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“I’m worried about Shane” Emily said, and it was so out of the blue that Tara found herself choking on her drink. A few gasps for breath later, when she had finally recovered (though she found herself red for more than the fact she needed air) the farmer finally managed to reply.
“How so?”
It was a dumb thing to ask, she considered as she glanced at Shane as stealthily as she could. Shane’s alcoholism, and occasional suicidal ideation were well known to most in Pelican Town. She herself had heard some concerning things coming out of his mouth, and she was far from the only one. It wasn’t uncommon to see Marnie walking around as if she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders, and her sighs of worry about her nephew.
“I mean”, Tara clarified, because she wasn’t oblivious despite how much she pretended to. She was a farm girl, or at least she liked to consider herself one after the whole corporate ladder bullshit but that didn’t mean she didn’t catch up on things. Some, really more interesting than others. But that wasn’t what they were talking about so she focused back on the Shane thing. “Besides the obvious. Has he said anything? Done anything?” Not that he had to talk or reveal things to the town to have suffered, Tara knew. She had a few marks and bruises of her own on her inner thighs to prove that point.
But Shane had always suffered publicly. Whatever he felt - whatever guilt, or hurt or dysphoria - because that was a possibility Tara couldn’t dismiss, not when it was so seriously real for her. - he had always been one to make it everyone’s problem. That was something she was also familiar with, something she knew. Anger was so much easier…at the world, at how unfair it was, at herself.
Shane had seemed the type. Yelling about how he was stuck in a ditch and couldn’t climb up. Even when everyone threw rope after rope. She’d been there. Tara considered as she played with a strand of her hair, a nervous habit she was glad she could finally do, after seeing it in a movie as a 12 year old and finally being able to grow her hair. It was as gender affirming as she hoped. And when nervous or excited, well…she looked at her company. She had reason to think so.
“No but…have you looked at him? That’s his fourth drink” And it was true. Gus would soon cut Shane off but he had, after being yelled at for refusing to serve him, allowed him a fourth drink. Just drunk enough he’d stumble home while feeling sorry for himself. Shane’s usual, really.
“It’s not as easy as just quitting”, she knew that much. While she hadn’t ever drank particularly much, because she hated the taste that made her gag and she got sadder than an espresso depresso when she drank, as if the feelings she had were all coming out she knew that much.
“I know…” Emily said with a wishful sigh, like she wanted to help and wanted more than anything to just…do something. “But I do wish I could do something, anything just…”
“Yeah”, Tara said and she took a gulp of her drink. Not alcoholic, thank Yoba because drinking something with alcohol in it while talking about Shane would feel wrong.
It felt wrong to see Emily that worried. Emily had always been so carefree…kind of an airhead if Tara was being honest about it. Not that she was one of the ones who thought Emily was as naive as most others - Yoba knew she had seen enough weird stuff for Emily’s….she was going to be nice and call them eccentricities to not appear to be the fantasies of a bored young woman. She wondered if Emily would be able to see the Junimos…she had to have another gulp of her drink at the thought. It felt very much like a date, and a date was not something she felt ready to get herself into with Emily. Not when she was…well, there were certain parts of her that didn’t exactly conform to the standard.
“But still, it’s not like you can just fix it, as if by magic is it?” Tara doubted that was possible even with the fact Pelican Town had an honest to God wizard living amidst them. It was just one of those things. Physical symptoms, withdrawal…those were going to be a bitch to fix. And perhaps more than magic Shane needed Harvey.
Which was something that he had to decide on his own. Not something to be thrusted onto them, like an intervention. Pepper poppers Shane devoured, an intervention…she didn’t think Shane would go for that bait and take the hint.
“It sucks but it is what it is”, Tara said only to stop because Emily hadn’t responded. In fact Emily hadn’t said anything. Emily just stared at her as if awed and amazed. It made Tara feel funny, in a blushy sort of way and she wasn’t sure that she liked it. It felt flattering, like Emily appreciated the view. It felt like approaching something she could NOT have. Not when she was…well. Herself.
Still Emily kept staring at her so she had to ask.
“Emily?” And Tara swore she had to repeat it like 20 times before Emily finally realised she was staring and said something. Though the thing she said wasn’t something that exactly reassured the farmer.
“I know what I need to do. I know how to help!”
…
The intimacy and closeness with which they sat together was a bit intimidating for Tara. It felt very much like boundaries were being crossed. She stood - well sat, so close that if she were to spread her legs just a bit more their knees would clash. It was like half a foot, or perhaps even less and she was definitely looking at distances not as a way to measure the actual distances, no, but actually to avoid looking at Emily’s face. It was weird, and a bit intimidating and very (very much) hot but the way she looked…
Well it wasn’t very Emily in the way that she seemed so determined. Eyebrows furrowed in concentration,eyes set on the “potion” she was making. Really calling it a potion was something that worried Tara as she had only seemed to take a variety of Shane’s favorite things…and then some more things. It had been a long list, and one that she didn’t want to think about with everything from pepper poppers to ice cream in it. She shuddered at the thought of how it would taste.
Though she had to admit that as the fumes came out from Emily’s little portable cauldron (nothing at all like the wizard’s, no, this one fit on a portable gas stove) the smell was positively alluring. It shouldn’t make sense, and by all means it didn’t but it didn’t smell like salmonberry, or the topaz she had thrown there, or even like peppers - it didn’t smell spicy at all. No, the smell was much more…well it was weird.
It reminded Tara of a boy’s locker room with how intense it was, only it wasn’t an unpleasant smell. It should have been - because boy’s locker rooms had been hell for Tara but it really wasn’t. There was something so primal, so…intensively like sweat but not unpleasant.
Tara had tried sex and it hadn’t gone well. The dysphoria, the desire - she had done it for the wrong reasons, more to say that she had done it than for any real want. This smell reminded her of that. The intense smell of sweat and musk and bodies colliding….it made her want to blush.
Of course it didn’t help that Emily was so close, focusing on stirring exactly as this page had told her to. Sitting in the forest, the only light being their little stove it was as if even slimes had decided to stay away. Maybe they recognised they were doing something noble, Tara had thought. Or maybe they recognised how foolish they were being. That was more likely, it did feel like a night to be foolish. Skinny dipping in a lake (and why did her mind go there? When she was trans and didn’t she want to hide that), drinking like a teenager with a beer they had stolen (and really fuck Joja, they could eat the loss)...Wasn’t this supposed to help with not wanting to drink alcohol anyway?
It was somewhat maddening.
“So uhhh…” Tara asked, more to pass the time than because she genuinely wanted to know. She trusted Emily, couldn’t explain why but trusted her. “Where did you find this…uhhh…potion?” That was the right name for it, right? It was what Emily had called it.
Emily was so focused on her task, the exact times she had to stir and the words she had to mumble that it took her a second to respond.
“Oh I found it”
“:..You found it?”, Tara asked not because it was hard to believe that Emily would find a recipe for a potion, she herself had found plenty of weird stuff, but because it seemed to her, even as she found it hard not to focus on Emily, a bit crazy that she would just follow a random recipe she had found on the ground.
“Yeah, it was smudged and written in a language I could barely understand, but I managed to get most of it right. Looked quite old though, so, you know, I had to improvise…” Emily shrugged and a feeling of dread caught up in Tara‘s throat. If she couldn’t read it all, could they be making just a weird mix? Poison and not a potion?
“Can I take a look at it? I’m pretty good with magic!” She really wasn’t though she had recently found a ring that let out light all of its own and didn’t appear to use chemistry to do it. It would have been good to bring, though Tara feared that would have revealed how red and flustered she was.
“Oh sure” and it only took one look at the words for Tara’s stomach to twist. It was written in that language, that jumino script. And while it was impressive that Emily had managed to translate it so well - though there were some mistakes in the ingredients. - There was something else she hadn’t noticed. Or at least, something she had mistranslated.
“Emily this says it’s a fertility potion, not a sobriety potion”.
“Oh” Emily blushed, and that was proof enough that she hadn’t planned this because she looked horrified at the implications. “Wait, you can read the script? Did the wizard give you the song of the forest or something?” she asked, momentarily forgetting herself and approaching even more. Yup, her knees were definitively touching Tara’s.
“I uhh…I mean yes” It was hard to focus on talking when every single thought the farmer had amounted to “don’t get a boner, don’t get a boner”. It would pretty much ruin anything she had been working towards. That people didn’t know.
“So it’s a sex potion?” Emily asked and it was such a blunt thing to say that it momentarily pushed Tara out of her addled thoughts. Was it a sex potion? She definitely felt a bit inebriated with desire.
“I uhhh…I mean”, Tara took another glance at the list of ingredients and their described purpose, peppers were literally there to “increase spiciness”. She could see the confusion. “Yes. Pretty much”.
And at that Emily was on her, or at least it felt that way with how quickly she turned the stove off and approached her.
“I’m so sorry Tara! I hope this doesn’t make you dysphoric”.
It was a bit much for Tara to comprehend, the speed at which Emily moved but something else stood out. Something that made her blood run cold.
“Wait, what? What do you mean?”
It was pretty fucking obvious what she meant. But Tara hoped that she had misheard. That Emily didn’t -
“I consulted the spirits about it, you know?” she said, as if that made it better because now some Yoba to goodness ghost was apparently misgendering her. Oh she hoped it wasn’t her grandfather…she had worked so hard on making the farm a success…
“They all said the same thing. You’re a woman in spirit and soul” Emily said as if the silence that consumed Tara wasn’t deafening to her ears, as if Tara wasn’t internally freaking out. Not about the way that Emily looked at her (had that been desire earlier? Now it looked like pity) but about the whole trans thing.
“Even if not in body…” which, ouch, that hurt to hear. She knew that getting on HRT was more difficult than it should be but she had been working with Harvey to try and get them and he had actually been fighting tooth and nail for her. He was a good friend and an even better doctor.
“...you knew this whole time?” Was what she finally managed to mutter, after what felt like five minutes. Because she had to say something even if it was to confirm it.
“That you were a woman? A girl? Yes. I mean really Tara, you should look at yourself more.” And that hurt to hear because Tara did look at herself. And she did see all the ways that her hips were too narrow and her shoulders too wide, the little stubble that insisted on sneaking back onto her lip.
“I had a dream about you, you know? Before I met you, even then I thought you were hot!” And it had to have been the lingering fumes, or so Tara thought because there was no other way that Emily would pretty much admit to finding her hot. Not when she knew…well, that.
“...I suppose that was a bit forward. I’m sorry. But really I was hoping you’d make the first move, because you obviously care about me.” Emily smiled, somewhat self conscious. “Who else would embark on this crazy idea with me? I half expected you to stop visiting me with the ingredients. But you didn’t, you stuck it through and look at us now. Touching knees, having an honest conversation in the woods.” Reminding herself that she was touching knees with Emily made Tara jump, as if burned by the contact.
“Is it the trans thing? Because really like I said the occult sees you as a woman…it’s good at removing obscuring layers, and you are 100 percent a woman. I thought that might be comforting for you….” Emily said, approaching and offering Tara a hand so she could level herself. She had fallen flat on her butt and seemed kind of dazed.
The weird thing was… it was comforting. Tara didn’t know what spirits Emily had been consorting with (was that the word? Tara would have to read a lot more about spirits and magic if she were to continue hanging around Emily) but…she liked to think it would have been her grandfather. The letter had come in her name. Not the one she hated, her deadname, but her name so her parents had told him. She wanted to believe it was proof he accepted her. Maybe this was something similar. She liked to think so at least.
“I like seeing you smile. You have a pretty smile, Tara, you should do that more.” And the truth was, she was smiling and she realised that now. Sure, it might be because of spirits or some other occult thing but Emily seemed to just accept it. Not worry about the fact she was…well, her. It felt like a weight had been lifted off her back.
“I could kiss you right now. And I would except that you’re inebriated with a fertility poison. Not the way I thought this would turn out…” Emily said, as if she hadn’t thought this through and really she hadn’t.
“How did we even plan to give this to Shane? Rob him of his autonomy, have a sports drink and oops now you hate beer? Like that? Seems kinda rapey…” she considered, as if for the first time. “And it seems kinda rapey to kiss you while you’re not yourself.” Tara frowned, hurt and confused because she thought that Emily had accepted her. “I mean, not like that. You’re always yourself. But you might as well be drunk. Right? Drunk with needs? It would kinda be like you drank a lot you can’t consent.” And at that Tara blushed because it was true. She wanted this so badly but she couldn’t be responsible for her actions. Not if she was intoxicated.
“Thank you” she said and that thank you meant a lot of things best left unsaid and unmentioned. She was thanking Emily for respecting her boundaries. She was thanking Emily for not being a rapist. She was thanking Emily for accepting her. In a way she was also thanking Emily for calling her smile pretty.
“Tomorrow, of course, now that’s different…” Emily half pondered, half suggested and Tara felt something rise within her. Hope. “If you were to come by my house, say around ten, after you dealt with the chicken coop and the crops and just so happened to catch a movie with me? Watch something romantic? Now that would be of your own volition.”
Emily stood up, smiling and Tara had never seen something so intoxicating. More than the potion, more than her desires, it was the genuine way Emily had accepted her that was attractive. She had some spirits to thank.
“I’m not going to drop this in the river- What? Make all the animals horny and then we have an explosion of baby animals in a couple months?” Emily said, half laughing. “Respecting nature is important. But there’s a shrine here, in the woods…I don’t know if you’re aware of it?” And Tara nodded because she knew of the shrine, and she had seen it often enough to know its location almost without looking. “It will make a good offering. Yoba knows I need luck. I’m hoping a cutie will show up at my door tomorrow.”
And for the first time Tara could see that Emily was blushing. Was she just as nervous as she was? It was hard to imagine.
“See you soon…well, I hope” Emily said.
And with that they both left. Emily towards the shrine (Tara was pretty sure no slimes would bother her, because she had seen none all night and Emily actually respected nature), and Tara towards her farm.
Neither slept much that night. But cuddling close and holding each other the next day they didn’t notice how tired they were. Besides with how comfortable they felt sleep came easy, as did kissing.
They found the time to rest eventually.
.