Scenes From A Hat

by The Hat Man

A Change Would Do You Good [Slice of Life; Smolder, Ocellus; Trans Themes]

“Wow! Smolder, look at this!” Ocellus exclaimed, pointing at her biology textbook. “It says here that some frogs can actually change their sex even after they’re born!”

“Tch. Lucky,” Smolder muttered.

“What was that?” Ocellus asked, turning her eyes from the book.

The two of them were in the school library, each sitting on a beanbag chair in one of the private reading rooms as they studied for another of Fluttershy’s animal exams.

The exam was fairly simple: in pairs, students had to learn something they found genuinely interesting about an animal and, as a team, explain what it was, how it was done, and why.

Smolder darted her eyes away and muttered a quick, “Nothing, never mind,” to her changeling friend as she continued looking through her own book.

“Hmm, okay,” Ocellus said with a shrug. “I thought it was interesting, but if you want, maybe we could learn about something else.”

“Yeah,” Smolder replied. “I mean, no. I mean…”

The dragon girl heaved a sigh.

Ocellus tilted her head to the side as she peered at her friend more closely. “What is it, Smolder? Are you feeling okay? Do you want to take a break?”

“Ehhh,” Smolder said, sticking her claw out and making a wavering motion.

“I… I don’t know which of those you were ‘ehhh’-ing about,” Ocellus said.

Smolder heaved a sigh, smoke briefly puffing from her nostrils.

“Why do the frogs change?” she finally asked, still not meeting Ocellus’s glossy, bluish-green eyes.

“Oh, uhhh,” Ocellus began, looking closely at the book. “It says here that it’s in response to their environment. Sometimes because of pollution or toxins, but a lot of the time it’s because they have too many of one gender and not enough of the other to keep the population going. At least that’s the theory, though it says that Equestrian scientists aren’t exactly sure why they do it sometimes.”

“Maybe they just wanted to.”

Ocellus nodded. “I guess that could be it,” she said.

Smolder raised an eyebrow. “You… don’t think that’s weird?”

Ocellus again tilted her head as she peered over at Smolder. “No? What’s weird about that?”

Smolder squirmed in her beanbag chair, picking at her claws distractedly and very pointedly not responding at first. Then, the orange scales on her cheeks darkening slightly, she asked, “So, like… as a changeling… you can do… that too, right?”

Ocellus blinked. “Do what?” she asked.

“You can be… a boy,” Smolder replied. “If you wanted to, right?”

Ocellus nodded. “Sure. It’s not hard.”

With a quick, magical flash, she transformed into Sandbar, his greenish coat and messy green mane mimicked perfectly.

“Hey, guys!” Ocellus said in Sandbar’s voice. “Wanna hear all about why vanilla is totally the best flavor of ice cream?”

Smolder gave a snort as she chuckled at the impression. “You’re getting better at that impression,” she said.

“Thanks,” Ocellus said before transforming back. “But yeah, there you go. I could probably do all the boys in the school if I wanted to.”

“Phrasing!”

“Huh?” Ocellus asked.

Smolder rolled her eyes. “No, never mind,” she said. “But anyway, I get that you could be one of the boys, but… like… could you just be another changeling, except… a boy one?”

Ocellus nodded. “Sure.”

“So, you could be you,” Smolder asked, leaning forward with sudden interest, “but just a boy version of you?!”

Ocellus narrowed her eyes. “Sure, of course I could!” she exclaimed. “Smolder, I can change into almost anything as long as it’s not too big or small or made of something weird. If I wanted to, I could change colors, make myself taller, turn into a rock, a monkey… but probably not a bee or a puddle of water or something like that. But just changing into a boy changeling would be easy!”

Smolder suddenly sprang forward from her seat, her nose practically touching Ocellus’s as she beamed at her, her eyes practically sparkling. “Show me!”

Ocellus gently pushed her back. “Okaaaay, for one, you should at least ask me to instead of telling me to,” she said, “and also, I don’t know that I’m really comfortable doing that right now.”

Smolder frowned. “What? Why not?!”

“Well, for starters, I like being me,” she said. “Sure, I can be a boy, and changing forms to pretend to be someone else is totally normal and natural for changelings. But to be me with one small change like that feels… I don’t know, like a distortion of who I am. I’d rather look completely different than to just grow… er, you know…”

Ocellus blushed, rubbing the back of her neck.

Smolder backed off slightly. “Oh,” she said flatly.

“Plus… n-not to be rude… but I’m not sure why you’re asking me to do that, and it’s making me a little bit nervous.”

Smolder sagged, hugging her legs to herself as she looked away, “Oh,” she said again, this time more quietly.

Ocellus considered dropping the subject altogether and picking her book back up, and normally Smolder wasn’t one to dwell on her feelings or talk about them for any prolonged length of time… but this time she wasn’t being standoffish or gruff or her usual self when she wanted a subject dropped.

She just looked dejected.

“Smolder, I… I’m sorry if you’re upset, but… well, I might be more willing if you told me what’s wrong, at least,” she said. “You can tell me. I promise I’ll keep it between us if that’s what you want.”

Smolder glanced over at her, then looked away, then finally back once more as she heaved a sigh.

“Okay, I… ugh, this is hard to talk about,” she began, rolling her eyes. “Say a changeling wanted to change into a boy or girl changeling and just… stay that way. Would that be weird?”

Ocellus tapped her chin as she considered the question. “I’m… huh, I’m not really sure,” she said. “Under Queen Chrysalis, there really wasn’t much focus on what any single changeling wanted. Train, get stronger, learn how to harvest love, protect the hive… that was just about it. Any changeling who didn’t fit into the mold of things either got picked on or kicked out entirely.

“But now under Thorax, we can be whatever we want!” she exclaimed with a smile. “So, while I haven’t heard of a changeling being something other than what they were born as… no, I guess it wouldn’t be weird at all!”

Smolder smiled. “That’s great,” she said. “That’s really cool.”

Ocellus nodded, but then her smile faded as she saw Smolder’s slowly melt away.

“Dragons aren’t really like that,” she said. “I mean, being big and tough and kinda aggro is our thing, really, but now that Dragonlord Ember is in charge, things are changing a little bit. But even so, it’s mostly the same as it ever was. And if any dragon said they were a boy or a girl one day when they weren’t before, well… it’d never fly.”

“You mean they’d take their wings?!” Ocellus shrieked.

“What?! No!” Smolder yelled.

There was a knock on the door. “Hey, quit yelling in there!” said the student on the other side. “We’re trying to read; it’s a library here, in case you forgot!”

“Sorry!” Ocellus and Smolder said in unison.

“Look, what I mean is that the other dragons wouldn’t accept it,” she said. “No way, no how!”

“That’s a little weird,” Ocellus remarked. “I mean, you’re kind of like a boy already.”

Smolder perked up. “Really?” she asked with a grin.

Ocellus blinked. That was not the reaction she was expecting.

“Well, I mean… remember in the caves under the school when you told me that you liked cute silly stuff and—”

Smolder put her claw to Ocellus’s lips, silencing her. “Shhh!” she hissed. “Yeah, yeah, I remember! Okay, yes, sometimes I like dresses and tea parties.”

“Well, that’s kind of ‘girly’ isn’t it?”

“Ugh… this is why it’s hard to talk about!” Smolder groaned. “Look, just… never mind, I’m out of here!”

Smolder got up and reached for the door when she heard a sudden magical whoosh behind her. She turned around to look at Ocellus.

Ocellus was still there, but now she was slightly taller, the shape of her eyes just a bit more angular, and there was a distinct difference in the way she stood with her feet further apart. “Well, here I am,” Ocellus said, only now in a lower, distinctly masculine tone.

“Whoa,” Smolder said, eyeing her carefully. “Not bad! Did you just come up with that now?”

“Actually, I’ve done this twice before,” she said, sounding less and less comfortable with her macho voice by the second. “Once as a joke with Yona. And another last winter when I, uh… wanted to try writing my name in the snow.”

Smolder raised an eyebrow. “Why would you need to be a boy to—”

“Without my hooves,” Ocellus coughed.

Smolder’s eyes widened. Then she broke out into laughter.

Ocellus blushed deeply. “Look, I… I just wanted to see if I could—”

“No, no,” Smolder said, holding up a claw, “I get it. For Tiamat’s sake, I’d do the same thing if I was ‘equipped.’”

In a magical burst, Ocellus changed back to her normal, feminine form. “Okay, that was fun, but I really don’t feel right doing that,” she said. “It’s fun being a boy sometimes, but it feels weird the rest of the time.”

“That’s it!” Smolder said. “See, that’s what I want! Exactly!”

Ocellus blinked. “Wait… so, Smolder, are you saying you want to be… a boy?”

Smolder sighed again, creating another puff of smoke. “Yeah… but not all the time,” she said. “See, sometimes I want to just burp and fart and fight and be all macho with the other dragons, but whenever I win a fight back home, there’s always at least one wise guy who goes over to the loser and says ‘DUR HUR HUR, YOU GOT BEAT BY A GIRL!’ and, honestly, sometimes I want to just tell him to stuff it because, right then, I’m NOT a girl! I’m one of the guys! I’m… I am a guy!”

Ocellus blinked. “Why do they even care? Isn’t your leader a girl?”

“Maybe you haven’t noticed,” Smolder said, “but dragons are fucking stupid sometimes.”

“Please don’t swear,” Ocellus said, wincing.

“So, yeah, sometimes I want to be a guy… but other times I want to dress up and wear makeup and do ‘girly’ stuff like that. But no matter how I feel I’m just stuck in this body.” She gestured to herself. “If I could just change like you and be Boy Smolder one day and Girl Smolder the next… like physically… that would be… it would be amazing.”

She leaned back against the wall, heaving a dreamy sigh. “And who could argue with it? No dragon could call me a girl when I wasn’t or vice-versa… no matter what, I’d just be... me. And it’d never be wrong.”

Ocellus went over to her friend and, floating up on her thin gossamer wings, embraced her.

“Aw, come on, Ocellus,” Smolder said, squirming. “What’s with the hug? You know I’m not a hugger!”

“You’re never wrong,” Ocellus whispered. “No matter what you you are, Smolder, it could never be wrong. And it shouldn’t matter if you can write your name in the snow or not… your body isn’t all that you are.”

Smolder let out a long sigh and gently draped his arms around Ocellus, returning the hug. “Thanks,” he said. “It’s good to hear that. I mean, if it isn’t weird for changelings or frogs, then… well, maybe I’m not that weird either. You think so?”

“I know so,” Ocellus said, releasing him. “So… a report on frogs?”

Smolder smiled. “Yeah,” he said with a nod. “This just might be the first time I’ve ever liked doing a science report. Let’s get started.”

Author's Note:

This story was originally an entry in the Pride Month contest "T is For Trans" for the Quills and Sofas Speedwriting group.

Comments

[Ri2]

These two are cute, too

[Tatsurou]

So...Smolder is Gender Fluid? ...I can see it.
Very adorable and heartwarming, nice seeing them like that.