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Rain ran in rivulets down the glass window, distorting the outside as it boiled and steamed. Philip’s breath momentarily fogged the glass as he let out his pent up stress. The beautiful landscape of the Boiling Isles was shrouded in clouds this day, much like the first time he encountered this wretched world.
The air behind him shifted and he called out to the door, “come in Hunter.”
Hunter scuttled into the room, dropping to one knee as he had been instructed to. His quick heartbeat and slightly sweaty skin betrayed his intentions before he could speak.
Philip turned from the window and looked upon his ‘nephew.’ The boy was shaping up into a fine Golden Guard, so obedient and predictable. Even so, he had some flaws. Things that could never be erased in the making of a grimwalker.
“Belos, I… I don’t know how to say this. You’re my uncle, and I am so thankful to have you. Your approval means the world to me. So, I hope you can accept that I am-”
Philip held his tongue. He held in the groan of boredom that threatened his lips. He shoved down the urge to cover his eyes and pray for strength. It was always the same introduction.
Playing in the churchyard with his brother as a child, he had laughed when Caleb said he wanted to play the priest instead of the nun. The days wore on and Caleb never played the nun again, tore his skirts apart, and slashed his hair to bits. And he used the same introduction even then.
“Your approval means the world to me.”
Philip could live with it. Their family was insignificant to the town, just more mouths to feed. Caleb enforced his new name, sewing his skirts into pants, and nobody batted an eye. They were never far from each other, always rooming together exclusively, quick to cover when the effects of Eve’s sin happened. Philip loved his brother as his brother. It broke his heart to kill him.
He screamed when the first successful grimwalker crawled out of the ground with a female figure and long blonde hair. Poor thing only lived a minute.
The next grimwalker was the same, but he was prepared this time. In an effort to distance his pet from the memories of his brother, Philip raised him as a daughter. It was fine and good, until he sat down and tearfully admitted to being a boy. Again, Philip could live with it. He fixed up Caleb’s wardrobe and semantics. He thought it odd how God could once again give him a brother where there was none before.
By the tenth grimwalker, he was less amazed at God’s grace and more annoyed at the tense confession he had to sit through. He stopped giving away the masculine clothes of the past grimwalkers, instead lending them as appropriate to the new ones.
Hunter he raised differently. He figured, if what he couldn’t stand most about it was the teary-eyed talks, then he could skip right over all that and just have a boy right out of the ground. It was such a God-given plan that he hardly stopped to consider what this would mean socially. Quite frankly, he overlooked how this pre-acceptance of Hunter's confession could lead to issues when he did grow up and interact with the real world and all it's diversity.
Everyone in the castle knew Hunter as his nephew.
All his wardrobe had was shirts and pants and jackets, as would be appropriate for a boy.
Not once had anyone so much as mentioned the possibility of transitioning gender to Hunter, and he never brought it up at the age when the other grimwalkers had.
Philip thought he was in the clear this time. He split his time between saving this world and preventing the catastrophe that was gender from rearing its head again. He thought if he just stayed one step ahead of the gender stuff then he could avoid it all. If he offered the right potions and lotions and words then he could enact God’s will before divine intervention. But, he had once again failed.
“-part demon. I think this because of something I read in my books. According to the diagrams, I should look a lot like Lilith in my chest area. But, I don’t. There are inconsistencies in a lot of physical ways that could be explained if I was born from a witch and demon,” Hunter finished his confession.
Philip could not control it as his arm spasmed into its monstrous form and punched the window, sprinkling glass into the puddles below. He forlornly looked to the cloudy sky, begging God to explain where he had misstepped so dramatically this time. His arm restructured into human appearance and he did cover his eyes this time. His voice shook as he prepared to have a long, long talk with his grimwalker. “Come, sit, there are things to discuss.”
God’s will be done.