One thing that didn't confuse me, though: Ani had been absolutely right, Jonan did not look good, no at all. I could only imagine how much worse it would have been had the suave, young, handsome blond-haired doctor not been wearing PPE that covered up all the suave, young, blond-haired handsomeness his Type One NFP-20 infection had stolen from him so far. The fungus' subdermal hyphae—those tell-tale black threads climbing up his neck—made it clear his days were numbered. This was to be expected; you didn't weather a full-body blast of hazmat-suit-melting fungal spores direct from a wyrm transformee and come out unscathed.

Jonan was exhausted and aggravated, as if he'd just ran several miles chasing after a dog that had stolen his console. Both Andalon and I stared at Dr. Derric, and he stared back—not that he could see her. After a moment of this awkwardness, Jonan coughed and then finally started to talk.

"Yeah," he muttered, with a nod, "this is pretty much what I expected."

I shot a brief glance at my tail, and then pulled it around me in a loose coil.

"And what were you expecting?" I asked.

Jonan counted off his expectations with his fingers.

"The bow-tie. You not having the guts to break out. You not having the guts to eat enough food to progress your changes through to the end. The bow-tie again."

As he spoke, he panted heavily, often clearing his throat.

"Why are you here?" I asked. "And why…" I shook my head. "What about the alarm?"

"I turned it off," Jonan replied. He gestured at the door. "You're free to go. Oh, and, by the way, you're welcome."

I stared at the (admittedly inviting) open doorway. "Is this some kind of trick?"

"No. I'm just tired of the frustration and the stupidity," Jonan replied. He pointed at me accusatively. "You're stupid, you know that? You could have told us about this days ago. If you had, we'd have had an army of wyrms at our beck and call by now, and Ani wouldn't be crying. Both of these things are your fault, and I blame you for them, because they are your fault."

"It's an honor, let me tell you," I said.

"Yes, and let me tell you, the competition has been something fierce. Heggy and everyone else is being so stupid, they're giving you a run for your money."

"Are they, now?" I asked.

"Yeah," Jonan said. "From what I gather, you're now some kind of zombie-controlling wyrm necromancer, right?"

I was about to correct him, but then I just nodded in agreement. "Pretty much, yeah," I said.

"Ergo, you should be on the front lines, training the troops—the wyrm troops, I mean. Look at what happened in the Garden Court. Without the extra practice, you guys won't be able to handle the zombies or the fungus or Hell or nukes or whatever beasteaten bullshit fate is going to throw our way next."

He definitely had a point there.

Jonan coughed and wheezed.

"So… for that and other reasons, I am now setting you free. Let it be known that I, Jonan Derric, reached and made this highly intelligent decision entirely by myself."

I would have liked to jab at him with another witty repartée, but I just sighed and nodded in agreement with the Perfect Man's perfect reasoning. "That's pretty much what I was thinking."

It wasn't Jonan's fault that he was kind of insufferable.

Dr. Derric walked into the room and went over to the sofa to sit down but then stopped and stared and coughed.

"I sense a story here." He turned back to face me. "What happened?"

"There was a disturbance in the sofa," I said.

"You don't say?" Jonan asked.

I rolled my eyes. "I was practicing my powers to open my clarinet case."

Jonan closed his eyes and smiled, humming wholesomely. "That's just perfect. It's so you." He coughed and groaned.

"Ugh."

He slid my clarinet case out of the way before sitting down on the unruined side of the couch.

I glanced at the still-open door.

"I don't suppose you're letting me go of the goodness of your heart?" I asked, semi-sarcastically.

Jonan shook his head. "Oh no. You owe me big time Dr. Wyrmie."

Andalon clapped happily at that, nodding as she cooed, "Wyrmeh…"

"What do you need?" I said.

Jonan leaned back into the sofa. "Zongman Lark—who, for your information, is currently comatose—apparently has gender dysphoria. I'm pretty sure it's the reason he attempted suicide."

I squinted at Jonan in disbelief. "What?"

"He told me he should have been born a woman right before he fell into a coma."

"Is this some kind of joke, Dr. Derric?" I asked.

"I'm not laughing."

Andalon turned to me. "Mr. Genneth, what's gender dis—"

I turned to her. "—Andalon, this one is very, very complicated. Just accept it and move on."

"Andalon… that's the wyrm spirit girl, right?"

"Correct."

"Is it, uh, true that the world is made from the Hallowed Beast's corpse?" Jonan asked.

"Just so you know, His name is Kléothag," I said.

Jonan gave me a blank. "Fuck me…"

"Yeah…" I nodded. "It's a lot to take in."

Jonan looked terribly lost.

"So… about Lark—if you don't mind me changing the subject back to—"

"—Just say whatever it is that you want to say, Jonan," I said.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Does this mean Lark was only recently a woman, or has he—"

"—Not to be disrespectful, Dr. Derric," I said, "but the IDMMI recommends using preferred pronouns for individuals with gender dysphoria."

"You mean I have to call Lark a her?"

"It's the medically recommended thing to do," I said.

He closed his eyes and shook his head, his arms trembling in discomfort. "I'm sorry, this is, uh… very weird for me, and it doesn't help that my lungs are on fire. Can I just keep using male pronouns for her… for the time being? It's… all a little too much for me right now. Uh… if it helps, Lark didn't seem very keen on wanting to come out of the closet."

"I wonder why…" I mused, aloud—obviously, in jest.

Jonan glared at me, only to groan in pain as he was struck by a coughing fit.

"Listen," I said, "if it makes you uncomfortable, you can instead refer to Lark by name."

"Thanks," he said. "I hadn't thought of it."

So, yeah, let's talk about the parrots and the bats.

As in most human societies, the history of sexuality and gender in my country and among my countrymen was pretty darn complicated. It almost goes without saying that the first place to start would be with the many, well-attested polemics important figures in the Church had written throughout history. Of these, none were more significant or influential than those that the Church's early leaders wrote in condemnation of the pederasty which was widespread in pagan Polovian society. The first generations of Lassediles were taught to avoid sexual improprieties of that sort, not because they were inherently wrong, but rather because of how they were seen as decadent and bereft of self-discipline. In ancient, pre-Lassedile Trenton, morality was less about adhering to a list of moral absolutes—thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, etc.—and more about cultivating virtues within yourself. To that end, indulgence of profligate and/or deviant libido was seen as debasing in how it allowed for and encouraged the perpetrator to give in to their basal desires and thereby damage their moral character.

The profusion of Angelical sects in the aftermath of the First Empire's fall saw the embrace of a spectrum of unorthodox attitudes toward sex and gender, oftentimes motivated by the general resentment Angelicals had toward the Church and its hierarchy. Some denominations practiced polygamy or even free love, while a few gnostic groups went one step further and called for the total abolition of gender roles altogether. One particularly memorable—and also totally insane—sect was the Sorkin movement up north, near Crownsleep. The Sorkins taught that salvation lay in their followers cutting off one another's genitals, breasts, nipples, and tongues to liberate themselves from concupiscence. Once snipped, they would then shave their heads and live the rest of their lives in monasteries, awaiting the beginning of the Last Days, which they believed to be imminent.

But everything changed when the Munine attacked.

I don't think you could have come up with a more contrasting set of attitudes to sex than the ones held by the Soran Empire. In Soran Mu, sex was entirely subordinate to power. The Munine people of that era believed that men of sufficient social rank and standing had not only the privilege, but the right to assert their sexuality in any way they desired, with only two exceptions.

One: anything involving infants.

Two: being on the receiving end of anal sex, which brought dishonor to the one being penetrated, regardless of class or gender.

Somewhat predictably, Trentons of Geoffrey's time came to associate sexual impropriety with the Munine, and because the Munine were the invaders—the mortal enemies of our people and the faith—anything associated with sexual impropriety came to be seen as Munine-flavored, and thus to be scorned with utmost prejudice. By the end of the Third Crusade and the expulsion of the Munine from our lands, anything that wasn't direct male-female coitus within a consummated marriage was viewed as a profane affront against the Angel and even Light itself. Modern Trenton attitudes toward sex had crystallized, and would pretty much stay that way until the fall of the Prelatory.

Like most things regarding the Prelatory, it fell to DAISHU to fix this mess. To our quasi-benevolent gigacorporate overlords, there was no identity group too marginalized or unacceptable to be worth passing up as a source of new customers. The only no-go zones were people who called for violence, or coercion by force, or bigotry, or any forms of socialism or anti-capitalism. DAISHU brought peace through commercialism, censorship, and the occasional disappearing of troublesome persons, and with everyone and everything hooked up to the information superhighway, it was a simple matter of collecting information about people's preferences—our so-called bubble tags—and editing goods, content, and in some cases even reality itself to appeal to the specialness present in each and every one of us. There was no aspect of content that could not or would not be altered to benefit the individual consumer, and the end result was that most people were pretty happy most of the time, though Angel help you if you confronted someone who didn't match your bubble tag spreads.

So, when people inevitably came face to face with things outside of their comfort zones, it fell to people like me to help our fellow citizens deal with it—and for Jonan Derric and, by extension, Zongman Lark, that time was now.

"So…" I asked, "what is it that you want me to do for you, exactly?"

Jonan made some evasive maneuvers with his eyes.

"I might have done some… things…" he said.

"What things?"

Andalon and I asked the question in unison.

Jonan rummaged through his PPE's stomach pouch, pulled out his console and tapped it awake. He glanced at me. "You house the souls of the dead within you, right?"

"Yes."

He fixed his gaze on my console.

"And you're writing your clarinet thing on your console, right?"

"Clarinet Sonata," I replied, with a nod, "and, yes, I am."

"Great." Jonan's shoulders went slack at his sides. "In exchange for me setting you free, I have a two part request."

"Yes?"

"I sort of, uh… stole Lark's implant chip. And then I hacked into it."

"Why?" I asked.

Jonan rolled his eyes over to me. "It turns out Lark wanted to sing… opera."

I blinked in confusion while my massive wyrm mind grappled with this particular factoid.

"What?" I said.

"Yeah…" Jonan let out a ragged sigh. "I don't get it either, but… apparently, Lark had always had this dream of being an opera singer."

"So why didn't Lark become one?"

Jonan looked me in the eyes. "He told me about dropping out of music school. I'm pretty sure it was because Lark wanted to sing women's parts in opera, but couldn't, because… you know…"

"Okay, but how does that lead to you stealing Lark's chip?" I asked.

"It… it has a video of Lark singing on it, and while wearing a red dress, no less." Jonan bit his lip, fighting back tears. "Doc… I want you to help me digitally alter the sound file to make it sound like it's a woman's voice. Can you do that?"

"Where are you going with this?" I asked.

"I want you to take Lark's soul, and let him hear it. I'm gonna play the recording through the hospital's PA system."

"Jonan… you…" My jaw went slack. "You really put a lot of thought into this, didn't you? I didn't realize Lark's music meant that much to you."

"When I was younger," Jonan said, "I thought about killing myself. Better die now while I'm still healthy than live with the cloud of Hereditary Chorea over my head, you know?" He wept. "But then… Angel, I heard Zongman Lark's stand up routine. It was the first time I ever pissed my pants from laughter. Then, I heard him sing, and not long after that, he scored his place on The Morgans, and I was in Paradise."

"I always knew that life was absurd, Genneth. At first, I hated it for that, but… Lark's humor and music showed me another possibility. Yeah, it was stupid and awful and totally unfair, but… why waste your tears hating it when you could laugh at it, instead? You could piss in its mouth and go your own way; do or die, be or not to be. And that's when I finally made up my mind about living. If this is my only shot at being alive, I'm gonna rack up as many victories as I can. Screw the losses." He shook his head.

And then, to my astonishment, Jonan began to sing. Why was it astonishing, you ask? Because it was awful. He was awful. Mr. Perfect couldn't have sung well if his life had depended on it. A dead cockroach had a better sense of melody than Jonan, and, if his "singing" had a rhythm to it, well, that rhythm kept forgetting itself.

Even Andalon could have sung better than that.

"Really?" she asked, perking up—interrupting my inner monologue.

Yes, I thought-said.

And, honestly… it was kind of a shame that Jonan's singing sucked so hard. The lyrics weren't bad, and they and the mangled tune clearly meant a lot to him. He sang with his eyes closed, bobbing in time with the sounds in his mind.

"One day, we'll be gone, and there'll be nothing left to lose / so burn bright while you can; defeat can't stop you."

For his sake, I hoped the sounds in his mind were better than the ones I was hearing.

All things considered, this little display was more touching than anything I'd ever expected from him.

"Was that one of Lark's lyrics?" I asked.

Swallowing, Jonan nodded.

"I want a win, Doc," he said, his throat rough.

I noticed he was panting for breath.

"I'm far overdue, and…" his voice broke. "…I'm running out of time."

Closing my eyes, I sighed. "Send the file to my console."

He perked up at that. "Y-You'll do it?"

"Only if you promise to tell Ani that I helped," I said, looking him in the eyes.

Jonan smiled. "It's a deal."

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