The Divine Feminine

This story features a freshly hatched trans fem egg receiving some gender affirming transformation via witch magic...or maybe something (or someone) more powerful?~ Mention of dysphoria and stuff appears, however, so heads up if you're in a sensitive place about that. Everything is above board in terms of if people are down to bang, I think, but there's still some horniness magic because I like it that way.

Enjoy!

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"Welcome to The Book Nook," the chubby woman with the pointy hat at the cash register recited. When she looked up to see who had triggered the jingle of the store's doorbell, a grin blossomed between her rosy cheeks. "Well, look what the black cat dragged in!"

Nova was the first one to step out of the unseasonably chilly October night. The type to wear cutoffs and t-shirts until she started hearing Christmas carols. Her muscular upper arms showed off at least half a dozen tattoos, along with her impressive physique. The most prominent was a skull enclosed by the transgender symbol. Beneath it, the words DEATH BEFORE DETRANSITION.

Macie trailed behind her, the warmth of the shop making her aware of just how many layers she had on. Between the coat, the sweater, the two shirts, the gloves, the pants, and a few other accoutrements, just about the only exposed skin was a thin slit between her knitted cap and her scarf to let her see. It was like she wore an entire closet on her way out the door. Which, in a way, she had.

The shopkeep slid a ribbon into the ancient tome she was perusing and leapt to her feet to greet the pair at the door. Nova went up and scooped the shorter, softer woman in a great big hug, easily lifting her off the ground. Macie tried to look anywhere else but the display of affection, examining one of the many, many bookshelves in the cramped sale floor. Given this was a college town, there were a disproportionate amount of textbooks. But there was fiction, nonfiction, biographies, cookbooks, all sortsa stuff. Including...if the rumours were to be believed...Real Magic Spellbooks.

"Told ya I could bring her," Nova said, jutting her head toward Macie. "Though you can hardly tell there's a cutie underneath all that clothing."

Macie blushed behind her scarf. She knew how ridiculous she looked. And it wasn't sustainable if she was going to stay indoors. But this was the first time she was really...really...out. The layers of fabric were like little protective shields she could use to keep herself safe.

The woman in the pointed hat approached, her right hand giving a little wave.

"Hey there," she said, her voice calming and melodic. "Macie, right? I'm Sybil. Nova's told me a lot about you! I'm so glad you could come. Would you like me to take your coat? It's gonna get pretty hot in there."

"Okay," Macie's said, her voice sounding raw and vulnerable. Vocal training hadn't gone all that well, but she was doing her best. Sybil helped her doff her clothing, slowly building up a pile of garments until she was in a long sleeve shirt in pastel pink and blue, a bunched up Amazon Best Seller skirt and leggings, and a whole lotta nervous energy.

It was the first time she'd worn feminine clothing outside. Nova had sussed her out as a trans gal in 'boy mode' during their first week as TAs together. It had taken her weeks to convince Macie that she was serious about the whole witchcraft thing, and only now, in the failing light of the last day of October, did she work up the courage to head out as 'herself'.

This Halloween, Macie felt like she wasn't wearing a costume for the first time in her life.

The last few weeks she'd been diligent in removing body hair, and today was no exception. But even though she'd shaved mere hours before, the spectre of stubble threatened to burst forth and claim her like some ancestral curse.

"How are you feeling about tonight?" Nova asked, grabbing some of the clothes off the pile in Sybil's hands and heading off to the back of the store, where the items placed in the little nook that served as the breakroom.

"I...I still want some more information before I commit," Macie said, then added: "If that's alright."

Sybil shook her head. "Of course it's alright, sweetie! Oh my goddess, you're just a cute little button! I've done some of the preparations already, but we'll have plenty of time to discuss the details. You both head downstairs, I'll lock up the store for the night. Doubt we'll get much business this late anyway. Nova, fill her in on the deets."

The stronger of the disgustingly sweet pair led Macie down a staircase, which opened on one side to reveal a secret basement coffee shop! On one end was a bar covered in coffee presses, percolators, labelled glass jars of beans, even a little sandwich board for the specials. Someone had filled that with little chalk cats, some of which wore little pointed hats. Comfortable looking couches and chairs lined the walls, with more portable seating options folded up alongside them. In the centre of the room stood a circle in the same chalk as the cartoon kittens.

"Previous owner tried to turn this into some kinda bougie arthouse thing for his filmbro friends. Basically you go to the theatre across the street, then come over here and talk about 'cinema'," Nova explained, ending the last word in an exaggerated Mid-Atlantic accident. "We mainly use it for screenings of The Craft in his honour. That and rituals, of course."

Macie nodded, though her attention was locked on the circle in the middle of the room. It waited for them. Symbols in a curving script appended the inside, with geometric triangular patterns inscribing the area outside its confines done in finer, broken lines, allowing plenty of room to step around and maneuver if necessary. But the circle within was solid, unbroken. The only piece of furniture even remotely close to it was a large, full body standing mirror. A helpful addition given the task at hand.

Even so, the sheer incredibility of the situation caught up with her. Magic? Real magic? In the basement of a used bookstore?

"This is real...right?" Macie asked, quieter than before. "This isn't like...this isn't some kinda trick on me?"

Nova laughed at first. But when she saw Macie's crushed expression, she rushed over to grab her hands. "Oh goddess, I'm sorry! No, this isn't a trick or some prank. I promise, we believe everything we're saying to the letter. Sybil's the expert on the ritual itself, but both of us have gone through it. That's why when I figured you might be in the market for a new body, I suggested this. If it was me, coming to terms with who I was for the first time, I'd want the first ticket."

Normally, unsolicited touching was something she pulled back from. But the strength in Nova's grip and her voice made it reassuring, rather than something she wanted to escape. Macie's frown raised into a weak smile, and she spoke again.

"What was the spell called again?"

"It's called a Somatic Unbinding!" called out Sybil, who had hidden her entire upper body behind an overfull wicker basket. Nova cursed and leapt up the stairs to help her girlfriend, who huffed out her thanks before continuing. "When we're born, our spirit selves are placed into imperfect vessels. We might have a weird sneeze, or we might not see all the right colours, or-"

"Or our gender might not match that which is assigned at birth," Nova finished, setting down the basket near, but not on top of, the sigiling.

"Yes, quite! Which, as you might have guessed, was the reason we came up with the spell. What we'll be doing is a sort of corporeal replasticization, temporarily giving your spirit sway over your body's shape-"

"So it's not a straight-up girlification spell," Nova cut in again. "It should work for any trans person, in theory. Which is why I kept my muscles and Sybil ended looking so short and squeezable."

Sybil blushed a little while continuing. "Ahaha, well....correct. I will say, however, it's not a perfect gender transformation. We're still working on that! It doesn't flip your outie to an innie, if you get what I'm saying. But we can help someone skip like a year's worth of hormone replacement therapy in a night. Which is pretty good I think!" Sybil beamed, plucking the top item from the big basket of accoutrements. Rather than some ancient tome of leather and vellum, this one was a notebook that looked fresh out of the dollar store. Inscribed on its cover were the ominous words 'My Recipes'.

"You wrote this spell?" Macie asked. "I thought magic was all old rituals and dusty guys in robes and stuff?"

Sybil laughed. "Well, it can be. But it shouldn't be! Fact of the matter is we left our original coven after the gal running it forbid me from pursuing this spell, insisting we 'stick to the sacred fundamentals' and that 'disconnecting spirit and body could awaken forces beyond our comprehension.'"

"Plus she had a Deathly Hallows tattoo," Nova chimed in.

Sybil cringed. "Plus that, yeah."

"And it's safe?"

"It's...as safe as anything is with magic!" Sybil replied, the cheer in her voice a little strained.

Macie nodded. "Okay...one last question: is it reversible?"

Silence fell for a moment. Sybil put her hands on her hips, let out a sigh, and admitted the truth.

"I...I don't know. I've never considered the possibility before. You could, in theory, reverse the process by taking hormones again the other way. But...but I don't know, I mean..." Her normally self-assured delivery disrupted, Nova filled in the rest, but not before grabbing her partner in a one armed hug.

"If this wasn't meant to be, the spell won't change anything. But if your soul demands a different body, what else can you do but listen?"

Macie looked for an excuse or flaw in that logic...and found none. Part of her, the cynical and cold part she'd spent a lot of her life hiding behind, was waiting for the trap door to open. But deep down, she was more excited than scared. The prospect of taking a leap forward in her transition overnight...it was amazing! And she wouldn't miss the chance. She couldn't.

"Okay. Let's do it!" Macie said. Her heart was still racing, but there would be no turning back. Not toward her old self. Or her old body.

As the pair worked, Macie looked for a way to be useful. A novice to the world of witchcraft, she did know from what Nova described that ritual work was not something to throw together without care or craft. Sybil narrated what they were doing as they worked, giving her direct instructions and coaching her along the way.

The final step was lighting the candles. 27 to be exact, placed in an equidistant fashion around, but very carefully not overlapping, the circle's curve. They started off with black, orange and red, thoroughly witchy colours. But the theme broke down and by the end there were a lot of generic off-white scented ones that filled the room with vanilla and cinnamon.

"Nearly 30 large candles with a cohesive colour palette are surprisingly difficult to source on short notice," Sybil explained sheepishly. "They should work fine for our purposes."

Macie nodded, put slightly more at ease by the cozy incongruity. "So...what's the first part of the ritual?"

Sybil clapped her hands. "Right to it then! First off, you get into the circle. We'll be summoning power directly into you, so it'll be important to stay inside its outer bounds. To channel it, the two of us will be on opposite sides. I'll be reading the ritual incantation, and Nova will be doing the physical component."

Macie stepped around the chalk script and, with a deep breath, into the circle's confines. She expected to feel a jolt or something more concrete. But it was more like an absence. Like she'd lived with tinnitus all her life that suddenly ceased. It was a strange sensation, though not unpleasant.

"Oh! Before we forget: clothes!" Nova snapped her fingers, pointing at Macie. "You're gonna wanna lose them."

"I'm s-sorry?!" Macie stammered, taken aback by the direct request.

Sybil nodded solemnly. "I didn't take off my pants and they literally exploded off my bod when my curves came in. Trust me, you're gonna wanna be naked for this part."

Macie had just shucked the better part of a wardrobe on her way to the basement, but getting totally nude was just too far! Besides...this close to two attractive women, she didn't exactly trust her anatomy to not betray her in a very intimate fashion. She wasn't well endowed, but it would be quite noticeable without her heavy skirt to cover any...bulging.

"I...I'll take my chances, if that's alright."

Sybil shrugged. "Suit yourself. Or unsuit, as the case may be! Ready?"

Macie took a deep breath, then nodded. Either this was all an elaborate and cruel practical joke, or she was about to learn a lot about herself and the world around her all at once.

"Alright, here we go! Spirits, spirits of the world, I invoke your favour-" Sybil began, reciting the words written on her thrifty grimoire. Several rhyming couplets later, including finding a way to pair 'diatribe' with 'in ire, scribe', Macie felt...something. A tingling of the extremities, perhaps. She looked down, but none of the sparks or glowing light appeared. There was something there however. It migrated and grew, sliding down her shoulders and up her knees. And though she was feeling what could barely be described as a sensation, Nova looked about ready to pop a blood vessel.

The taller witch's face was flushed, her hands raised in some kind of casting stance trembled with obvious effort. The visible muscles in her arms were tensed as if lifting a great weight, even as Macie struggled to sense anything happening. Sybil noticed her girlfriend's distress and let the ritual lapse, ending the spell prematurely with a negation verse. The tingling stopped, and Nova gasped out relief. Her hands met her knees and she sucked in air like she'd just sprinted across campus.

"Fuck...that's...wow..." Nova said, taking great big breaths in between each word.

"What's going on?" Macie asked, hugging herself as she looked into the mirror at the same awful image she saw every morning. Part of her, a very small part, was worried that it had worked, that this was the form her spirit demanded she take, and she'd be stuck in this crappy body forever! But to her modest relief, Nova and Sybil looked equally flustered.

"There's something wrong...the casting is accurate, the circle is dialed in..." Sybil flipped through the pages of her grimoire, finger sliding up and down the page.

"Not enough power," Nova provided, standing up straight and shaking out her hands like an 80s Jazzercise instructor. "Her body is...incredibly resilient to magical energy. Felt like channeling through molasses. Or pitch."

"But it worked for you two, didn't it?" Macie asked.

Sybil and Nova exchanged glances. Eventually, Nova spoke up. "Our bodies are more permeable to magic, it seems. And Nova and I performed a different version of the spell. With a different power source."

A long pause as Macie waited for elaboration. "Our first version relied on a level of...physical familiarity. A certain...intimate..." Sybil's exaggerated dead air dragged out for a while before Nova nudged her girlfriend with an elbow. "Ow! Okay okay, it involved sex."

Macie turned white. "Sex?"

"Sex is a powerful source of magical energy!" Nova provided. "Plus, well, it was just me and my girlfriend before. We could supercharge the ritual AND have a fun Friday night all at once."

Sybil rolled her eyes. "Very professional decorum, sweetie. But yeah. The spirit and body are stuck together, unable to break away but also unable to, largely, affect the other. By infusing your body with magical energy, we're rendering it malleable. But the magic's gotta come from somewhere. I thought channeling the residual Halloween-y-ness of tonight could power the change, but...your body is a little more stubborn. I'm not sure if we can get enough magical juice from mere veilflow alone..."

Macie was still flustered at the mere mention of sex. Not that she wasn't interested! As a guy, the act had been a wild mess of confusing impulses. The desire to touch tangled in the feelings of wanting to BE touched, to be appreciated and longed for. If she had to be honest, the two other women definitely had appealing factors. Nova's strength and casual confidence, and though she only just met Sybil, she was clearly a smart cookie (with some very compelling curves to boot).

But she wasn't the kind of girl to just put out within a few hours of meeting someone...was she?

"I...I wouldn't be opposed..." Macie began, staring at her feet like they were the most interesting thing in the world. "I mean, if it's the only way."

-YES. IT IS THE WAY-

Macie froze. Between Nova and Sybil stood an impossible sight. A being of pure incandescence flickered into being amidst the dimly lit basement, yet her illumination didn't reach the objects around her. She did not glow, she merely Was light. Her features were hidden beneath her glare, her voice not audible but words stamped into Macie's mind. But even without seeing, even without hearing, her gender was obvious. This being was female. She could not be anything else.

"W-who...what...are you?" she asked the figure. Nova and Sybil looked where the being stood, but it was like they couldn't see her. But Macie didn't know how that was possible. Compared to her, everyone else in that basement were just shadows on the wall.

-I AM THE DAWNSTAR. SHE WHO DESCENDED UNTO KUR. GODDESS OF WAR. DAUGHTER OF SIN- The being held out her hand. -AND YOU ARE MINE-

Macie opened her mouth to ask what that meant when her whole body caught fire! A sensation a thousand times more potent than the spell they'd just tried wracked every nerve in her body, and she collapsed into a fetal position in the circle, waiting for the pain to strike. But it never came. Instead, the fire turned blue, then white, then purest gold. This wasn't fire...this was power. Real power. Her body burned with the same impossible light as the creature. Her clothing disintegrated, heatless fire chewing through the garments until they were rendered unto ashen nothingness and blew away in an impossible breeze. She lay, naked and afraid, trying to make any sense of this impossible situation.

"Macie!" Nova shouted, rushing forward. Sybil's arm shot out and caught her girlfriend before her foot crossed the threshold.

"No! The circle! We don't know what we've contained in there!"

Macie could hear the two talking, but the distance between them felt miles away. The sensation of being overwhelmed abated momentarily, leaving her painfully aware of her exposed flesh.

-FLESH IS CLAY. YOU ARE MINE. HAND OF NISABA. WRITE YOURSELF. BECOME THE STORY-

The words hammered into her mind like the keys of a typewriter. They weren't English. They weren't any language she recognized. But she understood them intuitively. This being...she believed that Macie was one with her. Was this her spirit? No...no it didn't look what she imagined herself to be. This was someone else. SomeTHING else. Macie felt like she was gazing upon a fraction of a much, much greater whole. That it was loaning her some fleck of its nigh boundless magic, and it was enough to set her body alight.

Sybil and Nova's words from before the ritual came back to her. Magic infused into her body to make her shape malleable. She had that power now. The source didn't matter. This was it. This was her moment. And as the pair watched, helplessly transfixed, Macie aimed her mind's eye inward, and searched for the body she had always longed for.

The energy flowed, clustering around the parts of her body she longed to change. She looked into the mirror. First was her hair. She wanted long, flowing hair so thick you had to cut it with a goddamn machete. And so it was. Her head filled in and more, locks glistening with a velvet sheet as ribbons of bronze covered her scalp and slid down the sides of her head until they touched her shoulders.