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Marc looks around the shop. They're searching for something to help out with the whole gender thing — something that will give them the answers they seek. A pigeon looks at him from a perch in the shop. Meanwhile, a man stands behind the counter. There's a large cooler behind him. Marc catalogs the rest of the shop — half is filled with various baubles, while the cooler behind the man is filled with...ice cream?
Huh. Magic ice cream. Who knew?
“Welcome to the Coldstone Charmery!” the man behind the cash register declares. “How may I help you?”
Marc looks around some more. “I’m, um, looking for some…answers.”
“Answers, hmm? We can most likely help you with that. What do you need to know?”
“I want to know who I am,” Marc says, digging their hands into their pockets. "They" fits like a glove right now, but it doesn't always, and they need to know why. "I just need to know why my mind is the way it is. How exactly I’m supposed to be identifying myself."
Andre shakes his head. "I can't help you with that. Soul-searching is something you need to do on your own. However, we do sell a potion that will allow you to go into the depths of your soul and search for yourself."
"Journey...into my own soul?" Marc asks.
"It'll send you into a deep sleep while you do so." The worker steps out from behind the counter and looks through the charms on the shelf. "Ah! Here we go. This is the charm." He holds it gingerly. "If you wear this, you will be able to see into your own soul while dreaming."
Marc takes the necklace. "I'll try it."
"Customer satisfaction is our first priority," the man says. Marc finally gets a good look at his nametag — Andre is the man's name. "If you find that it wasn't sufficient to answer your questions, then you may return it for a full refund. Now, will that be cash, credit, or memories?"
"How much?" Marc asks. They understand that magic requires some kind of trade, and these sorts of shops need to stay open.
Andre looks down at the charm. “Well, young…child, soul-searching will be difficult for you. I do not wish to induce monetary suffering on top of that.”
Marc grabs their wallet, and pulls out the largest bill they have in there — twenty euros. “Will this be enough?”
“This, and one of your more frivolous memories. Something worth forgetting.” Andre returns to the counter and punches some numbers into the register. He puts the twenty euro bill in.
Something worth forgetting. The memory of a time from their childhood comes to their mind; the insults of those around them were scathing. They’d like to forget that.
The memory is clear. “I’m ready,” they say. Andre has an empty vial in his hand. He chants an incantation, then plucks the memory away and puts it into the vial. Marc tries to remember what they gave Andre, but the spot where the memory once was is blank. They suppose that’s just how the magic works.
They take the charm and stuff it into their pocket. “Thank you.”
At home, they look at the charm. It’s pretty simple, but gives off a magical aura that they can’t quite shake.
They put it on, and feel the sensation of their body hitting the floor before they open their eyes.
“Where am I?” they murmur to themself. “Is this…”
This must be the inside of their soul. They look around. It doesn’t look like how they would’ve expected their soul to look like — this place is mostly just a miasma of fog.
“It’s like this because that’s how this magic will represent it,” a voice says. Marc turns around.
“Who are you? Where are you?”
“I’m the disembodied voice of your conscience,” the voice answers.
Marc stares at what they approximate is the voice’s source. It doesn’t sound like their voice, not even the voice inside their head. “I doubt that.”
“That was a shitty joke, I’m sorry.” The form of a person comes out. “I’m the guide to soul-searching.”
“What should I call you?” Marc asks.
The person’s features are strange and obscured. “Call me whatever you want. The name I usually choose for myself is Orikko. And, before you ask, I use they/them pronouns.”
“...okay,” Marc says. They look around a little bit. “So this is my soul?”
“What were you looking for?” Orikko asks. Even as they approach Marc, their features are still obscured to them. “Why’d you decide to enlist my help?”
“First of all, I didn’t sign up for a spiritual guide or whatever,” Marc says, trudging forwards through the fog. “I just signed up to search through my own soul.”
“But what were you looking for?” Orikko asks.
“Gender,” Marc responds. It’s easy enough to adjust how they address themself in their head. Harder to ask the world to do it for them.
“Yeah, I kind of got that vibe from you,” Orikko says. “They/them pronouns are fine for you?”
“For now,” Marc responds, fidgeting with the charm around their neck. “But not always.”
“Hmm, alright.” Orikko grabs Marc’s wrist with a hand that only looks partially present. “This way. Gender is a part of you and the concept of your perception, but the soul isn’t all segmented. It’ll be hard to find.”
“Where are we right now?” Marc asks.
“We’re just on the outskirts,” Orikko says. “This is where you start when you soul-search — the little superficial things. The things you like doing. You’re a writer.”
“How’d you get that just from the fog?”
“Just listen,” Orikko says. Marc can’t do that when they’re talking, but they stop long enough to let Marc listen — and the fog coalesces into a few distinct forms. They lean towards it, the form of them working over a desk, but Orikko pulls them back. “Avoid touching. These are the sorts of manifestations you can get when you really stop and pay attention to what your soul is telling you about yourself.”
“Oh.” He looks at it. “Neat. So would gender be…”
“Deeper, but not to the depths. It is both part of how you look at yourself and how others look at you. Deeper than your hobbies, but not as deep as your core values,” Orikko explains.
That makes…a lot of sense, actually.
The fog only grows thicker as the two of them head deeper in, Orikko dragging Marc by the hand.
“Here we are. The next layer of your soul,” Orikko declares, dropping Marc’s wrist. “Not sure where the gender is, but if you watch long enough, it’ll show up.”
Marc waits and watches.
A few bits of fog drift by, but nothing illuminating — until one that looks like them shows up, and morphs a few times.
Huh.
Okay.
Sure.
They think they’ve gotten their answer. They remove the charm from their neck.