Transformation
“Vi?” Powder’s voice in the darkness is very small. It’s the Before times, before the rebellion, before they lost their parents, long before Powder became Jinx.
Vi is slow with sleep, but she pushes herself up on one elbow. “Yea?”
“I don’t…I don’t wanna be a boy anymore,” Powder admits. It’s a lot easier in the shadows, not having to look anyone in the eye.
“What d’you wanna be, then?” Vi asks; it’s not unkind, just tired, distracted. Powder shifts uncomfortably.
“A girl.”
Vi grunts softly and lies back down. “Alright then, Pow-pow. You’re a girl.”
She’s asleep before Powder has time to say that she isn’t sure she wants to be Pow-pow anymore, either. In the morning, Vi hardly remembers the conversation and they have to have it again, but it’s okay. By the end of the week everyone in the Last Drop knows, and Vander and Vi and Mylo and Claggor and Ekko make sure no one slips up more than once. Powder remains Powder, and sometimes it grates a little. The wrongness that comes with the name, though, is always negated by the words “sister” and “girl” and “she,” though, so she goes with it.
(Eventually even that last one starts to feel a little too small, too, but Powder keeps that part a secret even from herself.)
Then she tries to help and gets most everyone she loves killed instead, and Silco picks a child up out of the ashes who isn’t Powder anymore. Powder is dead under the rubble. It’s Jinx who walks away.
/ / / / / /
“Silco,” Jinx says suddenly, a few months after she’s come to stay with him. They’re in his office, both working—him on real things, her on the machines she still can’t quite crack.
“Yes, Jinx?”
“I don’t think I wanna be a girl.”
Silco hums, not looking up from his work, waiting for her to go on.
“But I don’t wanna be a boy, either.”
She steals a glance at him, but if he has anything against what she’s saying, he doesn’t show it. “I don’t know what that makes me, then,” she admits.
“It makes you Jinx,” Silco says. “Unless you’d prefer to be called something different?”
She shakes her head quickly. “No. I like being Jinx. But I can’t be…not a girl or a boy. That’s not how it works.”
“Who told you that? You can be neither if you like. Both if you like. Whatever else feels right. What words do you want to use for yourself? We’ll start there.”
“Sister,” Jinx says instantly. “I don’t…I don’t mind being called a girl. It’s the ’she’ part that I don’t always like, I think. But it’s better than…what I used to be called.”
Silco explains a couple of words to her then, words like nonbinary and singular they and Jinx starts to feel like someone has handed her the key to something. He tells her that she is perfect, whatever she chooses to be called. He tells her he wasn’t born a man, either, and it unlocks something else: Someone else who knows how she feels.
Jinx starts to go by they, too, but doesn’t abandon the she entirely. Silco’s people are quick to catch on, and no one bothers them about it.
Then their voice starts to drop and they cry and cry. She misses her old voice, the one that sounded like her real self. Silco makes them talk to Sevika and some other women in his crew with deep voices, and it helps a little, to know it doesn’t change anything, that they’re still Jinx. But they still miss their voice. So they work on it, training it high and childlike and just like Jinx is supposed to sound. Not quite what it was before, but something different. Transformation, yeah?
Jinx is minding their own goddamn business one day, wandering through a room full of Silco’s people with a cheerful “Hey boys,” when they notice one of the guys curling his lip. Well, that’s interesting. She leaves the room and circles back to find a perch on a ledge up by the ceiling. The guy, predictably, starts muttering to his friends. Too scared to say anything to her face, too scared to talk loudly enough for Silco to hear. Jinx grins, eager for blood in the water, and leans forward to hear what he’s saying.
They catch annoying and make-believe and indulging and boy and voice and have to leave before their crying alerts them to their presence. For two hours Jinx hides and tries to stop crying until Silco finds them. For two days after they refuse to speak.
Silco swears retribution, as angry as she’s ever seen him, and Jinx never does see the guy again. The shark inside them smiles fiercely at that thought.
Screw him, anyway. Her voice is fucking awesome.
As she gets older, Silco gets pills from somebody or another that help, a little bit, with Jinx’s body trying very hard to make her a boy. They grow their hair out, longer, longer , and Sevika reluctantly teaches them to braid it so it doesn’t quite drag on the floor. She trades ratty t-shirts and jackets for cropped tank tops and low-slung jeans. The first time they actually have to wear a bra, they cry again, sending Silco into a brief panic until they explain that it’s good tears. Such good tears. Jinx is growing into a girl and it’s glorious. She isn’t one hundred percent one, in her brain, but this is close enough. If anyone asks what she is? She likes to say girl, with a little bit of chemical explosives . Once someone made the mistake of telling them that made no sense, and they bit her. Nothing makes a damn bit of sense in Zaun, and Jinx likes it that way.
By the time she sees Vi again, no one has called her Powder in a long, long time.
/ / / / / /
Jinx examines themself in the mirror critically, even though nothing about them has really changed in years. More tattoos, more scars, but that’s about it. Still, she’s looking for flaws. It feels like a day for something to be wrong. They’re not sure why they’re in an ugly mood; it’s a Good Brain Day. No nightmares—well, they’d woken up with no memory of a dream, just the vague taste of iron and unease, which is close enough—and barely any voices or flashes. She’s settled, as steady as she ever really gets. Her name is Jinx, her sister is Vi, her friend is Ekko, and she’s learning to like Caitlyn Kiramman. Good Brain. So why is she mad?
A voice in their head that sounds like one of the stupid condescending brain doctors the Pilties have tells them to stop staring at their reflection. To go take a nap even though they just woke up, or a shower, or eat, and they’ll be less grumpy. Food has never cured Jinx of anything . Except hunger.
Finally it clicks in her brain. Not a Bad Brain Day. A Bad Body Day. One of the ones where her shoulders feel too broad and her hips feel too narrow and even her stunted stature feels tall and awkward and gangly. They bare their teeth at their reflection, which does nothing to help.
“I’m a girl,” she insists. “I’m chaos . I’m Jinx.”
Their reflection, of course, parrots them. Jinx leaves and goes to Caitlyn’s (all of theirs, really, the topsider insisted on that when they all moved into the shiny new apartment) living room, flinging herself down on the couch. No one else is there to witness their display of moodiness, which feels like a waste. They put their feet up on the glass coffee table because they’re not supposed to.
A few minutes later Caitlyn comes in, looking sleep-rumpled. Or at least, Jinx hopes it’s sleep-rumpled and not nope, nope, not going down that line of thought, fucking gross.
“Morning, Jinx,” she says, her eyes barely skating over the boots on the table. She pads into the kitchen and soon the smell of coffee drifts through the apartment.
Vi comes into the living room, decidedly more awake and put-together. She pauses in front of Jinx and glances into the small kitchen.
“Boots off the table, Pow-pow,” she says, flicking one of them.
Jinx scowls at her and merely crosses one leg over the other.
“Did you hear me, Powder? I’m talking to you.”
Grumpiness flares into real anger, and before they can think better of it Jinx flips her off, lazily.
Vi makes an affronted, disgusted sound and shoves their legs off the table. “You know, sometimes I wonder why I even bother with you. It’s like you never left Jinx behind at all.”
Caitlyn has appeared in the kitchen doorway, but she barely gets to say Vi’s name before Jinx is on their feet.
“ Fuck you,” she spits. “I didn’t leave Jinx behind because I am Jinx. Powder doesn’t exist , Vi, how is this so hard for you to understand? I thought we were sisters .”
“We are sisters,” Vi protests, trying to grab their hand. “I promised you that. Remember?”
“Powder is your sister. Jinx is a stain you want to wipe out,” they snarl. “You don’t give a shit about me as long as I’m not Powder .”
“That’s not true and you know it!” Vi shouts.
One hand slices through the air to punctuate her sentence, but Jinx flinches from it like it’s a slap. Her eyes widen; Jinx’s narrow.
“I’m sorry-“ Vi tries.
“No,” Jinx says, low and dangerous, a voice she hates to use. “You don’t understand. You’re never going to understand me.”
Caitlyn comes a little closer. “Jinx…”
“You don’t understand!” Jinx repeats, shouting now. “None of you understand!”
She flees the room before either of the girls can respond. They attempt to find refuge in their too-nice Piltie bedroom, but the shit part about this place is it’s not built for perching. Jinx loves being up high, out of sight; some days, like right now, they practically need it. Luckily the windows are easy to open, the walls and roof have plenty of handholds. Within a minute Jinx has found a good flat nook, tucked between two sharp peaks. She doesn’t know how long she intends to stay here. Maybe until Vi comes to apologize. Except she won’t, because she’s a stubborn asshole and Jinx hates her.
(They have never, not once, hated their sister, as much as it would make their life easier to do it.)
It really is a Bad Body Day, which is starting to turn into a Bad Brain Day. Disgusting. Jinx pulls her knees up and does her best to banish the voices in her head that like to say a lot of things that involve the word boy .
A grunt and the unquiet scuffling of boots on the roof alert Jinx to her visitor long before Caitlyn Kiramman softly calls, “Jinx? Are you out here?”
Jinx considers answering and then decides against it. She does, however, scoot over in her nook, creating space to admit a second person. Caitlyn appears, silhouetted against the sky, and slides down the roof, pausing a respectable few feet away. The light breeze blows her indigo hair every which way.
“Can I sit with you?”
Jinx grunts and turns away.
“What you said about us not understanding you…you’re not quite as right as you think you are.” Caitlyn inches closer, and Jinx, against their better judgment, peeks over their shoulder at her. “I know we have no idea what really happened to you while you were with Silco, and we don’t have a right to ask, but…that’s not the only thing you were talking about, is it?”
“No,” Jinx admits.
“Can I sit down now? This is a bit of an awkward position.”
For a spiteful few seconds Jinx almost says no, then she shuffles over some more and pats the gravelly stone roof beside her. Caitlyn slides down to sit, doing her best to leave a breath of space between them. Maybe she’s not the absolute worst ever. For a long moment she doesn’t say anything. Jinx wonders if they’re supposed to say something, but they can’t think of anything. If the Piltie wants to talk, she can talk.
“I wasn’t called Caitlyn, originally,” Caitlyn says at last. “And for the first few years after I was born no one realized I was a girl. I straightened them out, though.”
Jinx stares at her. This is miles from what they expected to be hearing.
As if they might not get it, Caitlyn clarifies, “I’m trans, Jinx. And I’m sincerely hoping you are too or else this is going to be very awkward.”
“Vi…Vi didn’t tell you?” Jinx hadn’t exactly told Vi, either, not more clearly than she had the first time years ago. Just a few fumbling corrections before they gave up and resigned themself to having bigger battles to fight.
“I didn’t ask and it didn’t come up. But I noticed how vehemently you and Silco defended your name, and I heard more than one person use ’they’ for you, so. I sort of figured.”
“And you’re..?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh. Okay.” Jinx looks out at the city, past the bridges into the smog-choked skies over Zaun. “Guess I was wrong.”
“You do have every right to be angry at Vi, though. Some of my family took a while to come around, too. I can talk to her about it, if you want?” Jinx just shrugs, unsure. “Or you can come talk to me if you need someone who understands.”
Jinx shrugs again. “I don’t know what I want.”
“That’s alright, too.” Caitlyn swings her legs over the edge, dangling her feet in the air. “Can I ask what you like to call yourself? For the sake of thoroughness.”
Jinx mouths for the sake of thoroughness to themself and smirks. Can they tell Caitlyn they’re a chemical explosion? That feels like something the Pilties would disapprove of. She flounders for a moment for the right turn of phrase and comes up with, “I’m a girl, sort of. A girl with a little bit of Jinxing. Still Vi’s sister. Just not always a she.”
Caitlyn chuckles. “Yeah, that sounds about right for you. I’m a girl, too, for the record. Nothing extra.”
“Cool.”
They’re both quiet for a moment, staring at the city. Jinx fidgets. Caitlyn kicks her feet against the side of the building, a soft, thudding rhythm.
“You wanna go do some target practice? I can sneak you into the enforcer’s range.”
Hm. Access to a gun again and something to shoot at that makes her feel less guilty than crows? Jinx thinks hells yeah and tells Caitlyn as much, on the condition they take the rooftops to the range. Because Caitlyn is apparently the most undercity-like Piltie, she agrees readily. She almost keeps up with Jinx, too.
/ / / / / /
A few days after The Incident, as Jinx is calling it in her head, Vi knocks on her door. Which is weird, because Vi never knocks. Ever. Once Jinx threw a knife at her and Vi was butthurt for days even though it was completely justified because Jinx wasn’t actually wearing pants at the time, I don’t care if we took baths together as babies, Vi, do I look like a baby to you?
Whatever. Point is, Vi doesn’t ask permission for things. “Uhh, come in?”
Vi pokes her head in. “Hey, Po—Jinx. Jinx. Hi.”
Jinx rolls their eyes. “What do you want.”
It was a Good Day, but that judgment is teetering.
“I wanted to apologize. For, um. The other day.”
“Well there’s a surprise. What’s next, the sky falling?”
“I’m trying to be nice here, Jinx, don’t make it harder,” Vi warns.
Jinx stands up on their bed for the express purpose of flopping dramatically onto it. “Alright, fine, shoot. Not literally, you’ll make our overlords mad.”
Vi frowns. “Don’t talk about Cait like that.”
“I wasn’t.”
Her sister clearly turns that over and sets it aside for later. “What I’m trying to say is, it’s…really hard to see you as Jinx. Because I don’t want you to be Jinx. I spent a really long time trying to get Powder back.”
Jinx snorts and throws an arm over their face. “This is a super nice apology.”
“Shut up, I just mean that…it’s hard for me, but I’m trying . Now. I am going to try. I didn’t want to before because I thought that if I pretended everything could go back to the way it was, then it would. But that’s not fair to you. If Jinx is what you want to be called, then you deserve that, uh, respect. And support. From me.”
Suspicious, Jinx props herself up on one elbow and eyes Vi. “Caitlyn talked you into this, didn’t she.”
“I brought it up,” Vi says quickly, and Jinx laughs. Her sister would never talk about respect and support unless she was quoting someone else. “I asked her, last night. She told me I should probably talk to you , but no one made me do anything.”
“Pfft, yeah, as if anyone could.” Jinx flops back down. “Is that all?”
The bed dips, and Vi’s voice is a whole lot closer when she says, “Not really. I mean, it doesn’t feel like it should be all, but I can’t think of anything else to say.”
“Maybe ’I’m sorry,’ haven’t actually gotten that one yet.” Technically Vi did say it right before Jinx chemically exploded on everything and ran away, but they’re reasonably sure that shouldn’t count.
“I’m sorry,” Vi says, a lot more sincerely than Jinx expected. “Are we okay?”
Jinx hooks her legs over Vi’s shoulders just because she can. “Yeah, I think so. Depends how well you stick to this crap. But we’re sisters, and it’d kind of suck to keep fighting. I don’t got Silco or Vander anymore and Caitlyn would totally ally with you, and I’m kind of shit at the lone wolf thing even with the voices.”
Vi turns a little, alarmed. “Jinx, I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t leave you alone like that.”
Jinx shoves her gently in the back with one foot. “Shut up, I’m joking . Mostly. It’s fine. Can we go do something now? Caitlyn snuck me into a shooting range after we talked about feelings.”
“Is that where you two disappeared to?” Vi laughs. “Okay. How about we go into Zaun and visit the Firelights? Ekko swore up and down last time I was there that he’d let us take some boards for a joyride soon.”
Jinx grins and kicks their legs off of Vi. “Nice. We can race and I can kick your ass.”
Vi laughs, louder, and tries to protest, but Jinx is already grabbing her boots and running for the door. Yeah. It’s still a Good Day.