judge and jury in my head

i'm not gonna go get the timestamps because i'm trying to be less of a twisted fucking cycle path lately but over the past probably year and a half? i've made comments off and on about "someday the minoade spirk lesbians" and as you may know trans woman adele has been in my back pocket for about the same length of time (so the minoade -> spirk mapping breaks down slightly wrt this flavor of gender). this has varying amounts to do with my irl wife and [redacted for brevity] i think i'm just about past the point i was waiting for where i no longer feel the need to pay a sort of due diligence to trans man minoth. it's been done. has it been done well? not by me, but as i consider my buzzed temples i think it's time we do this thing. thank you en

"I never will understand it."

Minoth makes no sign of acknowledgment and continues prodding at her cicada nest of interest. Adele can get dramatic like that - he'd never say he doesn't appreciate a drama queen.

What perplexes Torna's bastard edition at the current moment (and, implied, ad perpetuum both forward and backward) could be the Aegis, as ever. Could be public opinion and private politick, as ever. Could be the Aegis's cooking, or the Paragon's stigid refusal to help teach them.

In fact, it's something much more universal. Something much more mundane.

"Why is it that you're the one who gets the long hair?"

There's no time to answer, nor even to interject, before Adele continues: "You never even wear it down. It's like you'd rather not even have it!" Catching herself acting unkind and perhaps even just a touch childish, she amends, "It just seems like a rather cruel cosmic trick. You, with the luscious brown locks, and me, with the stubby gray thatch that even a Ponio wouldn't eat."

"I should hope not. You've had enough trouble growing it out as it is."

That earns Minoth a hearty swipe on the so-coveted crown, but it's a half-hearted princess-at-heart who slumps down beside her partner to cast dubious eyes at the scuttling everymen.

"Enormous shoulders, nothing to balance them in the back. Square jaw and squarer gestures. I feel quite hopeless, you know."

"Bumming it in the wilds not helping, huh?" asks Minoth, abandoning the bugs at last. She lets out a groan as she shifts from a crouch on haunches to a seat amid the grass-dotted dust - one that Adele seems to admire even for all its general masculinity. Well, there's gender envy and then there are types. So she's got a type, and a yen for the muscles to be on the "dreamy" one instead of the dreamer.

"I know, I know." Adele scowls. "No 'royal subjects' around to keep reminding me that I'm the King's son, even if not legitimately. Would that a bastard were as good as a girl, and they'd just let me be one."

"Thought about trying bangs?"

A snort. "Have you? Shove off, I haven't the hairline for it."

"Someday, princess, someday."

Neither is Minoth's hairline particularly suited to the forehead-shrinking style, but since he knows how to wear a high ponytail he's never sunk to the low style that, if you know where to look, always seems to lead to a pixie. This, of course, is where Adele's frustration lies, or rather from whence it stems: without the help of a single pill smuggled from Mungo, Minoth's chest is just the right size; her voice just the right timbre; her armour just the right style. There's no losing, for her.

For Adele, there's no winning. And it's quite rare that a sob story is really any good as a story at all, but Miinoth, however selfishly, knows that there is a resolution to this conflict a-brewing, however minor, that will satisfy the both of them in spades.

Someday Adele really will get to wear a dress and plaits that match the ladies of Auresco even better than the workmen (yes, indeed, the everymen) do - in more than just spirit. Someday she won't have to wear armour that makes as-yet-nascent breasts resemble pectorals as if it were made to masculinize anyone at any band size. Someday she'll shout out for her comrades and hear the training of a warrior maiden without a single husk - a tone higher and clearer than Minoth's, if you can believe!

Gendered by platitude and social station, is Adele. Left largely free of those devices, is Minoth.

"At least it's easy for one of us," says Adele, stealing the thought from Minoth's head (a conceit she's still gathering day by day, never to match the master).

Still, "Easier," Minoth corrects. "I won't say that having to substantiate a mostly-metaphysical identity as if it really matters one way or the other, considering how little I've had to actually do about it, is one of the greatest struggles a person can face in a world like this, but at least you've got something to show for it. At least people will actually understand what you're talking about, when all's said and done."

Adele shifts where she's settled in Minoth's arms, against his surprisingly soft (cruel fate, wenches both!) chest. "How could anyone not understand you? You're so sure of yourself. You'll always be you. I have no doubt of that."

"Aha. Methinks the lady has hit a lodestone."

"Is the master feeling generous enough to elaborate?"

Of course she is. She always is. Well...most of the time. "You attribute my confidence to the gender I feel most comfortable presenting. The devil-may-care yet gets-what-she-wants butch who's high maintenance yet low frills."

"It will be quite a boon to have a wife whose perfume I can steal without ever having to buy it for myself," Adele admits.

"Irrelevant," says Minoth. "Tangential, at best."

(Before Adele can scoff, she runs a tender knuckle over cool cheekbones as a quasi-apology.)

"To the point: that's me. I make it look easy."

"Like you make knife-twirling acrobatics look easy, indeed! You've never missed a step."

Minoth remains undeterred by the returning huff of a scorned princess.

"You think that confidence is part of my gender. And it is. But what about yours?"

Frowning, Adele makes a second admission: "Part of Addam's, certainly."

"Adele, my love..."

The hand resting alongside jawbone turns to take face in hand.

"You're still you."