This story is intended to be wholesome and for most viewers. However…
*It contains themes of transgender transformation and genie transformation.
*Several LGBTQ characters are in this story, including a transgender main character.
*There are mentions of abuse and mortality.

The Golden Edict (Part 2)

A transwoman just past the age of nineteen, Ariel was pale and thin. It was clear she hadn't eaten in days. Her black hair was messy, filled with grime, and not very long. Some of it may have fallen out... And her pale blue eyes showed hints of yellowing.

Her clothes were torn and ragged, a mix of men's and women's clothes - some were probably fished out of the trash. No, Eris could tell some were. The stories behind each item came to life for her, from the lace bra that saw too many nights of fun from its original owner - too tight for Ariel but was the only thing she could find - to the moldy socks that stood in for Ariel's breasts, too nasty to be washed, never to be clean again. She was wearing a skirt taped together with used duct tape, and a shirt from her old life that had been worn to pieces, holding together by only a few threads. The boots did no job in protecting her feet, as they had lost their soles some time ago.

"Hng... Who are you?" Ariel asked weakly. There was no hint of femininity in her voice, too tired to be able to change it.

"You're Ariel?" Eris asked, trying (but failing) to hold back tears at the sight.

Ariel perked up a little. "You called me Ariel...?"

"Ariel Hope. That's the name you always wanted, right?"

"Yes, but… Are you an angel or something?"

Eris decided to come closer and sit beside Ariel. "No. But I am someone here for you. My name is Eris. I’m a genie."

Ariel looked up and down Eris, and she raised an eyebrow. Eris was wearing a black leather jacket over a purple v neck tee. She was wearing denim jeans and white tennis shoes. The only detail out of place for your average human was the slight pointed tips of ears poking out from Eris's long red hair. "You, a genie? You're... *cough* not what I would have expected. I thought exotic, revealing outfits and some sort of lamp."

"Yeah, those clothes are for when I’m ‘playing the role,’ so to speak, or I just want to while relaxing in my vessel. I do have a lamp of sorts, but I keep it close and hidden."

"Why are you here? To grant me wishes or something? I made a *cough* wish already, but not to you..."

"That wish is what I am here about, actually." Eris tore off the paper wrapping to the Golden Edict. "You made a wish to a higher power? You hoped for power of your own, to help others, to make sure they could live their lives to the fullest?" She leaned over and showed Ariel the golden tablet with her name on it. "This is the response. It's called a Golden Edict, Ariel. It means that your request for power was so pure, so selfless, that you have been chosen to become what we call an Angelic Genie, a special kind of genie with even greater power than most."

"*cough* Wait... For me?" Ariel gazed at the tablet, and as she did, she was stunned to watch words carving themselves into the golden surface.

"Ariel Hope,

"You have suffered greatly in life. For this we apologize. But we have heard your wish. In spite of your great suffering, you wished to help others, to have the power to do so. This Edict declares this wish to be pure and that you are to be granted the highest of genie powers to fulfill this goal.

"If you accept the power presented to you, you will be forever more an Angelic Genie, so long as you stay the path of the greatest compassion and kindness. You will be free to choose whom you grant wishes to and which wishes to grant. You will never have to fear evil or enslavement. You will have the power and will to change others’ lives for the better - as well as your own.

"You may consider to reject this power, but to take hold of the Edict means you accept the magic within and you shall begin your new life eternal as an Angelic Genie. This choice we leave to you.

"With regards, the Highest Power."

Ariel was stunned. Was this even real? She couldn't believe her eyes. "Am I hallucinating?"

Eris pinched her. "Ouch! Hey! ...Well, I guess not." Then something dawned on Ariel... The way she's been feeling, seeing Eris's tears... "Eris, am I dying?"

"Yes. I can sense it. Your organs are slowly failing. Starvation, malnutrition and at least six different infections. You will not live to see the sun set." Eris stated - blunt, but Eris was shedding tears as she said it.

"Then... Do I really have a *cough* choice?"

"You do, it's just... If we met again in some other life, you would not be Ariel, and you would not remember. Your soul will be reborn elsewhere, some other world or form. Afterlife or reincarnation, you will continue your mortal cycle."

"Or?"

"Become an Angelic Genie for the rest of time, immortal and benevolent, one of the strongest beings of magic in the cosmos, with a mission to help all. But all the growth that would have happened to your soul will not happen - you will have to grow entirely through your experiences as Ariel the Angelic Genie from this point forward."

Ariel closed her eyes. If she was reborn as someone else, would she care like she does now? Would she still be the kind soul who wanted to help others? Besides, there was suffering just like hers... And here she was, being presented with the power to change that, something that might not happen in the next life...

She knew her decision. "Eris, can you hand me the Edict?"

Eris's face practically glowed. "Sure! Just be careful; it's heavy for a mortal..."

As soon as Ariel's hand touched the metal, she felt power flow into her from it. Suddenly, her pain was gone, a new vitality surged through her frail frame. Eris herself could see Ariel's skin warm to a healthier hue in seconds. Ariel felt the weight of solid gold vanish, the Edict becoming light as air in her grasp.

Then the words rearranged and morphed on the tablet:

"You have chosen to become an Angelic Genie. Let Eris be your guide into this new world of Magic. This Edict is the base of your new home, a vessel to protect you and give you a means to be summoned when you will it. Mold it as you now please.

"Your body too is now malleable. Shape it to match your dreams. It is your time. Use your new power well."

"How do you feel now?" Eris asked.

"Wow... Alive, for one. It's like all my senses are amplified. I can feel so much..." Ariel responded, not even realizing as she spoke her voice was changing.

"Like?"

"I can feel the atoms and their subatomic particles in this tablet. Is this...?"

"It's totally normal, Ariel. I experienced the same from my transformation, although I wasn't a free genie at the time, so I dealt with everything from the confines of my lamp. It can be a bit overwhelming." Eris stood up and offered a hand. "I am to teach you about your new powers, but this probably isn't the best place for it. Care to join me somewhere with a little more privacy?"

Ariel grabbed Eris's hand and felt a slight tug, rushing through time and space to wind up in a field of white. The night sky here was lit up by dancing lights in the sky. She could feel the softness of the ground under her exposed feet. She realized where they were. "We're in the Arctic?! Why don't I feel cold?" It hadn't dawned on her yet that her voice had finished changing, a soft - almost angelic - feminine tone that was everything she ever hoped for growing up.

"Antarctica, actually. Perk of being a genie; your body is now pure magic. If you want to be affected by cold or heat, you can will it so. Many laws of science humans know are now mere suggestions to you. There are some laws to follow as a genie, even a free one such as yourself, but you will learn them in time."

Eris gestured to the tablet. "As it told you, you are now to craft your very own vessel from it. Now that you have genie powers, you have the ability to not only sense those atoms and other particles, but communicate with them, change them. Go ahead, see if you can move the material around!"

Ariel thought about concentrating, but she moved her hand with the intent to fold a corner. It responded, like putty in her hands, moving fluidly with barely a thought to it.

"This is amazing!" Ariel exclaimed. Then she finally noticed it. "Wait, this is what I sound like now?! This is..." A couple of tears formed in her eyes. "... Exactly how I always wanted to sound."

"You're already changing your body, it seems, without even thinking about it. I would guess more changes are coming, but for now, see if you can focus on your vessel."

She felt the material in her hands and closed her eyes. She drummed up a memory of playing with toy putty from her childhood. Before Eris's eyes, Ariel began to circle her hands, pushing against the material. It was like instinct, rolling metal into a ball with her bare hands as she did with the chunk of polymer years ago. Every expectation of how magic worked, the effort she expected, vaporized as the perfect sphere of gold formed in her hands.

Ariel opened her eyes to see what she had accomplished. "I can't believe how easy that was... I wasn't thinking, just... I wanted to turn it into a nice ball, and it did."

"Your mind is now hard-wired to perform magic. Every little detail of even the most complex wishes you can comprehend in an instant, see the effect of a wish to every corner of the cosmos it will reach... A lot of this you do without realizing it! Your subconscious takes care of a lot more than it ever did before."

"But, will I be able to fulfill wishes as they are intended?"

"Yes. I always search for the deeper meaning of a wish, and I make sure it is granted to the wisher's intent - without any nasty side effects. I try to guide them if it seems they may not understand the full consequences of the wish they want to make. I can at least do that as a free genie... And you should be able to as well!"

"That makes me feel better. I didn't want to grant wishes with unintended consequences..."

"You may make some mistakes at first, seeing as you're new to this, but you should also be able to clean up any mistakes you do make." Eris glanced at Ariel's ball of gold. "So, have any ideas what your vessel is going to be? I imagine it isn't going to be a plain ball of gold..."

Ariel looked again into her memories, seeing if there was something that gave her comfort. A night came to her: terrible storms came that night, and she was scared. Then the power was knocked out, and she scrambled for something... She knew what she wanted.

Feeling ever more confident in the powers she now had, Ariel levitated the gold ball in front of her. Arms out to her sides, she let her mind alone reshape the metal. Not just shape it, transmute it. She plucked protons and neutrons, warped mass, and reshaped energy. Gold became much more. She split the ball into several pieces of varying sizes, and each piece began to shift on its own.

The biggest became a long tube of silver, with one end flaring out to become wider. Along the length of the slender tube, a shallow indent was made. On the slimmer end, a piece came off, forming grooves on the bottom and subtle diamond shapes along the rim. Magic carved out the inside from that end, creating the space within which Ariel would reside. Once the hollow space formed, the new cap screwed itself back on, sealing the portal to her vessel for now.

The other pieces transmuted even further. A glass lens, multiple bulbs and reflective metals shaped themselves and moved into positions within the wide end of the object, now clearly a modern LED flashlight. Once a sky blue rubbery switch cover slipped itself onto the switch, Ariel was left with one piece of unchanged material - something she was about to rectify. The material thinned into a sheet that could easily fit into the groove along the handle of the flashlight. It changed into the same shade of blue as the switch cover. However, the material was made into something else and wrapped around the handle, slightly textured and completely seamless.

Ariel wanted her eventual holders to feel comfort and ease. The handle cover was a material unlike anything yet invented by mankind, a super-soft material that one could never lose grip of. No person would be allergic to it. And if one was overwhelmed by fear and gripped this handle, they would feel assurances that all would be alright, that they would be okay. They would feel Ariel's protection.

With the outside fully assembled, the new flashlight vessel dropped into Ariel's hands.

"Interesting choice, Ariel. A light to guide people, I assume?"

"Of course! And ward off evil; the light can dispel evil spirits."

"Not too many genies create functional vessels like that. That will set you apart from others for sure!"

"And I'm not done yet, although..." Ariel looked down at her disheveled, still-masculine body.

Eris put a hand on her shoulder. "I understand. You don't want to set foot in your vessel until you change your body. You want to come into your new home as the new you, the one you always wanted to be."

Ariel nodded.

"I asked that you focus on your vessel only because you are new to this. I wanted you to take it one thing at a time. Go ahead, shape the symphony of magic that is your body!"

END OF PART 2

By Erica Chrisman (CrystalSeaDragon44)