Existing as nothing more than a dimensionless point was a familiar thing for Donna.  It reduced her perception of the world to her magical senses, feeling what could be changed around her.  Sidney seemed less real, but Donna could still feel her distress.  Sidney was about the last person she wanted to see, so Donna put robo-Duncan in autonomous mode and darted away from her house.

Donna chuckled sadly as she raced into the night.  Hardly “her” house.  Sidney had made that abundantly clear.  She was still chewing on that resentment when she realized where she had ended up.

In front of her were two figures entangled on a bed.  Gwen’s glow was unmistakable, and the other felt almost but not quite like Ettie.  Donna hovered above them, observing how they twined and rocked together, stunned and aroused at what she was sensing.  When she felt Gwen’s attention turn to her, Donna darted outside the room and materialized by the door.

“Come in” called Gwen, in a ragged voice.

Donna opened the bedroom door timidly, then smiled when she saw that Gwen and her emphatically male bed-mate had covered up with a sheet.  “Hey Gwen, and…”

Gwen scooted closer to the middle of the bed, making room beside her.  “C’mere you.  Henri won’t bite.”

Donna vanished and reappeared beside Gwen, leaning against her for comfort.  “Henri?  I’m sorry for interrupting.”

Henri chuckled deeply.  “It’s okay.  We both got what we wanted.”

Donna’s face was a mask of puzzlement as she tried to figure out why Henri’s voice was teasingly familiar.  When it dawned on her Gwen grinned.

“Ettie?” asked Donna.

Henri frowned, then stuck out his tongue and made a face at Donna.  “Only when I’m in female mode.”

At Donna’s look of confusion, Henri explained that while growing up she’d go through phases where she couldn’t stand the touch of a dress.  She’d run around in raggedy hand-me-down jeans, climbing trees and chasing frogs.  Then at other times she couldn’t get enough of frilly pink dresses and hated being dirty.

“When I left home I split my name between my two sides.  Henrietta became Henri and Ettie.  I have a closet that’s half full of male clothes… Okay, maybe a quarter.  When I felt like Henri, I’d
ditch the makeup, tie my hair back, and slouch around like a guy.  Got pretty good at it.  Then I found you guys as Ettie, though Henri was the first one to visit the club.  Anyway, after a month as a sculptured female I needed Henri time badly…  I dreaded explaining it to Gwen, but she’s been amazing.  To be truly male for a while has been a dream come true.”

“For a while?” asked Donna.  “You don’t want to stay like this?”

Henri shook his head.  “I can feel Ettie calling.  I’ll be in female mode by morning.”

“Wow.  That’s…  I’ve helped a few people change gender, but this is new to me.”

Henri chuckled.  “Thanks for understanding.”

Donna giggled with a tinge of hysteria.  “It has been a night for gender discovery.  I think you’ve made things less confusing.”

“Oh?”  Henri raised an eyebrow, then looked back and forth between Gwen and Donna, who was giving the former a pleading look.  “Looks like you two need some private time.”

“Please?”

Henri winked at Donna then said with a grin, “I wish I wasn’t here.”

He immediately became fuzzy around the edges.  His extremities went translucent, fading from fingers and toes inward.  The rest of his body misted into nothingness, disappearing with a contented sigh.

Gwen stared at where he’d been.  “Nice.  He’s been wanting that for a while now, and you’re so much better at fancy vanishes.  I can’t even sense him.  What’d you do?”

“Erased him from time.  Or for a time…”  There was a flicker and Donna nodded.  “He’s jumping forward a few seconds at a time.”

Gwen focused carefully on where Henri had been.  “Oh!  I spotted that.  But it’s too fast for me to do anything.  I can’t restore him.  Slick.”

Donna flicked herself to a seated position in front of Gwen, and studied her expression carefully.   “You have absolute faith in me.  You have no worries at all about what I just did.”

“That doesn’t sound like it’s actually about me.”

Donna nodded ruefully.  “It’s not.  Sidney.  I screwed up a couple of ways.  I forced a change on her that she didn’t want, one that would make her immortal.  I couldn’t bring myself to make her human, not completely.”

“You didn’t leave her like that, did you?”

Donna shook her head.  Her magic described the design of Sidney’s soul-keeper, materializing a copy floating between the two of them.  “I figured a better way to keep people safe.  It’s still arrogant to a level that you’ll probably twit me for, thinking that I know best what should happen to a soul.”

Gwen took Donna’s hands in hers, clasping them together into a prayer position.  “If you know what I would say about it, you’re probably doing okay.”

“Thanks.  Sidney seemed okay with this design.  She could perceive sensory degradation when she was just a crystal, but the soul keeper doesn’t get in the way.  As long as it doesn’t interfere, she’ll be fine with it.”

“You hope.  And that sounds resolved enough that it’s not why you’re about to drip on me.”

“It’s possible you know me too well,” sighed Donna, teleporting herself back to Gwen’s side, and leaning her head on the other woman’s shoulder.  “At tonight’s counselling session I had a revelation.  Gender isn’t this or that.  It’s a continuum, a collective of characteristics, and you can reject some while accepting others.”  

Donna waved a hand through the air, and a bar of light formed.  It was pink on one end, blue on the other, and the symbols for ‘female’ and ‘male’ floated just past each end.  “I met someone who might be about...”  She touched a point halfway between the female end and the middle, and it lit up.  “Here, I think.  And now I find that Henrietta oscillates back and forth along the line.”  A new point of light appeared, shuttling back and forth from one end of the line to the other.

“Okay so far.  Where does that put Unit Kate?”

Donna touched a point in space a foot away from the line, perpendicular to the female end, hanging another glowing point there.  “Up about here, maybe?  Near Zoey.  Ana’s...”  Another point lit up, perpendicular to the line in a different direction from the Kate point.  “Female, animate, nonhuman.”

“And where are you?”

Donna stared at the image she’d created.  She ran her hands over all of it, summoning a diffuse glow that shifted and pulsated.  Points glowed here and there within it, oscillating subtly.  A bright star sat orthogonal to the midpoint of the line, constant.  The glow touched the gender line here and there, but only at its edges.

“Oh,” said Gwen softly.  “All at once?”

“Yes.”

“Did you show her this?”

Donna chuckled self-deprecatingly.  “I probably wouldn’t be here if I had.  This is... so much more than I tried to tell her.  I wanted her to see me, the real me, in Donna’s eyes.  But that’s not where I live, is it?”

Gwen shook her head, and nudged Donna’s form with the tiniest wisp of power.  Humanity slipped away, revealing Donna’s true self as a pillar of crystal.  “This is you now.  The heart of you.  All the other bits are part of you too, but if you want her to see you, show her all of it.  Donna.  Duncan.  The crystal.”  Gwen touched one of the steadier lights.  “This is the bra, yes?  Show her that, the vixen, the snake-woman, the chair, the choker.  The Goddess who walks among humankind, sharing her gifts.  You barely understand it all, how can she?”

Donna flickered out of existence, the returned in three forms.  Donna sitting by Gwen’s side.  The crystal hovering before them.  Duncan standing beyond it.  “I need to talk to Sidney.”

“You do.”

Duncan and the crystal vanished.  Donna kissed Gwen’s cheek, and did not resist when Gwen pulled her into a tight hug.  A moment later, Ettie flicked into existence between them as a tiny floating spark that swiftly grew into an emphatically female form.  She kissed Gwen ferociously, but when Donna tried to slip away, both women held her tight.

Gwen broke from the kiss.  “Stay with us.”

“But I’m already with Sidney...”

Gwen pulled Donna in between her and Ettie, both of them cuddling up to the crystalline woman.  “We know.  But you need this, too.”

Donna allowed herself to be drawn down onto the bed between Gwen and her lover.  Their ministrations were tender and intimate without being quite sexual enough to drive Donna away.  In their embrace she drifted, joyous at the feel of love pouring from and between each of them.

Miles away, Duncan was hugging a tearful Sidney.  “Shh, shhh.  It’s okay.  I’m here.”

“Y...you just... vanished.  I th..thought I’d lost you for good.”

“I didn’t vanish.  I went to Gwen’s...”

Sidney sniffled.  “That’s what I meant.  That you’d p..prefer her over me.  You love her.”

“I love you, too.  She understands me better.  What you said hurt me in ways...”

“Hurt you?” cried Sidney.  “You subject me to terrifying changes, you’re turning into someone I don’t recognize, and somehow it’s about me hurting you?”

Sidney carried on in that vein, circling around the central argument about her fears.  Duncan sighed, drew strength from Gwen and Ettie’s cuddles with Donna, and took a deep breath before responding.  A gesture summoned a shimmering bubble around himself and his wife, which quickly expanded to coat the walls of the room.

Sidney’s tirade abruptly stopped.  “What was that?” she asked, worriedly.

“Soundproofing so we don’t disturb the kids.  You were getting loud, and I’m trying very hard not to be terrifying.”

“Thank you for not gagging me again,” said Sidney contritely.

Duncan’s smile was warm.  “I wasn’t going to gag you or erase your mouth.  We need to talk.  I was thinking of shrinking us too tiny to be heard by the kids, but I worried you’d find that terrifying too.”

Sidney muttered something under her breath.

“What was that?  It almost sounded like disappointment,” joked Duncan.

Sidney looked him in the eye.  “Shrink me.”

“Okay.  How small?”  Duncan watched his wife begin to dwindle.  “For that matter, why?”

“Doll sized.  I feel safer when you hold me.”

Duncan laid down on the bed beside Sidney, watching her shrink, curling around her protectively as he did so.  She stopped at a foot tall, and he enfolded her in his arms.  “Better?”

Sidney wriggled until her face was free.  “Yeah.  So.  Am I less scary now?”

“Uh?”

“You said I hurt you.  Can’t hurt you like this, can I?”

Duncan started to laugh, vibrating Sidney with the resonating sound.  “You can still speak, so yes.  And no, I’m still not going to gag you.  I’ll survive.”

In Gwen’s apartment, two foot-tall females figures were busily cuddling up to breasts big enough to be beds, making Donna giggle as she watched.  Once cozily situated on top of one each, they leaned over the chasm to grasp each other’s hand, and smiled up to Donna.  “Feeling better?” asked Gwen.

“Loads.”

“There are loads of things I’ve said that hurt you?” asked Sidney.

Duncan winced as he realized he’d missed Sidney’s question and answered both her and Gwen at the same time.  Still, it wasn’t untrue.  “Yeah, but I’d like to focus on the one.  The bulk of it all comes down to the same thing.  I am no longer just Duncan, and that scares you.  You cannot see all of me, or other facets of me, *as* me.  I came to you with a new understanding of myself, and you rejected it.”

“I’m sorry,” whispered Sidney.  “I didn’t understand.  Don’t understand.”

Duncan nodded, brushing a hand over Sidney’s back carefully, then turning her to face the bed in front of them.  “So I’ll try to explain.  Gwen helped me figure this out...”  Duncan went on to draw the same multidimensional identity map, showing gender, inanimation and non-human axes.  “Up here we have Unit Kate, the robot woman I’ve told you about.  You should meet her, she’s something else.”

“Yeah,” giggled Sidney.  “She’s a robot.  I suppose that might be instructive, after spending a few days as one myself.  And you’re kind of stuck as one, too, right?”

“Not... exactly, no.”  Duncan tapped a point near the male end of the gender axis, and a fuzzy blob of light appeared there.  “This was me, before the Moonstone.  Male, not stereotypically so, curious about many things but content with the body I had.  Then the Moonstone let me explore this axis.”  Duncan tapped another point, nearing the female end of the line, and a smaller glow appeared, equally fuzzy.  “But I was very much a guy in a woman’s body.”  The second glow smeared toward the male end.

“Then I touched silver.  Remember that?”

Sidney rolled her eyes.  “You went totally female on me.  Even tried to make love to me, thinking you’d been my wife for a decade.”

Duncan touched a point at the far end of the scale, that flickered and faded.  “That Donna was one hundred percent female.  Even when I’d given myself a dancer’s mind, it was never so extreme without silver to nail things down.”  A stronger glow built near the female end.

“And now?” asked Sidney.

The same constellation of pulsating stars and diffuse glow that Donna had shown Sidney grew up around the scaffolding of the axes.  “All of it.”

Sidney stared at the figure before her.  “You...  All of it?  At once?”

“More like a probability distribution... except it’s more a desirability map, I guess.  I’m not tied to any one form, and I do not want to be.  I want to be Donna, and Duncan, and your bra, and a toy for Courtney, and a naga-woman dancing up on stage.  All of it.”  As he’d named the forms, points of light brightened to emphasize where they’d be on the spectrum.  

Sidney reached out hesitantly to touch the one fixed glow in the heart of the diagram.  “And what’s this?”

“The closest thing I have to a true self.  The crystalline heart of magic.”

A large pillar of crystal formed at the foot of the bed, hovering in place.  It sang in a fluting voice.  “This is the truest me of all.  Can you look at it and see me?”

Sidney stared at the crystal for a long time before turning away from its brightness.  “I...  It’s hard to talk to a crystal.”

The crystal fluted softly, “I understand.”  Its voice was echoed on Duncan’s lips, and he cuddled his tiny wife closer.  “Sometimes truth is hard to face.  But to be true to ourselves, we must.”

“What is the truth, then?” Gwen asked of the crystal floating over her bed.

“This is me,” said both crystals.  “Not Donna, not Duncan.  Those are facets.  Projections, reflections of me.  This body is our true self, and fighting that, resisting that, clinging on to old expectations... it doesn’t work.  We need to let go.”

Sidney studied the crystal floating before her.  “You may not look like Duncan.  But... you still talk like him.”

Duncan chuckled softly.  “I suppose I still do, at that.”

Sidney patted Duncan’s hand where it circled her waist, then looked back to the crystal.  “So if you are not Duncan and not Donna... what should we call you?”

The crystals hummed softly.  “We do need a name.  Something that defines us.”

Ettie suggested “Crystal,” which didn’t rate an answer.  Gwen thought “D” could work, but the crystals rejected that after considering it and rolling it about.

“Could we call ourself D?  It feels too impersonal.  We need a name that resonates.”

“Diamond,” suggested Sidney.  “Dia for short.”

The crystals flared their approval.  “Dia it is.  Hello Sidney, Gwen, and Ettie.  We are Dia.”

Sidney frowned.  “Gwen?  What?”

Duncan petted her softly.  “Donna stayed with them when I returned to you.  They helped keep me calm.”  Then he started to laugh, big belly-chuckles that bounced Sidney around.

“What on earth brought that on?” asked Sidney once she was stable.

“Your offer,” replied Duncan.  “Dia stands between Donna and myself.  They can filter what passes between us.  They see all, but each of us only sees ourselves and Dia.”

Sidney flipped around and burrowed into Duncan’s chest.  “I won’t hold you back.  I made the promise...”

“But it would hurt you even so,” chimed Dia softly.  “Do not fret.  Donna will play with her friends, but keep it from going too far.  We will ensure that.”

“Really?” sniffed Sidney.

“Really.  She no longer has control of her form, and certain parts have been erased.”

Sidney giggled.  “Oh, I bet she hates that.”

Duncan sighed.  “Then you don’t know any of us very well.”

Sidney arched her back so she could look up, waaay up, into her husband’s face.  “But you like being able to change.”

“And we like it when someone else is in charge.  Right now, I’m guessing Gwen is...”  He laughed.  “Oh!  Dia just sent an image.”

“Do tell.”  Sidney’s tone was curious, not accusing.

“They’re a tenth your size, and making love inside Donna’s cleavage.  She’s putting a bra on to trap them there.”

Sidney licked her lips.  “Making love to you in one of my bras sounds like fun.”

Duncan dwindled to Sidney’s size in moments, and hugged her tight.  “I’m game.  Shall I bring in robo-Sidney to wear the bra with us inside?”

Sidney shook her head emphatically.  “She’s creepy.  Can we get rid of her?”

“I could turn her into a not-Sidney bot that’s all chromed and anonymous.  An autonomous but not too bright maid-bot, to do all the chores neither of us want to.”

“As long as she’s not based on my brain.  No sucking my brain into a robot body again, okay?”

Duncan nommed on the side of Sidney’s head playfully.  “Can I suck it into my body instead?”

Sidney giggled.  “What would you do with it?  You’ve got a brain already.”

“You’re right.  I should just suck you up entirely.”

Sidney gasped, and shuddered against Duncan’s body.

“You okay, sweetie?”

“Being eaten was scary,” said Sidney, voice quavering.

“Then why are you so turned on?”

Sidney just moaned inarticulately as she squirmed against Duncan, her hips bucking against his.

“I know what you want,” said Duncan with a resonant chuckle.  “And I’ll make sure you get it.”

* * *

Sidney gasped as she woke, then looked down at her body.  Normal.  She looked over at her grinning husband.  “Did we...  Did I really...”

“Become a delicate part of my anatomy?  The last chicken in the shop, as you like to put it?”  Duncan chuckled.  “Yes, we went to sleep like that.  Dia made sure we were normal before the Moon set.  You should thank them.”

“Thanks, Dia,” said Sidney.  “I just wi...  Oops, sorry.  Don’t use that word.”

Duncan chuckled.  “The Moon isn’t up.  You’re safe.  But the effort is appreciated.”

“Ah.  So I can’t spend the day snuggled up against you?”

“Sorry.  Despite all last night’s revelations and wonders...  I still have a job to do.”

Sidney sighed.  “Can I just stay cuddled up in bed instead?”

A metallic tapping at the door heralded the entrance of the revised robo-Sidney, now a shiny chrome robotic maid.  Still visibly female, but beyond that it bore little resemblance to Sidney.  If anything, she closely resembled Unit Kate.  “May I be of service?”

“You can probably get away with letting Unit D take care of the kids,” chuckled Duncan.  “Maybe we can go visit the original of this design later.”

“The original?” asked Sidney.

“Unit Kate, out at Ray’s place.  I should really go offer her some upgrades, I’ve learned so much about robotics...”

“Isn’t Ray the owner of the Blue Vixen?” fretted Sidney.

Duncan nodded.  “And a friend.  Plus, his place has an amazing pool.  We have a standing invite, kids and all.”

“But you’ve made it sound like he has a virtual harem out there.”

“Ah, I’m sure he’s toned it down some since he settled down with Ana.  Probably.”

Sidney raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment.

“Right.  I should call ahead.”