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2019-08-19
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The Sword and the Dress

Summary:

She never wanted to bring glory, really, but she loved the outfit all the same.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

Djeeta had once read a book whose author was of the opinion that a true king, a king of power, would have a plain, unornamented sword but that could slice through stone, one that would show his rule through force instead of decoration. But she was never much of one for being a king even before the girl in blue had fallen from the sky, back before she knew herself, back in those days spent in Zinkenstill curled up reading books, wrapped in clothes and blankets to hide the self from the world. And now that she was in tune with herself, she wanted her outfit to resonate with her image, and that included the sword strapped to her side.

So she wielded a thing of beauty, a blade of steel and gold that shone pure white in her hands and flowed with each strike, honed by dispatching countless monsters (human and inhuman both) but no less sharp for doing so. Light trailed her strikes like the sun's afterimage, and some of those who saw her fight swore they saw that even the ghost of the sword could cut. The base pattern, the swordsmith had told her, was called a glorybringer for reasons lost to time, but she had no interest in glory. She wanted to bring justice, to bring truth, to bring a measure of fairness to a fucked-up world. She fought sometimes with her fists, with guns, with daggers, but time and time again she came back to her sword; she knew it so well that when she fought it was practically an extension of herself.

Her combat outfit also bore all the stylings of high fashion: a night-sky gown with the pattern modified to cover her shoulders, black as night with starlight sparkles and silver trim that caught the light of her blade. She'd been nervous about wearing such a thing at first instead of armor, but Therese had taught her how she could dodge in it, where to find enchanters that would proof it against hostile magic. She didn't wear it all the time; sometimes she preferred a simple lightly-armored pink outfit, or even heavy armor if the situation called for it. But the dress helped ensure people read her as a girl, and it was the first piece of women’s clothing she had ever found herself beautiful in, so it held a special place in her heart. It did occasionally lead to leering gazes from those who thought it was for show, but she was always quick to disabuse them of that idea at the edge of her blade.

The sword was her power, and the dress was herself, and when she wielded them together, she felt unstoppable, like no insult or strike could reach her. In those moments, she truly felt like herself, like the person she'd wanted to be all those years ago when the legendary adventurer's child and the red dragon fought monsters with a branch.

Every night she wore it, she hung it up just *so* in her closet (the enchantments were meant to protect against fire and darkness, not dust and wrinkles), a place where she could see it as she set out tomorrow's outfit on her end table. She put her sword on her nightstand, because she'd had to fight off boarders and monsters in her pajamas more than once in her career and the last thing she wanted to do was to stumble around for it. And she closed her eyes and let the dull roar of the Grandcypher’s engines and the rocking of the wind lull her to sleep.

Notes:

wrote this just as a little exercise to get *some* kind of trans!Djeeta representation on GBF and because I wanted to try to convince myself that it's okay to post small things on AO3

(and yes that is a Terry Pratchett reference)