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It was a strawberry milk shade. Careful ruffles lining the bottom. Surely, if he twirled in it, it would bellow out a bit. The straps were about an inch thick, resting neatly on the mannequin's shoulders. The fabric folded a bit, creating creases along the chest, falling down into a flowing bottom. Lace lined the outside, but the discomfort of the texture was masked with the silk underneath it. And oh, it would fit quite nicely, wouldn’t it? It took a moment for Willow to notice Hunter had stopped walking beside her.
At first, she spun her head back in sudden worry, the street market was unfortunately crowded, and the human realm shared the Boiling Isles’ understanding of “stranger danger.” The moment of anxiety was replaced quite quickly, however, as her gaze fell upon a wonderstruck expression, wide eyes and mouth fallen open a little. She was quick to meet his side, and followed his distant gaze up to the window. It was a pretty dress, soft pastel in color. But her attention strayed to meet Hunter’s cautious reflection. She noted how the light against the window reflected the clothing right on top of Hunter’s tall frame. He sucked in a slow breath. Lips pursing and brows furrowing skeptically, before noticing Willow’s reflection beside his own.
“Oh,” he was quick to compose himself, blinking away the visual that stung against his eyes and fell into his mind. “Sorry, I- got distracted.” The way he breathed in the middle of the sentence, and kept his gaze painfully downcast sent a sort of twinge into Willow’s chest. She wasn’t blind. There was something so desiring about his stare before, and something so sorrowful about it now. It didn’t take long for her to make up her mind.
“Let’s go inside!” She cheered, taking his hand carefully and tugging towards the door. And Hunter suddenly seemed defensive, as if he was caught doing something horribly wrong.
“What? Why?” Despite his confused inquiry, he let the girl drag him into the shop, enjoying the sudden warmth spreading along his arm. The bell overhead chimed as they slipped inside.
“We can try on some clothes!” Was her eager response. It was a small outlet. Packed with sunny clothes and, much to Willow’s obvious liking, greenery. She slowed her pace slightly to look around, letting out an exaggerated “oooh” which Hunter found stupidly amusing. Her arm remained wrapped around his own, losing its firmness, as he began to match her pace. They weaved in between clothing racks, Hunter silently letting her drag him this way and that, only adding his occasional commentary on something she found particularly favorable.
“Oh my Titan, look at the little daisies on these shorts!”
“They’d suit you quite well, Captain.” Despite her playful and dismissive shove, Hunter took pride in the pink that would bloom on her upper cheeks. Throughout the course of their browsing, they, or Willow, created quite a collection of clothes to try on. All of which, Hunter carried without any protesting. In fact, when she offered to help, he completely rejected the idea.
It didn’t take long for Willow to return to her initial objective. Only after seeing Hunter’s eyes drift upon a pretty pink dress near the front window.
“Oh look!” She casually gasped, as if he wasn’t looking, as if she hadn’t seen him looking. She unhooked their arms, much to Hunter’s dismay and walked towards the rack, gently removing one of the outfits of interest from the others beside it. “It’s the same one in the display,” she noted, rather nonchalant, and Hunter nodded weakly. His eyes fell onto the floor, and his ears pinked in some silent shame. “Wanna try it on?” The red spread to his face, and his gaze whipped upwards as if she had said something outlandish. His mouth moved, but no words escaped at first. He swallowed and tried again,
“What?” There was a great deal of wavering in his voice. And Willow felt a tug of concern against her chest, felt only a few minutes prior upon seeing Hunter’s look of sorrow outside the little shop.
“Do you want to try it on?” She repeated, more gentle this time, more cautious. Hunter visibly shuddered on an exhale. And she stepped a bit closer.
“That’s a dress.” He stated, as if it wasn’t obvious. And Willow couldn’t help the witty remark that followed,
“How observant you are.”
"But isn’t-” he chewed at his bottom lip, struggling with the unsaid words. Willow had come right in front of him now. And she looked up at him reassuringly. “Dresses are for girls.” There was an unexpected bitterness to the words that Willow couldn’t quite place. But she noticed the way he made a wincing expression, as if the word “girls” left Hunter with some sort of sour sting.
Willow wasn’t blind. She wasn’t blind. Hunter had always held himself with some sort of discomfort, as if there was something incorrect about his general existence. He’d grimace at his reflection, and what Willow originally interpreted as hatred for his scarring, seemed to go deeper than a surface level appearance. Hunter behaved as if a wrong was buried in his body, clawing at his self image, and destroying some desperate gripe for comfortability.
Then there was his somewhat distorted outlook on certain things. Willow liked to believe it was all the horrid counsel of Belos, but through conversation with Luz, she soon learned a large amount of the human realm fell into the same distasteful ideology. Though witches on the isles believed in a variety of questionable things in the past, they never carried such beliefs into the future. But it seems some foolish members of the human realm were still far too insistent on “gender roles” and things of the sort.
“Dresses are for everyone, hun.” She corrected gently, not missing the way his breath fell into a gasp at the pet name, and affection in her voice. She held the dress up, aligning the straps on his shoulders and pressing it gently against his chest. His hands fell naturally on top of her waist in response and she gave him a victorious smirk. “Sure you don’t wanna try it on?” Whatever defiance he had built up fell weakly beneath his feet, and he lolled his head to the side, biting hard on his tongue.
“I’ll try it on.” He didn’t miss the way she clenched her visits in subtle celebration, or grinned wickedly at her far too easy persuasion.
Willow made sure to try on a decent amount of clothing before drawing any attention back to the previous topic of interest, ensuring Hunter a break from the pressure of the situation. She would hate to unintentionally force him into something he was truthfully against, so she prioritized an assurance that he had no obligation before the eventual try-on. Hunter did, eventually, uphold his previous declaration, kindly requesting his girlfriend leave the room before slipping out of his casual attire. He fidgeted with the fabric, questioning how best to put it on. His gaze was firmly downcast, wary of the all too evident image in front of him, waiting to meet his eyes with an unsatisfactory visual. Stepping into it would be easiest, he decided, dropping it rather thoughtlessly onto the cold tile, before stepping into the center. Instinctively, he hiked onto his tiptoes to avoid the bottom of his shoes tainting any part of the strawberry pink dress, and bent over to pick up the straps. It slipped on rather effortlessly, gently clinging to his thin stature, and dropping loosely around his legs. He watched the way it swayed with him when he turned and bit hard on his lower lip to suppress a giddy smile.
Then, came the scary part. Hunter took his time meeting his reflection, turning over his shoulder with frightful apprehension. But upon seeing the mirrored image, a gasp fell from his lips, and he spun abruptly to face himself, hand clasping over his mouth rather dramatically. It looked nice. It was a bit short above his ankles, but he didn’t notice. It was a bit scratchy against his arms, but he hardly felt it. Rather, his mind was occupied with how the pastel shade complemented his blonde hair, complimented flapjack’s gentle brown eyes, even the frightening faded pink of his scars became suddenly pretty next to the gown. His heart leaped somewhere high in his throat, and he swallowed hard. Because, oh, there I am. The thought made his stomach drop rather alarmingly, and he turned away with equal haste.
“Hunter, can I come in?” Willow’s voice was equally distant as it was concerned and it fell accompanied with a gentle knock. Air finally caved into Hunter’s lungs in a startled gasp, and he unlocked the door with shaky hands. It creaked open slowly, and he suddenly felt as if he had been caught doing something horribly wrong, and willingly so. When Willow’s gentle green eyes fell upon him, they widened, not in some discouraged state. Quite the opposite, she looked amazed, she looked in love. “Hunter,” His chest fluttered, and he nodded affirmatively,
“Captain?”
“You look beautiful.” He felt it first in the tips of his fingers, a sort of satisfactory tingling. Then it spread, warmer, pleasant, filling up his limbs with some sappy sense of serenity. The smile that encased his features was unpreventable, and equally impossible to hide away. His cheeks burned at the praise, and Willow’s gaze softened somehow.
“Do you like it when I call you that, flower?” Yes. Not fully trusting his voice, however, he nodded shyly. “Can I come in with you?” The sudden realization that she still stood in the doorway hit him like a brick.
“Yeah, of course.” A slight stutter occupied his tone and he shifted to the side rather awkwardly. Willow carefully latched the door shut behind them upon her entry, and took gentle steps behind Hunter, who turned his head a bit to follow her movements, before tracing her eyes onto his reflection. He watched the way her gaze panned upward, following the lining of pink fabric, until meeting Hunter’s scarred face with a smitten smile. She wrapped herself around him a bit, and Hunter felt so intensely conscious of where her fingers rested above his waist, watching every movement. Her chin fell contently on top of his shoulder, making it rather apparent she was on the tips of her toes behind him.
His reflection was always far more appealing when Willow’s was beside it. It went from something rather discomforting, to something pleasant. From something dissuading, to convincing. Willow’s fond stare showed no signs of detaching itself from him, so he looked elsewhere for a moment.
“So, what do you think?” Right, Hunter was in a dress. A pink flowy dress that incased his legs and swept up his back. For a moment he had forgotten. For a moment the attire seemed like a normalcy. He swallowed tentatively, “Dresses are for everyone, hun.”
“I like it…” He confessed, and an accidental frown fell across Willow’s features at the non-discrete guilt in his tone, but a smile was quick to replace it.
“That’s good! It’s so pretty on you.” Pretty. Hunter couldn’t explain the elation that accompanied the word. It made his head spin with pride and his cheeks lifted into a helpless grin.
“Thank you,” he sighed, charitable as always, and turned back to his stature with a face of content. “I feel more like myself, I think.” It was said with an unstable amount of consideration. And his heart pounded at the public declaration of something so private.
An indecipherable glint flashed behind Willow’s eyes. And she opened her mouth, before pausing to better form her words. It was clear she was debating the best means of approaching a conversation so fragile.
“Do you not… feel like yourself normally?” He tensed under her touch and Willow fought back any regret that threatened to spill over. Talking was a good thing. Communication was needed, even when it was hard. She reminded herself in repetition.
“I always felt like…” his voice fell off as quickly as it came up, and Willow dipped her forehead against his shoulder, hoping the privacy would give him more confidence.
“Hmm?” She inquired gently, right hand falling up and down his arm in soothing motions. There was a shudder in his exhale.
“I always felt like the golden guard was… a completely different person.” He concluded, and Willow lifted her face up, meeting his eyes where they shifted anxiously on his reflection. “I’d go out and do my duties all while being ‘the golden guard’ then I’d go back to my room with Flap and I’d get to be ‘Hunter.’” He explained, somehow unprompted which Willow remained silently proud of. “But sometimes it-” His voice broke a bit and Willow slowly peeled off of him, turning to face him. She pulled his gaze away from the mirror, cupping his cheek and silently asking for his eyes. He obliged steadily, and blinked rapidly, before continuing, “it feels like he’s still here, that I still,” He looked once at the mirror, and his eyes glossed over with sudden tears, “that part of me will always still be ‘the golden guard.’” Hunter bit his lip harshley, tears freely falling now. Willow gently swiped them away with her thumb, focusing intently on his confession.
“Does this relate to being a grimwalker?” The question held a great deal of openness to it, and Willow’s somber expression gave Hunter a subtle message: we don’t have to talk about it. She gave him a way out, but Hunter suddenly felt scared of avoiding the inquiry. Whatever case these thoughts were tightly contained in had clearly cracked open, and a flood of some subconscious train of questions and answers crashed into the front of his brain.
“Yes?” He struggled to verbalize the abstract nature of it all, “No? I- I’m not sure,” it was an honest confession, and Willow nodded in understanding.
She wasn’t blind. She knew identity fell into blurry lines when it came to her boyfriend, both in him being a physical replica of another person, as well as the forced positions and roles he’d been distributed since his presumed childhood. She knew something was… inconsistent. And then there was the way he responded to certain titles, the way he chewed his lower lip at Darius’ affectionate: “little prince,” or even saddened a bit when she’d introduce him as her “boyfriend.” His fondness for certain pet names— sunflower, lily, rose— did not go unnoticed either.
“Willow?” Hunter’s worried gaze clued into her silence, and she blinked her thoughts into an attempted composure.
“Is the golden guard,” she started so fast, Hunter took a slight step backwards in surprise, “a boy?” Hunter blinked twice before any decipherable expression set in: fixed jaw becoming laxed, and dropping open slightly, eyelids flickering in bewilderment. And when he found his voice, it came out impossibly small:
“What?” The pure wavering in that one word gave Willow the assurance to continue. Whatever assumption she had inconsiderately made was proving to be awfully reasonable.
“‘The golden guard’, the other— err, person you described. Is he a boy?” And Hunter tried to laugh. Because it was an absurd question, a stupid question. The attempt came out as some disbelieving scoff, however, and he cringed at how antagonistic it sounded.
“Well, yeah, I mean, I—” The daunting completed phrase: I’m a boy rotted away in his throat. No matter how insistent he was, that there was truth to it, no matter how much something burned into his brain, into his body , that there was truth to it, his mouth could not craft the syllables. It felt like a betrayal. It felt like, the second such a phrase fell off his tongue, something miserable would become a reality.
Yet, his response was not unfounded. Upon brief consideration, he concluded the golden guard was, in fact, a boy. And he had no struggle communicating that reality. Not the way he did for himself, the way he did for Hunter. Titan, he felt so nonsensical. Before he could fumble into frustration over his confusion, Willow’s hand slid passively down his arm, carefully taking his hand into her palm, and rubbing the back of it in gentle, soothing motions. He had been spiraling, and like all things, Willow was impossibly quick to pick up on it. When he met her stare, a sage color encapsulated his mind, and all his thoughts with it. How satisfying the color was, with a reassuring expression to match. Brows furrowed in sympathy, not pity, maybe confusion. Lips curled and pressed into a calming smile.
“Is Hunter?” She asked, a sort of expectancy and caution in her voice. Hunter nearly gasped.
“Am I what?” He knew what was coming.
“Is Hunter a boy?” How? How is that a question? Look at me. Of course Hunter was a boy. Caleb was, and all the grimwalker's that followed. His shoulders were broad. His hands were large and fingers stubby. His jaw fell in a sharp line, and brow fell forward on his face. When he swallowed, the lump in his throat bobbed with it. But, at the same time…
It was only when his eyes fell upon his reflection that Hunter realized he was crying again. A tear falling pathetically down his cheeks, hitting the tile floor with a silent tap. His eyes followed its motion to his dirty converse, climbing back up to observe the flowy dress encasing his figure. And if he closed his eyes at the rise of his upper arms, he could nearly convince himself that his reflection was that of a tall girl in a pretty dress.
“I don’t feel like one…” There was a sort of sob that followed.
“Oh, flower,” sympathy flooded in Willow’s careful tone, and she pulled Hunter into her. His head fell against her chest, and her hand into his hair. A firm kiss was placed on his head, and a faint whisper: “that’s okay” sent a shudder down his spine. There was no confusion present in her voice. Rather, she spoke as if he made perfect sense. As if what he said rang with reason and truth. After a moment, her voice filled the dressing room again,
“Do you think you might be a girl?” He tensed at the proposition, and looked up with distant, frightened eyes. Before he could even ask how she could suggest such an idea, Willow continued.
“You know Amity’s older sister?” The change in topic gave him whiplash, and his breathing labored a bit.
“Em- Emira?”
“Mhm,” she nodded in affirmation. Soothing hands fell from his hair, one onto his shoulder, the other dropped to wrap around his waist. His heart stuttered at the touch, but he focused intently on her words. “She was born, physically, as a boy.” Wait. This was— Luz had explained it to him once. “Transgender” was the word she used. Hunter recalled the way something deep in his chest tugged at her description.
“Basically, it’s when someone’s gender identity is different from their biological sex.” And Hunter had blinked in confusion, but shuddered at the familiarity of it all. At the familiarity of something physical feeling wrong. But Hunter didn’t understand. Concepts muddled in his brain and it felt far too abstract to fully grasp. It frustrated him, his inability to wrap his head around it. There were so many different phrases, and technicalities. So many flags and labels and names for things that Hunter had no clue even existed. Normally, learning was an enjoyable endeavor. But each time he found himself down the tangent of gender, a sinking, almost sickening feeling in his stomach accompanied it. The same he’d get when turning a sharp corner in the castle during the evening time. At some point, he predicted, he’d happen to turn the corner upon something so utterly unpredicted and unknown. It scared him. Genuinely. His heart would pound and his neck would break out in a cold sweat. His eyes would sting, as if he was going to cry. And the words kept recurring when he closed his eyes to sleep. “Different, different, different.” He had nearly forgotten about it, since their return to the Boiling Isles last year. Yet here he was, tucked away in a little fashion outlet, in a one person dressing room, his girlfriend using grounding, soothing touches against his skin. And piece by piece, the abstractness solidified, into something tangible, literal, and real.
“Willow…” She paused her explanation, and a sort of surprise glazed over her eyes. His tone was different, absent of any fear or confusion. There was no question, no caution. Instead, closure. Because his reflection was different, and it didn’t feel right. Because his discomfort spread far deeper than surface scars or grimwalkers. Because he felt that for the first time, that was okay. Different and discomfort and deeper were okay. Because,
“I’m a girl.”
So, on a Friday afternoon, Hunter Deamonne left a little summer outlet on a street market with a long strawberry milk dress folded ever so neatly in a white shopping bag. And Willow Park left the little summer outlet on the street market with an overjoyed girlfriend, who had a lipstick stain pressed against her lips, a stain that made one of the employees grimace when they left the cramped one person dressing room.