COMPASS OF TRUE LOVE - CHAPTER 2

Chapter 2: Turns out gender is very complicated and girls might be a little hot, just a little – also look at this cool shiny compass!

I was lying on my bed. Soft moonlight flittering through the wooden shades of my bedroom. I could feel a warmth across my waist. My hand reached down and brushed over the soft smooth arm that was wrapped around me. I let my eyes flutter over to my tanned skinny ex-boyfriend, who was currently pressed tightly against my body. His shoulder long black hair was tussled across the pillow, a few loose strands running down his face and curling around his cute little nose.

I slipped a finger over to his head and pushed the strands away, before I cupped his warm cheeks.
I could hear him let out a soft feminine sigh. I didn’t know he could make sounds like that… It was kind of cute. I gently rolled over to face him and pressed his body closer to mine. I could feel his head sink into my modest chest and his arms wrap around me tightly. His body pulled ever closer. I could feel his soft legs intertwine with mine and his breasts pressing against my tummy.

Wait, breasts? He was a boy, why did he have breasts? And his hair was usually in a messy bob cut, not shoulder long! His arms and legs were also completely smooth. He wasn’t a particularly hairy person, but he never felt this smooth.

I felt myself panic and shoved myself away from him. Her? What was even happening right now?
“Marlon why are you a girl?” I felt myself blurt out in my confusion. The girl quickly blinked the sleep out of her eyes. “What do you mean Sephie? And why are you calling me Marlon?” she answered, a look of hurtful confusion spreading across her face. Her deep green eyes fluttered at me and her full lips scrunched together, while her dainty nose gave a little twitch.

“Because that’s who you are?” I questioned, not even believing my own words anymore. She frowned at me for a moment. “My name is Marion and I’ve always been a girl. This shouldn't be news to you! We've been dating for like... six years!” she answered. Her voice was unmistakably Marlon’s, from the choice of words down to the pronunciation, but a lot more softspoken and melodic.

She slowly moved over to me, closing the distance I put between us and pulled me to her tightly. Her body felt so warm and soft. Her hands so gentle and comforting. My psyche was doing mental somersaults trying to make some sense of what was real and what wasn’t. Why did this feel so right, despite all my memories fighting against it?

Marion pulled back a few centimetres just until our eyes could meet again. She was close enough to feel her breath across my lips. “Oh I know what's wrong..." she mumbled quietly. Her hand cupped my cheeck as she look deep into my eyes. "Don’t worry Sephie. This is all just a dream,” then her eyes closed and she leaned forward. What is she trying to do? She started getting awfully close to my face. Wait I think she's gonna ki- Our lips met and I felt sparks shooting through my entire body. It was a chaste, soft kiss, but it felt better than any I’ve had before. Better than any that we have had before.

*****

My eyes slowly fluttered open and quickly began trying to blink away the sleepiness. A warm ray of sunshine blasted right into my face. I still felt a tingle across my lips where Marion had kissed me but moments ago. Wait no, that was a dream, right? I felt a headache forming and quickly dismissed the thoughts welling up inside me. I was not ready to deal with whatever the hells that was.

I blinked over to the window, where the sun flitted through my shutters. I grumbled and sluggishly rolled out of bed. I know my journey had been exhausting, but I didn’t expect to sleep through the entire day and night.

I went over to my little sink and washed myself off. My skin still remembered the warm touches of the night before. I felt another tingle forming and quickly shuddered my mind back to reality. I pushed myself away from the sink and pulled on a light blue blouse and a beige skirt that went just below my knees, then I gracefully stumbled my way down the stairs.

I walked over to the back of the store into a quaint comfortable kitchen. The table was set with a simple breakfast and a beautifully written note sat next to the plate. I quickly sat down at the table and started nibbling on a piece of buttered bread, while glancing over the note:

‘Good morning Sephie,

You looked pretty tired when I meant to wake you earlier, so I decided to let you rest a little more.
Feel free to eat as much as you want. Gerden took off to the capital with Marlon earlier today. He’ll be gone for at least a month. If you need me, you can find me out in the Garden.

Love, Gertrude’

“Marlon” I mumbled to myself. So whatever I dreamt about was not reality. Just a… trick of the mind. A silly incoherent thought shaped into a potent psychic reality. I had learned a lot about dreams back at the boarding school. There were many secrets one could uncover by studying them, but the way my gut turned at the mere thought of what this could mean crushed any ideas of analysing this chaos.

I filled my cup with tea and dropped a honey spoon inside, before taking a thoughtful sip. Why did it feel so right? So… comfortable? So real? My eyes started wandering down my body and fell on the silver chain around my neck.

I pulled the compass out between my breasts and laid it on the table to get a closer look at it. The base material was a round block of white polished marble, with a cylindrical shape carved out in the middle. The outer edges were lined with a thin gold plating. The inner edges were also lined with gold, but a much wider strip of it and it was engraved.

There were eight symbols carved into it. A tall mountain peak, a dark hole into nothingness, a fiery gateway, an ice blue glacier, a massive lake, a tall lighthouse, a shadowy veil and a twisting coral branch.

The centre of the compass was a golden nub with another engraving: A single eye, with a vortex for an iris. Out of the nub stretched the six rainbow-coloured needles.

I knew what some of these engravings were referencing. Landmarks. I traced my index finger across the markings as I thought them over. The eye was obviously referencing the oracle on top of the largest mountain in the realms, aptly named, the eye. It was in the centre, so the compass centred around that location. Sadly that location was also many hundreds, if not thousands of kilometres away.

Neither the mountain nor the pit sparked any memories, but the gateway would be Hell Spire. The gate to Hell in the far north. The rest of the markings meant precious little to me, but if it was directional, then the shadowy veil could be Hopes Fall, a dark fortress in the far south. Or whatever lied beyond it. A famous saying among scholars: ‘What lies south of Hopes Fall’ meant to search for something you wouldn’t want to know the answer for.

My gaze fell back on the needles. I turned the compass so that it would be the same direction as when I put it on the counter. I quickly noticed that the yellow needle had moved once again. I turned the compass to align the symbol of Hell Spire to the north and noticed all the needles shift accordingly.

So the symbols were drawn out using The Eye as a centre, but the direction of the needles was centred around the compass’ position. That was good. Made things a lot easier.

The yellow needle now pointed roughly towards the mysterious mountain peak in the east. The green needle pointed in nearly the same direction. The purple and pointed directly south, towards Hopes Fall. The blue needle pointed north directly towards Hell Spire. Lastly, the red and orange needle both pointed to the lake.

If I could find a way to see how far each of these people were, I could start planning on how to find them. For now I knew that the yellow needle would be difficult to track down, the way it rapidly turned 180 degrees yesterday and how it was seemingly back where it was before that now. The purple needle could be a lot of places.

My little hometown was located in the beautiful Kingdom of Argonne, located in the north. Only the Thengel Empire separated us from the harsh cold of permanent winter and the frozen wastes above. But to the south, there were the highlands of Arang, the ancient Empire of Vilesia and their forever rival, the Empire of Rizishma. There were also the Wildlands that spanned across the south of Argonne, along the eastern border of Arang and Vilesia and there were the Southlands that spanned across the east of Rizishma.

That felt like too much ground to cover for now. The red and orange needles were not giving me much hope either. Unless they pointed towards Vismar, or Virm, I would need to enter the Wolfland Forest to pursue them and there were little to no tales of travellers surviving that journey.

Which left me with two plausible options: The green needle, that pointed towards the west, possibly towards the capital of Argonne and the blue needle, that pointed towards the north into Thengel and very hopefully not further north than that. The idea that one of my true loves could be a demon made me shudder.

I had a sudden idea to get a sense of distance. I turned over the note Gertrude left me and picked up the pencil. I drew out a circle and scribbled down the symbols along the edges, same as the compass had. Then I drew out the exact direction of each needle as they were pointing now. Later today, perhaps tonight, I could check the compass again. If any of the needles moved a considerable amount, it would mean that their target was closer than the other ones. Although this clearly did not work once teleportation was involved. I let a disapproving glare slip towards the yellow needle.

With my new plan formed, I stuffed my compass back between my breasts and went to find Gertrude. I had a very wild dream to decipher.

*****

Just like she said, I found Gertrude out back in the garden, watering her abundance of flowers against the sweltering heat. She wore a large straw hat with a long, witchy tip, that slightly bent downwards at the end. Her dark green gardening overalls were contrasted by the beige, sweat stained shirt beneath, as well as the birch clogs on her feet. Her face and arms were already red, from all the hard work, I hoped, rather than the sun. Her round puffy face turned towards me, immediately filling with glee.

“Sephie dearest, have you finally woken up from your princess slumber?” she beamed my way, as her hands moved the metal watering can over to the next bush of her barely-not-rainforest. “Yea… It was a rough night,” I replied softly. She nodded slowly and then grinned. “I had a hunch. What with your hair being a huge mess and all. You’re almost going full Radagast here!” she paused for a moment at my frowning face, then waved her free arm around dismissively. “Ahh you wouldn’t get it; they didn’t have Tolkien here,” she mumbled between her breath.

I watched for another moment or two, as she continued on to a large apple tree that loomed over the righthand corner of the garden, before I managed to speak up again.
“I uhh… I had a dream. I vivid one. Weird too. I hoped you could help me… make some sense of it?” I felt my face twisting and contorting in discomfort at the last bit. I didn’t really want to talk about it. But I had to know what the hells was going on. And what it meant. There was no one better than Gertrude to help with that.

She slowly sat down the watering can and huffed over to the small garden table that sat under a red parasol that spanned the other corner of the garden and a handful of shade plants that nestled below it. Once she let herself fall into the iron chair her eyes flitted over to me, still standing near the doorway to the kitchen, my body was tensed up from the upcoming discussion. Only after she pointed at the chair opposite her and told me to sit down, did I finally start moving again.

“So honey, tell me about that dream of yours.” Her eyes gazed deeply into mine, taking in every single facial twitch as I retold the events of my dream. I did leave out the kiss at the end though. And how my heart fluttered with excitement. Once I was done, an air of silence filled the garden for a solid minute.

“Well that’s some dream you had there,” she finally noted. “Last I checked, Marlon was stilling running about his usual dressed up and boyish self, so I don't think it was him.” A frown crossed my face as the words sunk in. ‘Boyish’ is what hit me the most. Why did that word disappoint me so much? Was I really hoping that Marlon is Marion? That he was a girl all along? Gertrude spoke up again.

"You know, dreams are often very telling of your own struggles and expectations. Especially those that you keep buried in your subconcious. If you had a dream where your ex-boyfriend is suddenly a girl, that might mean you are, subconciously, struggeling with your sexuality." I felt my mind trying to wrap around what she was trying to say, but there was a blockage. I just... couldn't. Or I knew and just didn't want to hear it. Gertrude took a moment and I could tell she thought ernestly about what she was going to say next. Then she continued: "I understand that this topic is difficult as a whole. Especially with society being not all that fond of people who are different around these parts. But that doesn't mean that it is not okay to explore these things." She paused and looked at me. Almost through me, really. "Though, just so you know: This doesn't have to mean anything. It might also just be a dream. Mixed together by a weird combination of impulses from your brain."

I took a few deep breaths as I started taking in what she told me. I was never really against women who were attracted to other women. I was even envious of them sometimes. Girls were so pretty and fun and they probably were so happy just... being with each other? But that doesn't mean that I am a lesbian or anything. Everyone thinks girls are pretty, right? Well except gay men, I guess. And if I was attracted to girls, then why was I so happy being with Marlon? He is obviously a boy! I mean, I've seen him naked and all. And I definitely liked what I saw. Can you be attracted to both? I shook my head to clear my thoughts. None of this mattered, I decided. Women couldn't even be with other women, so why would I waste time on this.

Now, it wasn’t like it was forbidden for two women to love each other in Argonne, that sort of blatant criminalization was practiced much more in Thengel. But they couldn’t become a family. They couldn’t marry or adopt. They wouldn’t be protected against vicious crimes.
There was another girl back at the boarding school that very openly showed her attraction to women. She was called into the principal’s office for every offence, no matter how minor. Only a week before her graduation, she was kicked off the school and sent back home. The reason they gave for it was that she was 'encouraging unnatural behaviour.'

Gertrude’s hand reached out to mine and softly stroke the back of it with her thumb. “Whatever your journey is, I’m sure the you will be fine. You have a good head on your shoulders.” She let out a sigh, before looking back into my eyes. “And if I’m not mistaken you’ve got a few needles to follow.” A soft grin overtook that round face of hers as she watched my eyes roll. “How about we go make some pancakes, darling?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “Yeah Trudes. Pancakes sound great right now.” I huffed with a small smile curling on my lips.