Enter the Dragon

“Today I met this extremely old lady. She was really, really pretty and her graying hair seemed to make her even more beautiful, especially with the contrast of her dark skin. She was stern, but also kind. I liked her. She became really cute after the transformation too!”

“I know you won’t remember this right now, but when you do remember, find me. The Luminescent are the key.”

Cherry awoke with a start. He quickly took note of his surroundings. He was in Lamp Flower’s hospital, though he wasn’t alone. There were a lot of other Umbra Girls here, too. Dragon was also here, laying down while awake in a bed next to Cherry’s. He wasn’t sure what in the world had happened while he was asleep.

“Oh, hey kid. If you’re wondering why we’re here, the fast portal has its consequences.” Dragon winced in pain.

“Yes, it does. Thanks to that I’m now swamped with patients.” Lamp Flower was clearly annoyed. Cherry, however, had no sympathy for her. Even if he himself was starting to question his gender at this point, she had no right to just choose for him.

“Serves you right,” Cherry muttered under his breath. Unfortunately it was a bit too loud.

“What did you just say, child? Did I hear that correctly? Serves me right? I do not understand what your agenda is against me, but I suggest that, as I am the one taking care of you, you set it aside,” Lamp Flower warned. Cherry gulped but stood his ground.

“Do you even really care? You called me a girl earlier. I bet you even call Dragon a girl behind his back,” Cherry spat out.

“For your information I personally delivered that man’s pregnancy at least two years before the Luminescent appeared.” Lamp Flower was furious, leaving Cherry confused. Dragon had a baby? But he was a guy. Why would a guy want to get pregnant and have a child?

“Jeez, Lamp, did you really have to mention that?” Dragon groaned.

“M-Mister Dragon, you had a child?” Cherry asked.

“Yeah, I did, with my wife. She wanted a baby and I wasn’t against the idea, so I gave her one.”

“But how?”

“Simple. She impregnated me,” Dragon said matter-of-factly. Cherry was awash in confusion. How could his wife impregnate him? Then he realized she must have been like Dragon, except the opposite. Born a boy, really a girl. Was he also like that?

“I will allow these careless statements this time. However, Cherry, as you will learn, it is not wise to speak up against Raftilia’s views. If I had called you a boy, she would have spent time correcting me and gone on a rant, which could have impeded saving your life,” Lamp Flower said.

“O-Oh, I…I’m sorry.” Cherry felt extremely bad about that. “I just…I think I’m so confused, Miss Lamp Flower.”

“Apology accepted. Don’t do it again.” She grunted, then moved towards the next patient bed.

Dragon, however, leaned inward. “Kid, what’s got you confused?”

“I-I remembered some stuff about my life. At one point, I liked wearing girl’s clothes. I also saw what I think was my mother. It was really weird though. She had pink eyes and pink hair. Also, she told me something even weirder.” Cherry couldn’t stop thinking about her. If she really was his mother, why did she leave him?

“Pink eyes and pink hair? So she likes colored contacts and dyeing her hair. That isn’t that weird. Pretty common for young women before this whole end of the world mess, honestly. Pink isn’t entirely the most used color, but well, it’s not that unbelievable.” Dragon mused. “Also Dag wears feminine clothing all the time. It doesn’t really change who he is.”

“It wasn’t that, it was what she said, that I should find her, and that the Luminescent were the key.” Cherry sheepishly said. He wanted to ask him about how he knew he was a boy, how he could have possibly figured that out, it seemed an impossible question to answer.

“That. Is a bit more bizarre. How in the hell would the Luminescent help you find her? Kid, puzzles ain’t my thing. I suggest you ask Fluffy Ruby about that. She’s good at that kind of thing.” Dragon advised. Cherry had been told several times to visit her. He wondered what kind of person she was. Her name suggested an Umbra Girl, but Dragon had told him that she had lost her arms and legs. His thoughts hooked back onto his question, though, and it burned inside of him. He summoned up the courage to say it, and stared Dragon in the eyes.

“Dragon…how did you know you were a boy?” Cherry asked.

“I dunno how to explain it, kid. I just always felt off, and being called a girl felt wrong. Despite how much my family tried to make me one,” Dragon said. “I did figure it out later in school though.”

“C-Can you explain it to me? I’d love to know your story. You’re so cool. I bet your life was super interesting,” Cherry said. Dragon sighed.

“I guess I could tell you since we’re stuck in these stupid beds for the time being. Okay, kid, I hope you’re ready for a long story,” Dragon warned. Cherry nodded. “It began when I was born…”

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The day I was born my mother was ecstatic. I had three brothers and she had finally gotten her daughter. The one she had been begging God for. She imagined all the cute and frilly dresses and skirts she could dress me in. She imagined signing me up for ballet, piano lessons, gymnastics and maybe someday cheerleading. She had my whole life planned out for me. I’d finish highschool, then she’d find a nice Christian man to marry me, I’d have her grandchildren she wanted so desperately and live happily ever after as a conservative housewife. She quickly found out how wrong she was.

As a baby and toddler I really didn’t have much choice in what I could wear, but as I got older I asked for pants. Mother didn’t believe in pants. She thought as her church did, that girls should only wear skirts, dresses, and other frilly things. I insisted, however, and I tore up dress after dress until she relented when it started to get expensive. She let me wear jeans, but they were the really girly kind with hearts embroidered on the butt or glittery pant legs. I accepted it as a compromise even if it made me uncomfortable.

That wasn’t the only thing I put her through, I also had a bit of a reputation for loving rough and tumble games and would scrap with the boys if they gave me reason to. As I grew to about ten years old I got into a big fight with a bunch of boys. I lost, as it was five to one. I got a black eye and my fifth grade homeroom teacher grew worried that I’d ‘turn into a lesbian’ and so she told my parents in one of those parent-teacher conferences.

Shortly after, I found all my ‘masculine’ clothes confiscated, and a pink suitcase packed with my old name on it. I asked them what was going on, but they only said they were doing this for my own good, that I was falling into sin and they had to help me lest I be sent to Hell. A bus showed up right after, before I could plead my case, and I was forced into it. The bus was full of girls. I begged to be taken out of there, but it was too late. The bus was already driving off. Problem girls, we were called. Some had their heads shaved, some wore tattoos, some seemed a bit gruff. They didn’t seem all that bad to me, but we weren’t what they wanted. We weren’t prim and proper little princesses. So they resolved to make us that.

St: Abigail’s Finishing School for Young Ladies. That was the nightmare we found ourselves in after the bus ride. It had pink walls, pink carpet, pink furniture, pink curtains, everything was so disgustingly pink. We were told this was to help us embrace our femininity. I was annoyed, but at the time I could not have fathomed just how bad it would get.

When I got to my room, I began to realize just how far this saccharine hell extended. A pink canopy bed, pink vanity, pink rimmed floor length mirror, pink carpet, pink dresser, and worst of all: frilly pink dresses with white tights—which we were told was to help us regain our innocence—and pink mary janes. Everything was so stereotypically girly that I almost threw up. My suitcase, I found, was filled with the same crap, along with some dolls and stuffed animals they’d bought me before that I didn’t care for.

They wanted to keep us away from masculine things, so they only taught us shit like sewing, conservative fashion, crocheting, art, and homemaking. Even the normal-sounding classes, like English and History, were just as bad. English was more concerned with teaching us neat, feminine penmanship than vocabulary or grammar and History was all about the Bible and biblical women and Christian teachings about a woman’s role. We talked about a few historical women, but only in how they supported their damn husbands in a biblical manner. 

It was utter bullshit. I wanted to learn real shit, and I was shut down every time I asked. Though that wasn’t what got me in the most trouble. Being called by my old name irked me, and being called a girl irked me even more. Of course in this reality that would have been Princess Dragonberry, not my old deadname. Err, a deadname is a name you were born with that you don’t want to associate with anymore because it isn’t your real name. Since that reality change that would have been my name, Raftilia’s changes are horrifying, even your own family thinks of you with that name. Yet because of the Diversion Field they don’t think anything of the fact their kid was named something like I dunno some normal name. Now instead it’s Princess Dragonberry. It never even registers to them, you’ll get used to it but trust me it’s hella weird.

So anyway I started calling myself Prince, instead. I hadn’t yet found my real name. I just knew one thing, I wasn't a girl. Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep my damn mouth shut so I kept insisting I wasn’t a girl. As a response they devised a ‘special’ program for me. The teacher in charge of detention told me I had to say I’m a pretty girl. It was supposed to help me get ‘back in touch with your God given femininity.’ I internally said fuck that and instead said “I’m not a girl.” When I first felt the paddle on my butt I was utterly shocked. I realized these people were fucking insane. They’d literally inflict violence on a child for saying they weren’t a girl.

They sent me back to my room with instructions to learn some other girly crap like walking in high heels or books on how to be a proper lady. They did this at the end of every month, and despite the punishments, I always told them the same thing, “I’m not a girl.”

After about a month of this, something miraculous happened. It was the strangest thing, a girl in the school asked me out of the blue why I act so much like a boy. That was when everything clicked. All of it made sense, my entire body lit up with euphoria and I knew that’s what I was. The next time they pulled me in, I looked her in the eye and said. “I am not a girl, I’m a boy.” There was no word for the amount of pain I experienced after that. After that I knew I was going to stop it for good.

I decided for my plan my masculinity was going to have to take a hit. Before the next month I started wearing extremely girly ankle length skirts and long sleeve tops. I worked hard on make up and did my hair in feminine styles. I copied their stereotypical feminine actions and mannerisms. Because of this they stopped the special treatment. They assumed I had finally “accepted my place as a girl.” They never could have fathomed what my true plan was.

Over the next two years I used those overly thick books they forced us to read—and also used as a means to keep our posture in heels—as weights. Then, during my last month in that Hell, I overheard someone talk about a boyfriend named Dragon, or rather it was a different name but you get what I mean. That name resonated with me in a way I didn’t think possible. I stopped doing my hair, in fact I found a knife in the kitchen and cut off as much of my hair as I could. I stopped doing my makeup and I stopped caring about my mannerisms. I finally knew who and what I was, and I didn’t want to hide it anymore.

Of course they wouldn’t ignore it, even until the end of the month. I was taken to her again, her paddle in hand. She told me how disappointed she was that I regressed, that I had been doing such a good job. What she never realized, is never once did I refer to myself as a girl, and never would. She brandished her paddle and said, “Say you’re a pretty girl, Princess Dragonberry. You need to stop this tomboyish nonsense.” 

I knew this would be the last time she would ever try to make me say that. I looked her dead in the eye and said “My name is Dragon, and I’m a boy.” 

She started to swing the paddle but I was faster. I grabbed her arm and bent it back making her drop it. I told her, “You’ll never hit me or anyone ever again, bitch.” Then I broke her arm. She never asked me that question again. In fact, I was expelled for violence. Despite their abusive and archaic methods they were able to get away with it all through some ‘religious freedom’ bullshit and pressed charges on me instead. My parents were furious but I didn’t give a fuck. That place could burn to the ground for all I cared. As I left I felt bad for the kids stuck there, but there was nothing I could do for them.

Being forced into juvie—err, that was slang juvenile hall, which is like a prison for misbehaving kids. Anyway being forced into juvie was one of the most enlightening and terrifying things I went through. All of us were given blue jumpsuits to wear to the chagrin of my parents. They wanted me to wear skirts, but this particular facility just liked us all neat and uniform and shit.

I behaved, picked up trash, pretty much did everything they wanted. I wanted out early because I was determined now. I was going to succeed no matter what my parents wanted. I was going to become a boy.

Of course that was kind of hard for a twelve year old to do. So I had to endure more of my parents' bullshit over the years.  My mother eventually gave up trying to force me into ultra girly crap, but I did have to make compromises. I still had to wear a girly hair clip in my hair and girly jeans if I wanted to wear jeans at all. I was allowed a backpack instead of a purse, as long as it was at least somewhat feminine. It wasn’t honestly that much of a compromise but it gave me at least some reprieve from the ultra feminine shit my mother tried to put me through. It also meant I could keep my hair short.

I graduated highschool but my parents refused to pay for college so I ended up doing small time jobs to survive. I got my own place and, well, fast forward to about sixteen years later, when I finally met the woman of my dreams, Anna. Yes kid, I told you I was a man. No, my age is seventeen, I already told you that. Anyway, as I was saying there weren’t words to describe her beauty, not only that but her personality was a perfect fit for me—no, for us. Her desire for children opened my heart, and so I got pregnant for her. She was always the mother, though, even though she impregnated me. None of that mattered. No matter what anyone says, men can get pregnant, and there is nothing wrong with that. My little girl was born, and she was the sweetest little thing you ever did see. My little Kaylee. My little angel. When she was about four years old, almost five, the Luminescents attacked where we lived. I was the only survivor. I made a pact and well now here I am..

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Cherry was flabbergasted at Dragon’s story. It was so powerful and left him wondering about himself. Was he really a boy? He forced the words out of him, words that had been boiling inside. “I don’t know if I am a boy, and that scares me.”

“What makes you say that, Cherry?” Dragon asked. Dragon seemed to flip flop from calling his name and calling him kid but he much preferred when Dragon called him by his name.

“I…I think I like dresses, and girly stuff. I got weird memories that make me think maybe I was a girl. I don’t know, though. I don’t have that…knowing like you do. I think I’ve never thought about it, I just did what I was told.” Cherry revealed.

“I see. Well, Cherry, the only way you can tell for sure is to try it then yeah?” Dragon suggested. “If you aren’t sure, it makes logical sense. Just try out being a girl for a week or month or something, I dunno, however long makes you feel comfortable.”

Cherry was awash with emotions. Could he do that, could he just be a girl? Try it out? See if it was right for him, or was that her? “O-Okay, I’ll try.”

“If that’s what you want, Cherry, then I’ll think of you that way,” Dragon said and that made Cherry smile. She felt so loved around him. It would be a little weird to think of herself this way, but a week couldn’t hurt. If she wasn’t really a girl, maybe she was something else? It was too early to tell. Right now, she just knew she was going to try being a girl.

Cherry sat up straight and with determination said, “Then I’m a girl!”