Chapter 1Fshes of the Future7 January 2022"Watch this, Ay!"

  Amy jumps up from her chair, bances herself on her right leg, gathers a little momentum and starts to spin in her simple striped, pastel coloured shirt, frilly skirt and thigh-highs, like she is an experienced dancer.

  Ace, on the other side of the webcam, bites her lip. Not that Amy could see that – Ace turned her webcam off habitually.

  "Skirt,” She makes sure her friend watches. “goes spinny. Now you try!"

  "Ayms. I could never. I would look like such a freak in a skirt–”

  “What makes you think that, sweetheart?” Amy asks.

  “Because I’m me.”

  Her best friend spins back on the computer chair and frowns. "Are you merely-ing again?"

  "I don't want to merely.” Ace whispers.

  "Sweetie..."

  Ace couldn’t be any more gd to have Amy as a friend. She's bubbly, fun, supportive and shockingly smart. For the past year, she has talked Ace into trying more and more of the feminine things she’s always wanted to do. These little acts of femininity may have been limited to the confines of her own room, with curtains closed and doors locked, but nonetheless immeasurably dear to her. Bringing out the her in her rather than the he she’s been forced by misfortune to inhabit, even if that him is more comfortable at times than she likes to admit.

  Amy keeps trying to tell her that Ace can have a simirly successful transition as her, but Amy is Amy, and Amy is amazing, and Ace, to everyone’s great disappointment, is still merely Ace.

  “You’re going to get there some day. You can do it.” She tries to reassure her, but it never works. It’s so easy for Amy to say that. Amy, who realised she is trans at sixteen years old. Amy, with her wealthy, supportive parents who helped her DIY when the NHS refused to give her the meds she needed. Amy, who was naturally small and tender and adorable and thus had the perfect raw material for transition into the cutest, most girly girl she’d ever known.

  All things Ace never got to have.

  “Thank you.” She responds, hoping that her envy wasn't noticeable in her voice. “One day. Maybe once I have a better job.”

  Amy frowns. “First it was some money.” She starts, and Ace knows exactly how this is going to go. “Then it was some more money, then it was a job and now, girl, you’re talking about a better job?”

  Ace is too embarrassed to give an answer to that rhetorical question.

  “You’ll have to start someday. Preferably sooner rather than ter.”

  “Ayms… You may be meddling a little too much.”

  “I know. But I’m right.” She insists. And of course she is right! If Ace was anyone but, well, Ace. “You need to take a step someday, because you’re just keeping yourself miserable by deying things more and more.”

  She needs some way to appease her friend, before her friend starts doing something on her own initiative. She’d probably come all the way up to Leeds and inject her with oestradiol herself, and whilst that would be exciting, she’s not exactly going to want to expin that to the others in her dorm.

  “Okay, Ayms. I’ll look into that fundraiser you wanted me to set up. For HRT.”

  Amy squeals with happiness at the news. “I’ll help! One second, I’ll–”

  Ace watches her roll her chair forwards and start typing, but is a little surprised when she finishes the entire process within thirty seconds.

  “How’s this, Ay?” She beams.

  “You had that all written up already, didn’t you? Don’t you trust me to make a post on a fundraising website?

  “Ay. You couldn’t sell a sausage to a starving wolf, let alone ask for charity money. So yes– I’m prepared. I’m always prepared.” She scrolls through the now published fundraiser.

  “You don’t have to say something just because it happens to be true.” Ace blushes.

  “It’s called ‘tough love’, silly.” Amy sticks her tongue out. “And you need quite a bit of that.”

  13 January 2022Ace finally feels confident enough to check the ongoing result of the fundraiser that Amy had set up st week. It takes her a while to scroll back up to the link that she had posted in their DMs, scrolling past over a thousand messages of conversation to finally find what would be the gateway to her transition, hopefully.

  She breathes in, closes her eyes, and presses the left mouse button.

  ￡50 total, from one donation, anonymously, but she knew it was from Amy. That barely gets her a month of HRT. She logs in with the password that her friend had made for her, which would have been much less long and annoying to type into the relevant box if she had copy-pasted it into the chat, rather than written it down by hand and put an image into a shared drive stuck behind a simirly annoying and secure password, mailed to her in two separate letters using two different mail carriers a few months ago for a little project of hers.

  She looks at the page, scrolls through it, reading the text, talking about her struggles and her unsupportive family and the fact that she can barely afford rent in Leeds as is, as well as including some pictures of her that Ace didn’t even know Amy had. That could just be her memory failing her, however, she’s exchanged a lot of information with Amy, and on servers they’re both in, and shared entire albums of pictures, and frankly, there’s a million different pces she probably got those images from because her opsec, unlike Amy’s, is fucking bad.

  After a sigh and some trepidation, Ace refunds Amy and deletes the fundraiser. It’s just not going to work out, no one will support her and she should just give up trying to transition on this rubbish isnd and in this overpriced dump of a city rather than continuing to hurt herself by imagining it would be possible.

  She had gotten excited at the prospect of finally starting HRT as well. That it might finally be happening. But nothing good ever happens to her. So why even try.

  14 January 2022She’s been getting anonymous texts all day. Someone is ciming they saw her delete her fundraiser and is wondering if she needs help. One way or another, they found her phone number, and now they’re taunting her inability to transition by offering to meet up with her and get her the ‘resources’ she wants. She keeps blocking these people, but more messages come streaming in.

  “Ugh!” Ace leans away from the microphone, navigating through the block screen with an efficiency she wishes she was incapable of. “These people are the worst.”

  “These people?” Amy asked, taking a bite from an apple, distracted by the game of Civilization VI on her screen.

  “Some assholes are sending me anonymous text messages about getting access to HRT. Probably to taunt me. It has to be so funny to abuse a trans woman like this.”

  “Oh. How do you know they’re assholes?” Her friend asks, and Ace can see on the screen she’s sharing in consensus that she just figured out which new technology to research. Mathematics, apparently.

  “Because this is the kind of cruel thing that 4chan would do, Ayms. That’s why they’re anonymous.” Ace raises her voice a little, failing to hide her anger at the situation.

  “People trying to give you or sell you controlled substances would do so by giving you a fully doxable collection of information? In this political environment?” She takes another bite of her apple. “Put up a big sign with ‘Daily Mail come look! Tranny perverts illegally giving away their little freak pills!’ That’s why I do all this opsec stuff, Ace. Because I don’t want to deal with the transphobic nonsense in this country.”

  “It could also be the 4chan theory.” Ace insisted. “More likely, probably.”

  “It could. You don’t know. You could be missing out on a good thing, something you want, something you need, because you’re being a little anxious about it.”

  “That’s…” Ace wanted to say it made no sense, that it couldn’t make sense, but it did make sense, because of course Amy had a good fucking point. “Okay. Fine. I’ll talk to them, okay? Would that please Her Majesty?”

  “Good! Happy you remember how to refer to me, sweetie.” Amy smiles. “And yes, you should at least try to respond and see what they want. I just want you to be happy, Ay. You deserve much better than you have.”

  18 January 2022When Ace agreed to the meeting, she was expecting a lot of things. Mostly various shades of nothings, but she wasn’t expecting to meet with an actual person.

  A really pretty person at that. Someone that makes her lesbian heart beat ever so slightly faster through mere conceptual presence, and a lot faster through sight. She barely looks like she’s in her mid-twenties, but despite her youth she looks like she has a lot of money as well: the dress had to be tailored, with how well it accentuates all her already beautiful features. Her red hair is pulled into a ponytail, pyful but also business-like; her make-up is perfect or non-existent; her blue dress, perfectly contrasting with her hair, accentuating her chest and her hips and–

  The woman cps her hands in front of Ace’s nose. “You can drool ter, darling. The name’s Eira. Eira Willis. You must be Ms. Howells?” Eira holds up a finger to Ace’s mouth. “No– Don’t answer. It has to be her. Only someone like Ms. Howells would stare at a woman like that. Primarily with envy of her beauty, rather than the pure lust that you’d see from mere men,” She adds a significant, but not undeserved level of scorn to the word. “Though, if I did my research right, there is definitely an element of a more healthy, respectful lust as well involved. Please, sit down.”

  Ace’s entire face turns red for a moment, blinking and at the woman in front of her, unsure what to say to all that.

  “Ms. Howells?” She coughs softly. “Your coffee is getting cold.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry ma’am.” Ace blurts out, quickly sitting down at the table in the corner of the café they agreed to meet. At least she was being polite in her minor panic.

  “Good that you’ve already picked up on the fact that I am to be ‘ma’am’-ed, young dy.” Eira ughs, pulls a tablet out of her bag and pces it on the table, facing towards herself.

  “I strive to be polite.”

  “That will get you far in the world, Ms. Howells. Now–” The woman enters a whisper, holding a cartridge of twenty-eight little blue pills in front of Ace. “Let’s just immediately get to the point. You wanted some of this, didn’t you?”

  “Um.” She looks down at the oestrogen on the table, so close, so real. “Yes, I would really like those, ma’am.”

  Eira opens the cartridge, dropping one of the pills into her hand. Before Ace can say anything, she grabs Ace’s hand and presses the pill inside her palm. With her other hand, she passes Ace a gss of clear water. “Please, feel free to take it. I’ll make you feel a lot better.”

  “Ma’am?” Ace blushes, feeling extremely guilty for having to accept the generosity of the woman in front of her. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because I saw you, Ms. Howells, and I saw your potential to become an amazing woman some day. You could be beautiful, you could be skillful, you could steal the heart of all the girls in the world if you tried and if you had the support you deserve to reach that higher state of being.”

  Ace quickly swallows the pill. It’s definitely a pcebo, because the estradiol hasn’t been processed yet, but she can already feel such a spike of joy at the fact that after so many years she finally gets to take estradiol!

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?” Eira smiled down at her, and it’s at this point that Ace realises she’s sitting down on a couch whilst the woman across from her is sitting on a retively tall chair.

  “Um. Yes, Ms. Willis. A little intense, maybe, but good.”

  “What would you be willing to do for more of these little blue pills, Ms. Howells?” The woman leans forward, arms resting on the table.

  “What do you mean?” Ace cocks her head.

  “I thought it was a rather simple question? Perhaps, for your understanding, it might be better to reformute. What wouldn’t you do for more of this?”

  She blinks a couple of times, unsure how to even begin to answer.

  “There’s nothing you wouldn’t do?”

  “Uh. Violence? Crimes?” Ace blushes. “I don’t know. It’s such a big question.”

  “Maybe this helps you consider the question more.” Eira turns the tablet screen to Ace, showing her two transition timelines. Both women, even if they were already kind of cute when going into the programme, were stunning by the end of it. “Over the past few years, I’ve asked these women the same question, Ms. Howells. Our programme has helped them transition, to grow, to develop, to flourish and become incredible women in their own rights. And we want to help you too, to become like them.”

  With the permission of Eira, Ace scrolls a little, completely shocked by what she sees in the images. It’s… possible? She gets to be like… that too?

  “You seem to be interested in my proposal, aren’t you?”

  “Um. A little overwhelmed by the amount of information, but indeed quite interested in what I’m seeing.”

  “What we offer you is this. Free hormone repcement therapy, for the rest of your life. Facial feminisation surgery. Gender reassignment surgery, if you so wish. Other surgeries as you see fit and desire. Our organisation will make such a beautiful woman out of you, Ms. Howells.” Eira takes her hand again. “I know it’s hard to believe, you’ve said as much, haven’t you? That you could never live up to the standards of cis women, let alone the women I’ve shown you?”

  Ace frowns. “I couldn’t.”

  Her frown turns into sheer astonishment once the woman across from her swipes to the right and shows her an image so mind boggling that she cannot help but stare at it.

  “Forgive us for taking a little creative liberty with the image, but this could be you, Alice.”

  “You–” She stutters, watching herself staring back at her through the screen. “You could–”

  “We will help you become this, if you let us.” She whispers. “You’ll be incredible.”

  “But– why?” People do a lot of things out of the good of their hearts, but this is above and beyond anything she could imagine being done for pure charity.

  “Let me repeat my earlier question to you, Ms. Howells. What wouldn’t you do to become this? Other than the aforementioned violence and crimes, that is.”

  “Um.”

  “I hope you can forgive us for… snooping in your browser history a little. You would describe yourself as someone of a sapphic disposition, no?”

  “A lesbian, yes.” Ace holds her hands together under the table, fixing her gaze on the gss of water in front of her, so she isn’t staring at the woman in front of her instead.

  “We’ll teach you the boundless beauty of the English nguage as well, love.” Eira smiles. “And you would describe yourself as someone who enjoys pleasing others in addition to your enjoyment of the greater half of humanity, correct?”

  “I suppose I do. But–” Ace wants to say something, but the words are unable to leave her mouth.

  “I am a representative of one of Britain’s foremost noble dies, Ms. Howells. Someone with a great… interest in helping young trans women like you flourish. The offer that we want to make to you is quite simple. You get to become this.” She points at the image. “You live at the manor of the aforementioned noblewoman with two others, as well as a woman who will help you develop your femininity to much higher levels than the cis can even pretend to aspire to. You help maintain the property, follow our csses and our rules and in due time, you’ll become this.”

  “And?”

  “And, on occasion, if you’re willing, you get to participate in some of the greatest joys that one can extract from the human body with the owner of the manor or the other girls there.”

  Ace bites her lip, blushing.

  “You think that’s hot, don’t you, darling?” Eira leans forward, resting her chin on her interced fingers, palms facing downwards.

  “Um.” She looks at the woman in front of her, in all her beauty, she looks at the woman on the tablet, in all her beauty, she looks at herself, in all her failure, and she thinks about all her fantasies and hopes and desires and realises that there is only one possible answer.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Ace whispers. “I do.”