Chapter 49

Nel

"Shameless. Utterly, completely shameless."

"Hey now, that's not entirely true," Roxy protested.

"You fondled my dad," Akane said.

"It was her idea," Roxy said. "Also, your rule was that I couldn't fuck your dad."

"...I was less than comprehensive," Akane admitted. "Also, the whole... potion, thing. What was... Can you tell me anything about what was going on there?"

Nel watched silently as Roxy and Akane bickered like an old married couple. Or a pair of elves.

She'd been worried about the quality of banter, and that it might not fully measure up to her    elfish expectations, but so far, it wasn't just Roxy who bickered like a champion, but Akane and Nicky both seemed capable of keeping up.

"Your dad is transgender," Roxy said.

"...And that means...?"

"That's... Hrm." Roxy tapped her chin. "...Okay, so, the full explanation would require you to come to understand gender as a psychological phenomenon that is related to, but ultimately separate from, sex as a physiological phenomenon. However, the short version is thusly: Usagi Sakurai is an omega who had an unfortunate birth defect that made her seem, to all outside observation, like a beta instead. This disconnect between who Usagi was and what her body was like caused a great deal of distress and long-term depression, and the simplest and most practical treatment for that is to affirm who Usagi is by altering her body and/or presentation."

"...I see," Akane said.

"That's probably why you're an only child," Roxy continued. "Your dad wasn't exactly thrilled about having a dick, and using it was very likely out of the question. Buuuut, since your mother is apparently a non-dysphoric trans beta-"

"A what?" Nicky asked.

"Haruna seems to like being taller and having a dick, but unlike Usagi, she wasn't actively unhappy as she was previously," Roxy said. "She lacked dysphoria, and so probably would've been fine living the rest of her life with an omega's body, but she's said she'll likely be happier in a beta's body, so... Still transgender."

"Strange," Nicky murmured.

"Just so y'all are aware, I am also transgender, just... according to a schema of gender that is completely alien to this world," Roxy said. "So, y'know. If you've got anything unsavory to say about the concept, then I would kindly invite you to keep it to yourself."

"Honestly, it kinda reminds me of some of the more out-there theory from my parents' bookshelf," Nel said.

"...Elaborate?" Roxy asked.

"So..." Nel hummed quietly. "...You seem largely ignorant of how gender works on this planet, aside from the fact that only some of the girls you flirt with have prostates to milk. As such, I'm gonna have to start from a very basic level."

"I've got nothing better to do," Roxy said, shrugging.

"When a couple has kids, the oldest alpha is slated to inherit whatever the family has," Nel explained. "Any omegas are destined to be married off to some other family's oldest alpha heir. And any betas get nothing. They still live with the family, sure, but... traditionally, betas just don't get to inherit anything or get married and start their own families, or... anything like that. So, y'know. Traditionally, it sucks to be a beta. It also sucks to be an omega, in other ways that betas don't really have to deal with, but when you're a beta who's not allowed to get married or have kids, you're not always sympathetic to someone else having a different set of problems."

"That... makes sense, yeah," Roxy said, quietly.

"Well, my parents are both betas from Vilane," Nel said. "They loved each other dearly, but their families wouldn't let them marry, so... they got on a boat together, came to Dorn where a lot of old traditions are less-observed, and got married here. And as it turns out, they aren't the only beta couple who've done this exact thing. And if there's one tradition that Dorn does observe with a lot of faith, it is long, drawn-out arguments between people with nothing better to do that end up very lost in the weeds."

"So... your parents cultivated a personal library full of arguments and theory about... how bad betas have it?" Nicky asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Teaching you how to productively engage with the discourse and process of social justice is going to be an arduous necessity," Roxy muttered.

"It wasn't just analyses of the ways in which traditional social structures are bad for betas- there were a lot of those, but it wasn't just that," Nel said. "See, when enough people identify a problem and talk to each other about it, eventually someone's going to start proposing solutions. And that's the theory that Roxy's explanation of 'transgender' reminds me of- specifically, some of the weirder forms of gender abolition theory."

"That's not-" Roxy began.

"I know it's not the same," Nel said. "It's just that, well, that's the first and... kind of only place I've heard about people talking about sex and gender as related but ultimately separate concepts before now. Although, in that context, gender was defined as more of a social phenomenon than a psychological one- something that exists in the community, not the person, and is more about expectations of behavior and presentation."

"Fair enough," Roxy said. "...Wait, weirder forms of gender abolition theory?"

"Weirder from the perspective of challenging our mental models of how things work," Nel said. "The more broadly popular form of gender abolition theory in those circles revolved around the fact that, because two betas will always make more betas, and also a beta/beta couple has the unique advantage of both parties being able to impregnate and be pregnant at the same time, betas should simply out-breed alphas and omegas until, eventually, they're out-competed and only betas are left."

"...Okay, I am willing to accept without argument that betas really do have it pretty rough in traditional social structures and deserve fairer treatment, but when people start talking about forcibly changing a society's demographic makeup for their own benefit, that is where I ring the alarm bell labeled 'warning, genocidal colonialism incoming.'"

"Yeeeeah, there's a reason I don't live with my parents anymore, and it's not just because I'm in the Delver's Guild," Nel said, grimacing. "They decided, once I came of age, that they would be moving to the nearby Amazon Island, a city-state about thirty miles east of here, founded by a bunch of other beta separatists about a century ago. I was given the choice of coming with them or staying here, and... well, I stayed here, because I wanted to be a delver. Plus, y'know. I'd grown up in Dornhelm, where discrimination against betas is a lot less prominent. Haruna and Usagi were- and still are- a beta/omega couple, and in Dornhelm? That's just normal. It just happens, and it's unremarkable."

"I... wasn't aware of this," El said.

"I don't like talking about it much," Nel said, shrugging. "It's... It's complicated, y'know? I think that what my parents are participating in is wrongheaded, sure, but it's still understandable. They're from a place that really did treat betas like talking livestock, and they want to work towards a world where that can never happen again, which is, in and of itself, a good thing. We just... disagree on the details."

"...Please tell me that Amazon Island wasn't inhabited before the beta separatists claimed it for their own," Roxy said.

"It's not actually an island, per se," Nel said. "It's a bunch of floating wooden platforms anchored to the sea bed. It didn't exist at all until the initial separatists negotiated the rights to that chunk of sea from King Dorn and then sailed a few old ships out there and set anchor. I think there were plans to build up an actual rocky island from the sea floor? But, well, that part of the sea is like a mile deep, so... progress is slow."

"Okay, good," Roxy said, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Is Amazon Island a place we can visit?" Lisa asked.

"You, me, and El, yes," Nel said. "Everyone else would have to wait on the boat. Also, I wouldn't recommend it as some exotic vacation spot filled with beautiful beta babes. It's just a place where people live, and it turns out that most betas are not exemplars like us. Most of them are pretty ordinary-looking."

"Awww," Lisa whined.

"Also, a lot of them are going to be very judgy about the fact you're an alpha's pet foxgirl."

"Laaaame," Lisa complained.

"Moving along from the inherent imperfection of people trying to change the world, and the unfairly increased scrutiny they receive in comparison to the assholes who are perfectly fine with keeping the world precisely how it is," Roxy said, "I would like to get started with monstergirl ranching today, and since Haruna's busy making Akane into an onee-chan-" Akane barked an ugly, startled laugh. "-that leaves you, Neloteth Tanelye, as the only available person who knows how the hell this shit works."

"How do- how do you know that word?" Akane asked, giggling madly.

"I may not speak much of the Sunset language, but some words, I picked up through cultural osmosis long before we met."

"I think I can share the basics, yeah," Nel said, nodding. "What do you need to know?"