This story is meant to be fairly wholesome, however…
*This story has LGBTQ characters in it, with several transgender characters.
*There’s implied gender transformation shenaniganry - as well as the consequences of these changes.

The Legend of Darumond (Part 2)

=== The next day, the nearby mountains. ===

While Eris was going to the next city over to retrieve the Couple’s Lamp, Ariel was paired with a kitsune by the name of Frua. For as feminine as Frua appeared, they insisted on she and them pronouns. Their appearance reflected this, with shorter bright red hair (which combined with orange fur gave Ariel the feel of a fire or flame), and baggier women’s pants and shirt. Ariel couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was, but she sensed Frua had been touched by some extraordinary power. It left marks Ariel could sense. She also sensed Frua had lived a lot longer than the 150-year lifespan that was the average among kitsunes. There was a weariness about her…

But her analysis came to a halt as the railcar itself did, jolting to a halt and knocking both of them over.

“Dang it all!” yelled Frua. “No one ever uses this anymore. Hang on…” She reached up and popped a hatch. Their hands glowed as they fiddled with the hanging car’s pulley system. In a few minutes, it whirred back to life, and Frua closed the hatch. “Sorry about that, this thing sits idle for years at a time now. Used to be visited every day by those wanting a spectacular view, but those views are long gone. No one comes anymore, except to keep an eye on things.”

“Why is that?” Ariel asked.

“Heard of Darumond?”

“His name keeps popping up around here. Eris told me about him on my first day as a genie…”

“Short answer, the mess he caused… The longer answer is why I’m taking you up here today.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I heard he caused a genocide that the genies were allowed to correct. This was the kitsunes, wasn’t it?”

Frua nodded. “He waged war on us the moment he found our world. He wanted us all gone. I was there personally.”

“Wait, this happened hundreds of years ago! I sensed you were older than you appeared, but…”

“Yes, if we go by that strange human calendar of yours, I was born in the early 1600’s. I’m one of the oldest living kitsunes… And for much of it, it’s been a struggle.”

“How so?”

“Do you know what it’s like to be in a body different from what you were born to?”

“Uh, kinda. I was born a boy, but I wanted to be a girl.”

“Ah, transgender yourself. Long story short, I was born a boy too, but I didn’t really have a say on whether I became a biological female or not…”

“What? Were you cursed or something?”

The railcar stopped at the top of the mountain. “Perhaps it would be better to explain with a visual aide…” Fura stepped out of the car, with Ariel following behind. They stepped onto a scenic terrace overlooking the land on the other side of the mountain, and Ariel gasped.

It was a desolate, sandy desert as far as the eye could see.

“Do you see it, what lies hidden from most eyes?”

Ariel could see red… Symbols? No, it was a language, sharp and jagged and hurtful. It was a demonic curse that seeped into the very planet. She could feel what it was doing, and her eyes started to water…

“Your world… It’s dying…”

“Thanks to Darumond’s last wish. You see, he felt the Hallow and the kitsunes were an existential threat to him, so he began to wipe us out.”

“But how was he stopped?”

“That Couple’s Lamp you’re looking for was one key. When he created it, it gave off a massive magic signature the genies were alerted to. They immediately came for him and followed him to this realm. But by that point, he was already at war with us. But we had a few surprises up our sleeves…”

“So it wasn’t an easy fight for him after all.”

“Right. The first was our six-tailed kind. For centuries past, they were cast out from our society, due to a penchant for violence and corruption. We didn’t fully understand their needs then, but rather than harbor ill will for it, these voracious fighters came to the aid of the people struggling against Darumond. Their penchant for battle and strategy turned the tide against Darumond enough that at least some parts of the world knew peace.”

“I saw a six-tailed woman guarding the portal…”

“They make the best guards, competitors, and warriors. They have a relentless drive for competition and growing stronger. We used to call them Beast kitsunes because of the stigma, but they’re now our Warrior kitsunes. But even with them, Darumond wouldn’t fall. Djinns are too powerful even for Changemakers. So we needed something stronger…”

“How can something be stronger than someone who can manipulate time or space?”

“One who can break them… And this is where I come in…” There was some reservation in Frua’s voice. They didn’t like recounting this, it sounded like.

“Break time and space?” Ariel asked, shocked.

Frua nodded. “You didn’t see a kitsune with thirteen tails, but they’re possible. In fact, they’re the only kind that can come from a kitsune that already went through puberty once before. We call them Luckbreakers…”

“You know, we have ‘Friday the Thirteenths’ that are supposedly bad luck days… Anyway, how does that work?”

“It is said when the world is in grave danger, a thirteen-tailed kitsune will appear to restore balance. They get powers to basically do anything they can imagine. Laws of physics that can still constrain Changemakers are mere suggestions to Luckbreakers. Magic stands no chance either.”

Frua closed their eyes. “And I was the one seemingly chosen for the role. One day, my life turns upside down, and I undergo a second puberty. I had spent my days just fine as a male kitsune, and… Within minutes, my fur, hair, and eyes had changed colors, and my biological sex had flipped. It was tremendously painful… And when I could open my eyes, I saw a different person staring back at me in my own reflection…”

“Frua… I’m so sorry.”

“… And after that, I had a power that’s hard to comprehend, with dysphoria filling my mind. And all I could do was blame him.” Frua tensed up as they recounted the memories, their claws digging into the wood railing. “He couldn’t leave our world alone, and someone had to fight him. And that someone was me. I had to do it. No one else could. Everything I knew about my life was taken from me… And I threw every ounce of that rage at him for it… There was even a time he got to understand my pain…”

“You gender-flipped him? From what I understand, he usually did that to his victims!”

Frua opened their eyes and looked at her. “You’re joking, really?”

“That’s what Eris told me. Heck, she was trans, so she took to the change better than most.”

Frua let out a restrained chuckle. “I didn’t know that! I guess karma came to bite him hard, huh?”

“What happened next? Just how did he manage to cause this decaying curse?”

“Well, first, we fought in a battle that few can even comprehend. Although, it was more like a one-sided beat-up, given I could ignore his attempts to manipulate physics and any form of magic he could throw at me. In the end, I had effectively made him mortal, and the genies took him away. With the need for a Luckbreaker gone, the extra tails fell away…”

“I was wondering why you only had five now…”

“I wasn’t a Pathfinder before, I was a Guardian. Guardians have four tails, usually ones who help others through tough times…”

“In a way, it makes sense why you were picked, in that case. You just needed a lot more power than you had at the time,” Ariel suggested.

“The thought had crossed my mind. Along those lines, it also made sense that afterward, I was going to figure out the way my people needed to go in the future… Being touched by Luckbreaker power often has side-effects, one of them being longevity. I still may have hundreds of years before I even start aging again – plenty of time to chart a course for what’s next.”

“What is next, anyway?”

“Exodus. We’ve been planning to move out of the Hallow for some time. After all, the curse Darumond laid will strip the planet of all its magic and life before too long… We have 150 to 200 years at the most.”

“You said when your powers faded, he was still alive. That’s when he did it, I take it?”

Frua nodded. “The genies were preparing a ritual to sap him of his remaining magic before incarcerating him. However, before they could make their move, he made one to expel nearly everything left to infect our world with the decaying curse. We all felt it move across the land at the time. We knew what Darumond did. And I was furious at the forces that be for taking the Luckbreaker power away from me – the one thing that might have been able to remove the curse…”

“Did the genies try to help?”

“After they shredded what remained of him for his final crime, they did. Unfortunately, even all the angelic genies they could spare, dozens of them, couldn’t break the curse. It’s insidious; if even one letter of the curse remains, it replicates itself like a virus and continues its course. And it’s a very complex curse. We’ve taken to studying it so that maybe one day, another world can be spared. Ours… We’ve resigned ourselves to letting it run its course. After which, it will expire, and we can at least try to repair the planet…”

“But where are you going to live while that’s happening? I can’t imagine that, even with magic, repairing your world is going to be fast…”

“We currently have some of our own living on the Earth. It isn’t new, but we’re looking into the serious possibility of migrating there… Although not yet public, we have met with your world’s leaders in this regard. Research between our people is ongoing into whether this is even feasible. We’re hoping cooperation between our peoples will make your world capable of handling supporting us too…”

“I hate to burst your bubble on that idea, but…”

“’Humans are a bunch of hateful jerks that can’t accept members of their own kind for the pettiest of reasons?’ I heard it myself… But, if I may… It was a human who told me that, out of concern, and you also came from them, did you not?”

“I did.”

“Then not all humans are bad. Likewise, not all kitsunes or genies are good, for that matter. It’s just about whether we decide we want the good aspects of our kind to win. I think a lot of people underestimate humanity. Things can seem like a mess at any given time, but when you have the benefit of hundreds of years… You see something different.”

This got Ariel to think hard for a moment. Sure, her biological parents were monsters (and as she’s learned, not just because they threw out their kid for being trans…), but when she was living on the streets, a lot of people reciprocated her kindness, paid her back however they could. Even when the worst got dropped on her, that she was declared dead and thus legally a ghost, people were trying to support her as best as possible. She might not have made it that final month without their help…

“You know… I may not even be here now if it weren’t for the help of others… Thank you.”

“For?”

“Reminding me of the good of humans.”

“Don’t mention it!” Frua said, smiling.

“As for you… What, exactly, do you identify as? You look kind of feminine with your clothes and body, but you still use ‘they’ pronouns, and you said yourself the gender swap hit you really hard…”

“Even after several hundred years, I still don’t have a real answer to that… After my return to being a normal kitsune, I was reassured that I could return to my life as a man if I chose to, and I would get any assistance I needed in that regard. But I couldn’t discount that fate had made me female with my transformation…”

“Frua, a lot of people try to use that rationalization on Earth. It doesn’t end well when you force it…”

“I know, but there was some part of me that was, at times, okay with it. I don’t know, maybe I’m genderfluid to some degree? But at first, it was hard to let go of a fully male identity. I determined that I was going to try to live with my new body for a time, see if I could live with it. The first couple of decades were the hardest… I would be fine some days, then I had to bind my chest for weeks. I cried, well, a lot. But I think it was the suddenness of my change. It was hard to accept because in so short a time, I went from what I knew to something I didn’t. It was scary. But it opened a door, and well… These days, I find myself enjoying looking feminine more. I’m okay now. I don’t need to bind my chest anymore. Some days, like today, I just need a baggier look, but otherwise, I’m okay.”

“That’s good to hear. I didn’t want you forcing yourself into anything you weren’t okay with.”

“Thank you. And is it just me, or are you really easy to talk to? I don’t usually share that with just anyone, especially not someone I just met…” Frua wondered.

“I got that a lot as a human. Been getting that a lot as a genie too, for that matter…” Ariel realized.

“I suppose that helps for one whose job it is to help others… Anyway, my home was an inland peninsula surrounded by lakes.” Frua pointed into the distance to their right. “Long gone now, dried up and sand just like the rest of what you see here. I wish you could have seen it back then…”

“I think I know what you’re talking about. The place I come from is the same way! It’s called Michigan, and it’s surrounded by the Great Lakes! Maybe I can take you there one day!”

Frua closed her eyes and smiled. “You know, it would be good to see a place like that again… Thank you, Ariel.”

“You’re welcome, Frua!” responded with a glowing smile of her own.

Ariel and Frua both knew it then; they had become friends already. They agreed to stay and see the sights from here just a little while longer…

END OF PART 2

By Erica Chrisman (CrystalSeaDragon44)