the river, Benny can see the water growing shallower, that image of her perfect self occasionally being distorted by small fish swimming in the calm water. Large trees and plentiful foliage hang out over the water, leaving the center of the river mostly clear but overhanging most of the edges.

Benny walks the watery path of the river, looking around at the plentiful life around her. Birds flit around in the trees, fish swim under the water, and insects buzz as they swirl around — thankfully leaving her alone.

For a time, Benny simply continues onward, navigating around blockages like deadfalls, stretching tree limbs, and stones jutting up from the riverbed. She has to admit, as she walks, that wherever she is, it's extremely peaceful. It would feel so nice to just stay here, but sadly, she still feels a vague sense of urgency. She can't stay here forever, not without doing what needs to be done.

Eventually, at a place where the river breaks off into what appears to be hundreds of small tributaries fed by the lake, Benny sees a large, pink-tinged crystal jutting up from the water. A crystal that, oddly, gives her the same sensation as Rain. It feels steady and calm — a constant strength that will never falter.

Like with the lake, the water of the river is so slow moving that it almost appears to mirror the surface in its depths, and so the crystal resting atop the water appears to be doubled beneath it.

Hesitantly, Benny and her perfected reflection step up to their respective crystals — looking up at their massive heights with amazement at how large they are. Then, as if guided by an unseen force, both lay their hand on the crystal and are sucked inside.

For a moment of horrible disorientation, Benny is both herself and her reflection. Her old, male body and the body she always desired tangled up and woven together as one. Then, in an instant, the disorientation ends, leaving Benny standing alone within the crystal. Except… she's not… herself anymore. She's the same person, but her body has changed. Her chest now swells out against her old t-shirt, and her long pink hair now falls all the way to her butt.

Benny looks down at her hands, now small and dainty, before sinking to her knees and beginning to weep. This… this is everything she always hoped for. Day after day and night after night, dreams of living in bodies like this one only to wake up and remember that her life is a nightmare she doesn't get to wake up from. She can't quite believe that this is real, that this is happening.

In fact, Benny is so overwhelmed by the sensations, by the sheer euphoria, that she doesn't even notice that the water level has been rising until it's already up to her chest.

Panic subsumes Benny as she shoots to her feet, the water falling back to her waist, but she realizes in a daze that, with her now shorter height, she'll be forced to tread water soon if it continues to rise. As she watches from within, the crystal sinks down into the flowing river, the inside of it filling faster and faster with the flowing water that begins to swirl rapidly around Benny, picking up her long hair and twisting it around her.

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Benny lunges forward, pressing her palms helplessly against the side of the crystal as the water level reaches her shoulders. She's so close; she finally got what she always wanted, and now she's going to drown in here!

[No…] a gentle voice says in her mind, Rain's voice. [This is our power… we will not drown in it…]

Benny frowns, looking around for Rain, but his presence is all around her. The water within the crystal continues to swirl around Benny faster and faster, more and more violently. She's certain that, soon, it will sweep her off her feet and throw her against the edges of the crystal — battering her as she drowns.

And yet… the water doesn't pull her off her feet. Whenever the current pulls her along with its rotation, it also seems to correct itself, ensuring she won't fall. When the water covers her neck and head, she realizes that Rain is right; she can still breathe within it. No… this water isn't something dangerous… it's something glorious! This is power, pure and unadulterated, swirling into the crystal and wrapping her in its furious embrace.

The water feels like the unbridled chaos of a storm-tossed sea and the gentle waves lapping at a beach all at once. And slowly, as it swirls and fills the crystal in its entirety, Benny finds that she understands this water on a deep, fundamental level. Both its violent, surging power and its delicate, serene beauty.

Finally, when the power building around and within Benny feels like too much, her world goes black.

"I think I just saw her hand move," says a voice above Benny, a voice that sounds an awful lot like Serena.

Groggily, Benny rolls over, not wanting to open her eyes, not wanting to realize that the dream with the crystal wasn't real and that her perfect body is still just a fiction. Faintly, she notices a gentle prodding sensation against her back, ruffling her long hair. Wait? Long hair?

"Celeste, stop poking her!" Serena hisses.

Serena? Why is Serena in her room? What is?

Memories rush into Benny in a burst, and she gasps, sitting bolt upright and looking down with amazement and horror. That… that wasn't a dream. And her body… her body didn't change back. It doesn't match the body in the dream perfectly, though; her hands are still too large, her shoulders too broad, and her legs too long. But she is, undeniably, a woman now.

Pink hair cascades down from Benny's head, and she can still see the swell of her breasts under her shirt. This… it's real; it's all real!

"Serena?" Benny asks hesitantly, finding her voice a pure soprano — a sound that returns the tears to her eyes. Still, Benny plows onward, "W-What… what was that? What happened?" she asks, not daring to hope.

Serena, sitting on the coffee shop floor beside her, offers Benny a wide smile. "You're a sentinel now, so your body is now matching your internal self-image a lot better than it did before."

Benny looks down at herself once more; her body still isn't quite right but is so much better than it was. "Is… c-can I go the rest of the way?"

Beside Benny, materializing in a glob of water swirling with pink lights, Rain appears, plopping down beside her with a wet splat. As he does, Benny feels a pulling, draining sensation at her core, along with a faint sensation of having grown weaker.

[To push the transformation further, we will have to rank up,] Rain explains from within Benny's mind. Somehow, he looks even more pink than he did before — honestly, if it weren't for his short legs, Benny would say that he just looks like a flamingo.

[I did what I could to guide the bonding in order to make the transformation more complete earlier in the process, which might have led to things being sort of… strange in the vision. I apologize for my lack of talent in this area; I do hope the results are satisfactory, however,] Rain says.

Satisfactory? Looking down at herself, Benny's eyes once more cloud with tears. Surging forward, she wraps the strange swan-like creature in the tightest hug she can manage. "This is perfect, Rain… beyond perfect. I… I feel like I can finally breathe again after so many years. Thank you so, so much!"

"Sorry to cut in," Serena says hesitantly, but are you two feeling alright? "Rain, your soul gem is properly bonded within Benny, right? No longer at risk?"

[It is,] Rain says, wiggling his way free of Benny's hug but sending her a warm, loving feeling through his strange mental connection. [I do worry, though. Did the other soul gems get stolen?]

Serena nods, her eyes downcast. "Yes… nearly forty of them were stolen by the Reavers. Kayne, Audrey, and every C Rank sentinel are scouring the city for them, but right now… they're gone…"

"So… if Rain and I didn't bond when we did," Benny starts, still exalting in the sound of her new voice.

"Rain's soul gem would have been among the missing, yes," Serena confirms. "Audrey told me that only four gems that we know of, yours included, vanished during the robbery. The rest, though… we just don't know."

A pang of sympathy moves through Benny at the thought of potential sentinels who just found their chance at a new life snatched away before it could even begin. Although, if some others also decided to bond early, she also hopes that they will feel they made the right decision years down the line.

For Benny herself, though… while the euphoria of her changed body is still making the world seem bright and hopeful, the reality of her life makes things more difficult. For one… she'll need to go home today and tell her parents what happened and, most likely, incur her father's wrath. Not to mention how she'll manage to survive school now; she knows better than most how cruel high school students can be.

Despite her change, Benny feels as if she still has a world of crushing problems ahead of her. Her name, her home life, her schooling, and everything in between are going to be made more complicated by this change. This is the fact that always prevented her from even attempting to try and do things using hormones as is the standard — despite having seen so many people get amazing results doing things the normal way. Benny just… never had the nerve for it.

Now, though, now there is no out. One impulsive decision and the changes are here, just as she always wanted. Yet… she still finds herself with little idea of what to do going forward.

"Serena," Benny asks, climbing to her feet — despite feeling a touch unsteady. "What do we do now? We… we're sentinels. Does that mean we need to go looking for the missing gems?"

At this, Serena shrugs, "If my team wasn't fresh off a mission, we'd probably go help. But you? Absolutely not. Bonding incurs a lot of mana toxicity, and you're not going to be able to help anyone until at least tomorrow. For now, you need rest."

"I… I'm really not sure I can go home," Benny says, looking down at herself. Stars, she wishes she had a mirror so she could just stare at her reflection for a long, long time.

Serena purses her lips, "Hmm, I could take you to my house. How do you feel about my dad seeing you?"

Benny winces at her words. Not because she believes that Serena's father wouldn't be supportive but because, like his daughter, he would be too supportive. Right now, what Benny wants more than anything is time to figure herself out without being absolutely smothered by attempts to help her. Time to determine how to approach her parents, how to work with Rain, and what being a sentinel even means.

Serena, having seen her wince, shrugs. "We could go straight to the GDF, I suppose. If we get you registered as a sentinel, you can get your own apartment there. Although… I'm not sure how comfortable I feel with you being alone."

"I'll be okay… I think," Benny says, hugging herself awkwardly and trying to push down her worries. Her emotions feel like a raging storm within her; this is all far too sudden.

After a moment, Serena snaps her fingers. "Ah, I know just the place! Do you remember Baylee from school? She has an apartment at GDF Headquarters, where I'm also pretty sure she's hiding from her parents. I'm certain she'd let you stay for a while."

At this, Benny's eyes go wide. Baylee… tall, imperious, and always in control, Baylee. Benny shakes her head frantically, "No, I'll be okay on my own, Serena. I promise!"

With a smile, Serena snags Benny around the arm, "Ah, come on. You'll like her, I swear."

Serena begins towing Benny towards the door, smiling and humming to herself, without seeming to have any idea that the thought of going out in public right now is mildly terrifying to Benny. She tries to resist, but… stars, how is Serena so strong!?

Benny is fully aware that Serena would stop instantly if asked, but… maybe it's time to face this. Maybe, sometimes, to face a problem like this one, you just have to dive in headfirst. And, if that's the case, Benny can think of much worse than having her best friend by her side.

Moments later, they're out the door and walking towards the tram station. Serena continues to happily hum to herself as her familiar sits proudly atop her shoulder. Benny, in turn, has Rain once again making a nest in her hair.

Benny sighs, allowing a smile to come to her own lips. She supposes that she'll just have to endure some of Serena's help for a while. And… ultimately, that's okay with her.