Nothing ever seems real at three in the morning: neon signs spill radiant puddles over sidewalks, street lamps carve islands out of the dark, and moonlight ossifies the world. You, flying high above the town below, imagine yourself an archaeologist -- or a doctor, maybe, looking for flaws in the structure of the skeleton below you. That is, after all, your job.

You drop yourself onto a roof, quietly; you don't want to wake up the residents.

You summon your rifle.

Your target -- antlered and burning with malice, newly formed -- takes steady steps down a side street. Its hooves are silent against the asphalt. You let it walk under your crosshairs. If you're careful, you can end this in an instant and get back to drifting over the city.

You pull the trigger. The gun doesn't make a sound, but the demon turns its head regardless, coal-red eyes shining in the darkness.

You sigh and roll your eyes; you're being lazy about this. You reload your gun and leave it hanging in the air, aimed at a point in the middle of the road ahead. Should've done it this way from the start.

Can't change the past, you guess. You draw your sword.

You tilt your own gravity and let yourself fall toward the monster, sword first. It rears back, dodging, but you change your momentum again to cut a curve through the air, slashing upwards and sailing over the creature's back.

An antler falls from where you cut it, dissolving before it can touch the ground. You land behind the monster.

It kicks out its hind legs but you anticipated that: you steal some momentum from the Earth's rotation, launching yourself back over the beast. You tap its head, instantly transferring all your momentum to it. You stop in midair while it's pushed forward -- you're not heavy enough to really make it fly. You've got it where you want it, though.

The monster stops directly under a street lamp, its remaining antler nearly scraping it. You run an imaginary line through its skull and signal your gun to fire.

A puff of red smoke materializes out of the dark side of its head. The beast dissolves into ash and smoke.

You dismiss your weapons.

Something wet drips into your hand -- you probably cut your arm on an antler. You can't heal that yourself, and you know Edith's not out tonight; you'll have to go home and wait til tomorrow.

You drift back over the houses, bounding from rooftop to rooftop, until you fall through the open window of your dorm room. Your other body lies sleeping in your bed.

You grant yourself another look through the mirror before you cover it back up. A girl looks back at you; she's tired and a little frayed, but her lips curl into a weak smile.

You wish you could be her, awake.

You have class in the morning, and the cut on your arm is gonna get worse if you stay out like this any longer...

You reach your hand out, grimacing, and force yourself back into your waking body.

---

You wake up with the sun in your eyes -- you forgot to close the blinds when you flew back in.

You sit up with a groan.

Your arm, of course, is fine. A bit numb where the injury was/is/will be tonight, but that, at least, reminds you that you'll get to to talk to Edith later.

You morning routine drifts by in a haze. You're able to avoid your reflection until, absently, you glance towards the glass walls of one of the college of business's newer buildings. You grimace and shove your eyes back forward.

Most class days, you eat lunch with some acquaintances you met last semester. You suspect, a little bit, that they only hang out with you so you'll help them with homework, but you give them the benefit of the doubt -- you know you're biased against yourself.

You find one of them in the courtyard behind the science library. You exchange pleasantries, but, honestly, you're not in the mood to talk. You eat mostly in silence.

---

You finish your homework, because it's due at midnight, and you stay up late because, despite how much you want to sleep, your brain is still occupied with matrix multiplication.

At least you always have good dreams.

You open her eyes, finally, floating in the middle of your bedroom. You take a moment to enjoy being in the right body, then let gravity take you sideways through your open window, adjusting your trajectory into a gentle arc toward the city, gliding, dreamlike (you snicker), around treetops and the few taller buildings you haven't yet cleared.

You let normal gravity resume as you near the peak of the city, slowing your ascent, and, as you start to fall, you bend your momentum toward the river, sailing softly over its smooth surface, smiling at your reflection, letting your hand fall into the water, casting a quiet wake behind you and disturbing the fallen autumn leaves carried by the current.

You turn yourself upright as you approach you destination, rising slightly from the water. Edith, silhouetted by a university building's lamps, smiles as you alight on the old concrete dock -- your usual meeting place.

"Sorry I couldn't be there yesterday," says the woman you consider one of your best friends, despite only ever seeing her at night, "you know how exams are."

You, who only ever has to study when you feel guilty over not paying attention in class, say "Of course; you don't have to apologize." You pull up your sleeve with a regretful smile. "But I would appreciate it if you looked at this, please."

Edith's eyes widen. "Morgan! You need to take better care of yourself!" She says, casting a diagnostic charm over the slash yesterday's monster had torn through your upper arm.

You look away. "I mean, it's not like it can get infected or anything, right...?" Injuries from monsters only applied to your witch form; you've never had one carry over to your waking self. Witch-selves are a manifestation of one's soul, not a truly physical presence, and souls can't contract infections, as far as you know.

"Well!" Edith looks up from her healing spell (which, you note, feels minty), "I've never seen it, but that doesn't mean it can't happen! Nobody's studied witch biology before, so we don't know!" Of course Edith, a medical student, would think of that.

"Ah, yeah, you're right," You cross your free arm under your injured one, "Sorry. I'll try to be more cautious, next time."

"You better be..." Edith mutters. "You're fine now." She pats your arm.

You smile again, "Thanks, Edith," and hold out your hand. "Same route as usual?"

Edith nods and takes your hand, grinning as you let gravity lift the two of you away from the dock. You lock arms (momentum manipulation sometimes makes Edith dizzy) as you begin their circuit of the city, and you try not to think about whether Edith would be uncomfortable if she knew you were trans.

Stars float in the water flowing past you, flickering behind leaves and ripples and a face, ephemeral, haloed by the moon behind it. Edith keeps her eyes closed, and it makes her look so, so, peaceful, a small smile on her lips, as if she's dreaming of some beautiful, far-off world. You take a deep breath of shadowy night air, hoping it'll permeate your lungs and blood and calcify your nervous system into this moment, and maybe the sun will rise in the morning and you won't have to burn away with the morning dew.

You let your momentum shift up, til you and Edith are drifting high over the city, her hand warm against yours.

---

Hours later, you wake up again.

Sunlight filters into your room but you're still cold even under your blanket, and your knees protest as you stretch your legs out from where they'd been tucked close to your chest.

Your room is small, but you prefer it that way -- you don't allow yourself much decoration and a small, empty room feels less bleak than a large empty room. A pile of clothes has been shoved into a corner -- from which you extract some inoffensive outfit. The dorm came with a mirror installed across one wall, which you avoid habitually. It isn't as kind as the river.

You have class today, so you have to get dressed, and you have to take a shower, and you have to brush your teeth, and you have to prepare your notebooks, and you have to find the homework you finished and left somewhere on your desk, and you have to shave... So you rise out of bed, and you brush your teeth, and you find your homework, and you pack your things, and you take a shower and you shave in the shower with the lights dim and your eyes closed so you don't have to see the thing you're piloting and so you can disconnect the feel of the razor scraping you skin from the action itself and the circumstances that make it necessary and you dry yourself off and get dressed and you find yourself halfway to class, headphones on, listening to a song you found a week ago. A wake forms in the mist behind you.

You match your pace to the strings whispering in your ears.

Wet pine needles crunch beneath your shoes. You take a breath.

Your classes pass you by in a haze, as they almost always do. You eat something from the dining hall at midday, staring into a patch of grass and trees between buildings, where the university hasn't yet found a need or the budget to cram in a building.

---

You open the door to your dorm, drop your backpack in front of her bed, collapse into a chair, lay your forehead on your desk, and sob. You haven't really been able to cry in a long, long time, but a few tears escape and fall onto your legs, searingly warm against your skin.

---

In the morning, after a peaceful night sailing around the city, you go to a cafe.

You don't have any class that day, and, finding yourself too restless to sit in bed, you walk to a place you've used a couple times as a study spot.

An hour later, with an empty mug (the coffee was pretty good) sitting next to your laptop, you've calmed down enough to be absorbed in a book you brought with you.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" someone asks, in a strangely familiar voice.

Without looking up, or even really thinking about it at all, you reply: "Yeah, sure. That's fine."

"Thanks." The newcomer sits, and you look up for the first time.

That's Edith. She's at the cafe, sitting directly across from you, and she's Edith, lit up in the blue dawn light filtering in through the windows.

You try not to react. Edith stirs her... chai latte? That's probably a chai latte. Thinking about chai lattes make it a bit easier to ignore how much you feel like you're going to die on the spot.

You'd never seen Edith with her natural hair color (dark brown, like tree bark); you'd only ever seen her as a witch, with hair dyed green to match her magic.

Edith finishes stirring. You avert your eyes, not wanting her to think some guy was staring at her.

"What are you reading?" She asks.

You blink. "Reading...?"

Edith laughs and points at your book. "You are reading, right?"

"Oh! Uh." You'd completely forgotten. You flip it over to read the cover. "'The Left Hand of Darkness'? It's about, like, a space diplomat who visits an icy planet where everyone is nonbinary and they're in the middle of a cold war."

"Oh, a friend of mine recommended that to me!"

"Oh, cool." Wait, damn, you're the friend. You told her about it last week. You really need to work on your opsec.

"What's your name, by the way? I'm Edith."

"Uh." Fuck, that's the worst possible thing she could've said. If you say 'Morgan' Edith'll figure it out immediately, but you don't even have a deadname you could fall back on.

You try stalling. "What do you think it is?"

Edith blinks, taken aback, but she grins and says "Hmmmmm," tapping her chin with her hand in the way she always does when solving a puzzle, "lemme think."

You stare at her, mind completely blank.

Edith snaps her fingers. "Amaranth."

"Amaranth?"

"Yeah. You just kinda look like an Amaranth."

"...Is that even a name that people have?"

"It could be! It sounds nice. One of my friends was considering it for herself, once."

"It does sound nice." You take a sip of your coffee. "What did your friend end up going with?"

"'Saffron'. She's a biology major; she went through a lot of plant-related names."

Wait. "Wait." 'Saffron' as in... "Does she have long hair that she puts in a ponytail a lot?"

"Yeah!"

"Lesbian Saffron?"

"Yeah, exactly! Do you know her?"

Okay, let's not give away too much information. You've already revealed too much. "We eat lunch together, sometimes."

Edith smiles, satisfied, like she's solved a puzzle. "Oooooh, you must be one of those physics class boys. She's mentioned you guys a couple times."

Ouch. You knew, subconsciously, that it'd hurt if Edith thought of you as male, but you're surprised at how hard your chest is trying to collapse in on itself. You compress that feeling, putting off the anxiety attack for later, when you're alone in your room.

"Yeah, I guess so." You pause. "You, uh... you said she was picking names for herself. Is she. Uh. Trans?" You rub the back of your neck as you say this; you've never actually said the work 'transgender' out loud; it makes you nervous.

That, and your friend might've just gotten outed to you. Edith's probably gonna feel bad about that.

She does, judging by the way her eyes widen and how she seems to shrink, a bit. You want to give her a hug, but she doesn't know you're her friend and you'd definitely have that anxiety attack right now if anyone touched you with your body the way it is right now, awake and without your witch powers.

"Ah..." Edith looks like she might try to deny it, but she decides against it. "Yeah, she's trans." She glares at you. "Does that bother you?"

"No, no, that's cool." Wait, might that sound chaser-y? "I mean, it doesn't change how I see her." You can't stop yourself from saying: "Trans people are cool. I'm, uh, cool about trans people?" You try not to die of embarrassment.

She holds the glare for a second, then breaks it with a laugh. "I'm sure you are."

"Uh-huh." You squeak. You clear your throat. "But, uh, yeah, I guess I should tell her that I found out, now."

"Yeah, you should." She sighs. "She's gonna be mad at me, though..."

You want to give her a hug, again. Maybe you can figure out some way to comfort her tonight, when you can actually talk to her as her friend?

"Oh, hey: has she mentioned me before?"

"Uh..." You take a second to think. "No? Not that I can remember." Not quite true: she has mentioned Edith's witch persona, just not the woman herself.

"Yeah, that makes sense," she takes a half-smile, "she probably wouldn't be able to without mentioning that she's trans."

...What if Edith is trans, and they met at a support group or something? Or, like, a card game tournament. "Why's that?"

"I'll let her tell you herself, if she wants to. I've said too much already, I think."

"Mm. That's fair." But frustrating.

She stirs her latte a bit, then takes a sip.

You just, kinda... stare out the window. You're still full of nervous energy from Edith's appearance, so you're not in the mood to keep reading.

"Oh, hey!" Edith's holding her phone. "Saffron just texted me; she wants to hang out at her house. You could come with me and we could explain things together."

"I mean..." You start. You didn't really have any other plans for today -- you can't turn into a witch during the day (you've tried), and there's nothing else you'd want to do. You were probably just going to read all day. "If she's cool with it, yeah, sure."

---

Saffron, you discover, lives in one of those old houses across the river from the university. Her house is painted white, but that's been chipped away over what look like decades. An old pecan tree shades most of it and leaves the ground covered in shells.

Saffron lies in a wicker couch on the porch, taking lazy sips of lemonade through a bendy straw. "Hey!" She calls, between sips.

"Hey, Saffron," Edith says, melodically. "Guess who just accidentally found out that you're trans?"

Saffron rolls her eyes. "You already told me." She turns to you, looking into your eyes.

You wave at her.

She keeps staring.

You stop waving at her.

You can barely see her eyes behind her sunglasses. Why is she even wearing those? The sun isn't- "You're gonna be cool about it, right?" She asks, interrupting your thoughts.

"Uh." You cough. "Yeah, of course."

She grins. You feel a bit like you're looking at a wolf at the edge of a forest, surveying the land outside her domain. "You didn't tell me it was Morgan, Edith."

Did Edith seem surprised when she heard your name? You can't tell; you're standing a bit behind her, so you can't see her face. "Oh, is that his name? I've been calling him Amaranth."

Saffron sits up, laughing. "That's how you outed me?"

Edith's flustered. "There was this whole thing where he wanted me to guess what his name was, and, you know, he seems kinda eggy, so I thought it'd be funny, and..." She crosses her arms, and looks away. "It makes sense in context!"

'Eggy'? Really? You figured yourself out a couple years ago.

It's... probably worse to have been repressing it. You can't blame your current state on simple ignorance.

Well, at least you get to torment them a bit. "'Eggy'?" You ask, as innocently as you can.

They both stare at you.

Checkmate, nerds. You should think of a way to tease Edith about it some night, when you can speak to her as yourself.

"An egg is..." Edith starts.

"What she means by that is, uh..." Saffron continues.

They look at each other.

"It's an in-joke? You wouldn't really get it, since you're, y'know, cishet." Saffron concludes.

That ruins your mood, a bit. You almost felt, for a moment, like you were actually participating in a conversation.

Your reaction is probably visible on your face, because Edith chimes in to change the subject. "Oh, uh, do you have any more of that lemonade, Saffron?"

"Oh!" Saffron stands up, almost knocking over her own glass. "Yeah, yeah. Do you want any, Morgan?"

You nod, and she leads you into the house. She -- and her roommates, you assume -- have decorated the interior with a variety of posters and plants. A string of lights zigzags above you, down the length of the central hallway.

Saffron makes two glasses of lemonade when you reach the kitchen. Edith hands you one. "Here's yours, Amaranth." She says, with a smirk.

You take a long sip to hide your blush.

Saffron throws the fridge door closed. "Ya'll want weed, too? I've got some cookies in the freezer."

"Mm!" Edith 'says', caught in the middle of a sip of lemonade. She finishes it. "Yes, please!"

You stand in the corner, awkwardly sipping your lemonade.

Saffron holds out a cookie to you. "Want one?"

"Uh..." You have, traditionally, avoided weed and alcohol. Not because of some puritanical disagreement with the substances, but because you're worried that you'd accidentally reveal too much either of your identity as a witch or as a trans girl.

"Come on," Saffron says, waving the cookie in front of your face, "It'll be fun. We can play videogames!"

Fuck it. Edith doesn't seem worried about it, so it's probably fine.

It strikes you, suddenly, that you haven't felt this much like a real person outside of witch duties in... honestly, probably as long as you can remember. You, hanging out with people and making reckless decisions? Unheard of.

You hold out your hand. "Yeah, okay, fine." You say, with a half-smile.

Saffron places the cookie in your palm. You hesitate.

"It doesn't taste that bad."

"Yeah, yeah." You eat it in one bite. You drink the rest of your lemonade to try to wash out the taste.

---

They get you to play an RPG with them. You name your character 'Amaranth' and, perhaps unwisely, you make her look like yourself -- as a witch, not as you are awake. Edith gives you a weird look and you're certain she's figured it out, but she doesn't say anything. Maybe the idea is too ridiculous? Maybe she doesn't want to believe that you would lie to her like you have been?

Saffron, at least, cheers when you choose to play as a girl. Someone makes a joke about putting you in a dress in real life, and, god, you would love that, but you feel like seeing your body in a dress would give you an aneurysm.

You don't really like your usual clothes, but at least they let you ignore the shape of your corpse.

You'd never had weed before. You expected it to bring you out of your own head, at least a little, but you feel more like you've been split in two: self-critical and too introspective one moment, reckless and ridiculous the next. Twitchy, too; you feel like there's a little signal interference between your brain and your muscles.

You... think you're enjoying it? You're near-constantly smiling, at least, which is unusual for you. It's probably healthy to give yourself an excuse to relax.

The three of you become too high to continue the game. ("Sorry," says Saffron, "the weed's stronger than I thought!") Someone suggests a movie, so you end up on the couch, Edith and Saffron cuddling on one end and you having compressed yourself into the opposite corner, burning with envy because you can't allow yourself to join them.

They probably wouldn't want you to, anyway, your mind suggests.

The movie goes on and you slowly, gradually, decompress, until you've ended up lying with your legs over the couch's arm and your head in the seat. You're barely awake, only just managing to keep one eye open because you want to know how the movie ends.

"Amaranth," Edith begins -- she's been calling you that all night -- "could you get me some lemonade?" She draws out the vowels, sounding almost like she's singing.

Your eyes stay closed. You've only been listening to the movie for a while, now. "Why don't you get it yourself?"

"I'm trapped! Look!"

You look and, yeah, she'd have to push Saffron onto the floor if she wanted to stand up. "Yeah, okay, gimme a second."

"Thank you!"

You don't get up immediately -- you're so comfortable, and the house is just the right temperature, and you feel like you'd sleep so well if you let yourself. You just want a taste of that, before you stand up...

"Amaranth! Are you asleep?"

You probably were, for a second.

You force yourself up and stumble into the kitchen -- you notice Edith and Saffron both look like they're about to fall asleep, too, eyes closed and breathing softly.

You feel strangely light, as if you were almost floating; you guess that's just how being sleepy and high feels.

Wait, no. You must have fallen asleep, because you're in your witch form. Your daylight body must still be on the couch.

If you walk back in there now they'll see you and they'll know you've been lying to them, and Edith will realize that you only really exist at night, and she won't abandon you but you're so terrified that she'd see you differently, that she'd look at you with pity and that she'd start subconsciously scanning you for signs that you're not actually a woman, and...

Well. Saffron's not a witch, so you couldn't go back in there anyway.

You go out the back door, as quietly as possible, and let yourself fall back to your dorm room, sailing over the streetlights again. You never bother to lock the window (you're on the fourth floor), so you don't have to put any more effort into sneaking in than making sure there's nobody around to see you.

Your room, of course, is empty. Your bed is empty. You never actually, just, lie down while in witch form -- you're usually busy. You're high, though; you can take a break tonight.

You fall into bed, kicking off the boots you always materialize with after falling asleep. (Where do those come from, anyway, and where will they go if you demanifest while you're not wearing them?) Your clothes are comfortable and always clean at the start of each night, so you don't mind being in bed wearing them.

This is incredibly comfortable. Maybe it's just the weed, but you don't think you've ever been this comfortable just lying in bed before. Maybe, you think, you should do this more often.

What happens if you do fall asleep while you're in witch form? Do you just wake back up in your other body? Do you become, like, a double witch? You always end each night by demanifesting yourself and waking up in the morning as if you'd been dreaming.

Well, you think, nothing to do about it now. You let yourself drift off, dreamless.

---

You wake to the sound of someone opening your door. You bolt upright, summoning your sword to your hand before you even fully open your eyes.

You hear a sharp gasp from the doorway. It sounds... weirdly familiar?

It takes you a moment to fully comprehend what you're looking at.

You see yourself -- as you appear during the day -- standing in the hall outside the door. From the light through the window, you think it's around noon.

You and your other self stare at each other. She must have slept at Saffron's house -- she hasn't shaved. It's deeply uncomfortable to see that body from an outside perspective.

"...What?" She whispers.

You put your sword away. Her eyes follow your movement.

You wave at her. "Heeeeey."

She jumps at that, startled. "Wait, aren't you a hallucination?" She says, sounding manic.

You look down at yourself. "No?"

She laughs, hysterically. "Oh, okay, so, like, we're just," she waves her hand between the two of you, "we're both, just, here?"

You shrug. She looks up at the ceiling, then steps fully inside and closes the door. You and her start pacing around the room near simultaneously -- you are, after all, the same person. Mostly. You and her have had slightly different experiences for the past few hours.

You avoid looking at her.

"Okay. Okay." You say. You're probably better suited to lead this discussion -- at least, your voice sounds nicer than that of your other self.

She doesn't say anything.

"Obviously, going to sleep as a witch has fucked with us in some way." You continue.

"Or: the weed." She adds, near-inaudibly soft.

You nod. "Or the weed." You think for a moment. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"Hm." She closes her eyes. "Fell asleep on the couch, flew over here as, uh, you, fell asleep here." She looks back at you. "I felt weird waking up this morning, but I just assumed I- you- we had demanifested overnight." She looks away, muttering. "Probably should've just demanifested myself in the kitchen, honestly..."

"Yeah, that lines up with my memories -- minus this morning."

You stare at each other.

"So, what if I just, like, demanifest myself right now...?"

"We don't know if, uh, re-constituating(?) ourselves(?) while awake could cause problems, though."

"So: you go to sleep, then I demanifest?"

"Wouldn't it be just as much of a problem if my memories try to enter your head while you're awake?"

"True." You think for a second. "I go to sleep, you go to sleep, then I wake up and demanifest before you wake up?"

She makes a face. You really hate it. You look away. "Yeah, I guess." She says.

You look at the bed. "You wanna try that now, or...?"

"Sure? Lemme just, like, change into pajamas."

You turn around. She changes clothes, silently.

"Wait." She says.

"What?" You reply, still looking out the window.

"We only have the one bed."

"Oh, my god." You roll your eyes. "I mean, I guess I can just. Like. Levitate myself?"

She hums. "Yeah, guess so."

You hear her crawl into bed. "I'll wait til you're asleep, so, uh. Go ahead?"

You don't reply, already starting to levitate yourself high enough off the floor to keep your hair from touching the ground.

...

"Oh, this is really comfortable, we should do this more often." You half-mumble.

"Yeah, I mean, makes sense." She pauses. "We'd probably have to deal with this whole nonsense again, though."

You don't turn to look at her. "...It is kinda nice to be able to talk to myself, though."

"Can't imagine I'm nice to hear, though."

You both know your response.

---

Oh, fuck.

You can't demanifest.