Sometimes she takes a step away and sees it a little more logically. Adolescence won't last forever. She's going to grow up, eventually, she's going to become something - different than she wants. 

She doesn't know what she wants, but she can work. And she saves, money money money, for the day when she can stop being under her foster parents' thumb. 

It's a hard existence but she gets by. 

She cuts a deal with a girl she hardly knows to get her hands on estrogen. No chance of an aura unlock, that's for Huntresses and idiots who want to get in with a gang. And she is never going to be a Huntress, coming from the gutter like she does. She'd need to have been training for years just to get into the academy. And the last thing she wants is to get more muscles on this body that's already way too heavy and large. 

She takes her pills. She hopes. Some changes happen, but not really enough. 

Someday maybe a boy will come sweep her off her feet...

Hah. As if. 

And then eventually she just... comes to the realization that it's all bullshit. All of it. The law, the work she's building towards, the goal of being a girl, all of it is reducible to the absurd acts of chemicals. It's just a bunch of monkeys pretending things matter. 

It knocks it out of her for a day or so, but then she gets on with life. It wasn't like she needed that. 

You know, Jason's kind of hot, why hasn't she kissed him yet? 

She can fix that.

It's pretty great.

Why the hell did she ever kiss Jason, that was an incredibly stupid idea, now everyone thinks she's gay -

... Something doesn't quite make sense, but...

She still remembers kissing him. 

It was alright, she guesses? She gets to say she did it. She gets to feel okay. It was something she decided on and nobody else. And that's good.

She starts to drift a little further away from her foster family.

Why hasn't she tried on a dress yet? She should absolutely try on a dress. And some nice shoes. And maybe a wig, for the bad haircut - 

It feels fantastic. 

She goes through the next week humming softly to herself at little moments, smiling at strangers, playing with her hair. She just feels so happy. She's discovering things about herself. 

Something's a little off, maybe, but it works. It makes sense. She's happy, that's why she twirls around sometimes. There seems to be something a little odd going on with her inner ear, recently, she feels this impulse to spin...

It's probably nothing, and she can't afford a doctor's visit anyway, and her family isn't worth talking to about stuff like this.

She starts wearing dresses every day. Her friends don't like it - well, fuck them! They can get bent. She doesn't need to be beholden to anyone or anything. Jason accepts her, she's special to Jason. 

She propositions him, and to her great surprise he actually turns her down. Okay, fine, Jason can get bent too. She doesn't need anyone. 

Everything seems really vivid since she dumped Jason. It's like the whole world is new and fresh to her. It's like she's never seen a bookcase or the waves on the sea or, well, anything before. It's a whole new lease on life. It feels so freeing. 

She kinda likes it. 

She tells her foster parents to take a hike and goes and checks into a hotel with her savings and eats at the breakfast bar for like four hours in the morning because everything tastes so good.

The lady who tells her to stop eating breakfast can ALSO get bent. She tells her so. At length. 

She can find a DIFFERENT HOTEL. 

SHE IS OKAY. SHE HAS EVERYTHING UNDER CONTROL. 

(She does not have everything under control.)

You know, the sun doesn't usually make shifting dazzle patterns off random storefronts like that...

Probably nothing to worry about!

She wants a new dress. And some heels.

... right, the clerk wants her to pay! 

She'll smooch his hand, that should be enough. 

Ooh, it's the police! What are they here for. 

"Hey, officers, how are you all today," she starts, drunkenly lurching towards the closest one -

She's flat on her face on the floor with her hands cuffed before she can say the next word. 

They take her to hospital. Clearly she's having some kind of fit.

She wakes up in a hospital bed with no recollection of how she got there. 

... Something is horribly wrong. She can hear bells in the distance for some reason. She has never heard a bell aloud in the entire city before. 

The nurses try to explain her situation to her, but she keeps slipping away. Something is not right. 

They ask to treat her with pills. She says yes because that's what you do when doctors ask you if you want pills. She takes them, that's what you're supposed to do with pills. There's a section of little locked rooms with people yelling and screaming and that's where you go if you don't take your pills. That still gets through. 

She doesn't get better.

The world gets hazier and hazier. 

She takes her pills and spins through the ward halls and misses the sun and laughs and smiles and paints her nails and dances and sleeps. The other people here are plotting against her and she must be perfect if she is going to be okay. 

Eventually someone asks her if she wants to try a... thing.

It's supposed to be a really good thing, but kind of dangerous.

Sure, why not! She's a Huntress, isn't she? Maybe they'll let her go if she does enough things?

It'll happen eventually. 

For now, she wants to paint her nails!

Elsewhere, at approximately the same time.

"Miss Orchid, your training in Aura-based healing techniques has gone admirably well so far. A rare opportunity has appeared to explore a unique healing technique, however, one only possible with the use of a Semblance and Aura reservoir like yours. It is risky, but possibly the only viable treatment option for this patient. Are you willing?"

The fox faunus tilts her head a bit, contemplating for a moment, and nods. "This is a good that can't be done without my help? I can't turn that down."

December finds herself being escorted onto a bullhead bound for Beacon.

Yes, finally, sky again!

A plane? So strange.

They must be sending her on a special mission. She salutes to the corporal on duty and dismisses him. She can take it from here. 

He doesn't go? She outranks him but sure fine whatever.

She drums on her lap, bup bup bah, bu bup bup bah, bup bah buh bah...

She is being taken to a castle in the sky to fight the storm giants. It's going to be a hard fight but she can do it.

She is so going to die fighting the storm giants. It's okay though, she was destined to this ever since she was four years old.

Very distantly, a part of her watches and waits.

It's so hard to focus. Her body and mouth have minds of their own. But she thinks this is important, right now. She has to be friendly and careful and safe. 

There's going to be a very good thing. Maybe her being released? It's all so muddy. 

For now she just has to do what she's told.

They walk her through wood-paneled halls, into a medical wing, and guide her into a bed. There's more tech there than she's used to, more machines connecting to her and analyzing her in more ways than the old hospital could manage. A nurse updates her chart with the new data.

A medium-tall fox faunus with purple-violet hair, ears, and tail steps into the room, plucks the chart from the foot of her bed, and reviews it, along with the readouts from the machines. Blood pressure is fine, heart rate high, Aura status listed as unawakened civilian, levels are oddly a bit high for that but not at awakened levels. Signs of civilian-grade gender-affirming care, but minor and intermittent. Chart notes preference for she/her but no hormone prescription. DIY? Likely. Foster care, runaway, probably unsupportive home environment. Working from teen years, flagged on the combat school interest trackers but never applied. Some mention of "identity confusion" above and beyond the delusional state itself.

Current tentative diagnosis on file: soulstress-induced psychosis and identity shear.

She looks up from the chart. She's December's age, it looks like. She smiles warmly.

"Hello, Miss Morning-Glory. I'm Sable Orchid, a Huntress in training and a specialist in Aura-based medicine. Do you mind if I use my Semblance to take a look at your soul, in hopes of seeing how to best help you?"

Ooh, a cute Huntress that's her age! She must be here for the mission!

"Yeah, I guess I gotta be in tip-top shape," she says.

"Just so," she says with a smile and a nod. She sits down, takes December's hand, takes a slow breath, and reaches her soul out across the gap.

She finds a storm. Multiple souls blaze and roil through and around each other, sparking and twisting and blurring and stealing actions from each other. On top of that, burdens weigh upon these souls. She can see the wear and fatigue and lost hope, the oppression of hiding themselves, the hurts of not being supported, and so many other things. They're breaking down, crumbling into each other under all the assaults on their identities while they haven't even made space for each other yet.

She reels back into her seat, back in the external world, a tear running down her cheek.

"We'll get you sorted out, get you back in shape," she reassures the girl(s). Or is she reassuring herself?

She stands, excuses herself, and steps out of the room, barging into the Headmaster's office without an appointment.

The many gears in the ceiling and walls tick away. The man himself sits at his desk, and sets aside a report he'd been reviewing.

He inclines his head respectfully to the girl. "Good afternoon, Miss Orchid. How fare your patients?"

She sucks in a sharp breath, her train of thought derailed. "You knew, Headmaster? That there were three of them?"

He tilts his head just a bit and gives Sable a Look over his spectacles. "I suspected. I have seen peculiar Aura test results similar to these girls before, though their situation is quite rare, and I was not sure it would be another case like the ones I've seen. How are the Misses Morning-Glory?"

She shakes her head. "Soulstress. They're drowning under soulstress. Awakening their Auras will bolster them, and the procedure you've shown me will repair the mess that's become of their minds as long as I manage to teach their souls how to hold borders between each other in the same instant, but if we don't give them something egosyntonic* soon, they'll just be back here in a month or three."

She looks down at her hands, a low growl spilling out of her throat. "We can't send them back to their old life. I don't see a single mark of egosyntonic experience on their souls. Best guess, literally nothing they've lived has resonated with them in at least a decade.

"They need to come to Beacon, somehow. They're flagged on all the combat school interest trackers, but they never applied, and any application sent to them went unopened. I suspect interference from the foster parents. So get them auditing here or something. Making that happen is your job. And I have an idea for an immediate patch on their dystonia. What's the fastest gender-affirming care option you've got, one that never gets used because it costs far too much Aura for anyone but a bunker**?"

*The common Remnan language in modern use has a two-syllable word for "ego syntonic".

**The word "bunker" refers to someone with an exceptionally deep Aura pool. Sable is a bunker, which is common for those with Aura transfer Semblances.

The professor steeples his fingers, and looks away for a long moment. When he looks, back, his words are grave. "There is a treatment that will do the job, Miss Orchid. It will use Aura's natural tendency to make the body more syntonic, but dramatically accelerated. It has a truly astronomical Aura cost, however, from the process itself, along with preventing the damage the process would cause and keeping the changes on track in a syntonic direction. It will likely cost more than your entire reservoir. If you run out before completing the process, then you and your patients will die."

There's a pause, silent except for the gears.

"I can assign the off-duty nurse trainees to keep you topped off, allow you to take up to half from each. Between them, you will hopefully have enough to keep this process stabilized."

He locks eyes with her. "Are you quite certain this is the route you wish to take?"

"It's this or risk my work being undone." She nods firmly.

"Then return to your patients. The nurses will have the machine ready when you arrive."

She nods firmly and departs.

When she reaches the medical wing again, the nurses are just finishing coaxing December into a specialized, tight-fitting, knit cap, festooned with Aura conductors.

She smiles gently and sits down next to December. "We're going to do a hard procedure now, Miss Morning-Glory. It'll be very tiring, but I'm quite sure you'll feel an awful lot better by the time it's complete. Are you ready to try?"

She has no idea what's going on, but if she doesn't cooperate she'll undoubtably be punished. 

"Of course."

Sable takes December's hand, and gently wraps her own soul around the tangled, tired, strained souls before her. She gradually pulls the three souls up to the surface, stretching them out to where they'll need to stand on their own, and starts infusing her own Aura into them to ignite and awaken them.

She speaks solemnly, every word carrying a resonant gravity. "For it is through Love that we achieve immortality, embracing and connecting with the wonder of each other. Infinite in kindness and unbound by enmity, I release your soul, and by my heart, uplift thee."

Something

is 

happening -

Blue, red and violet light war across her skin as the body's three souls abruptly war for dominance, not understanding that they are not alone -

Sable spreads herself apart, a thousand little slips of her own violet-hued Aura sliding between places where the three souls try to push through and over each other, supporting them, separating them, propping them up, embracing each individually, showing them where they touch, showing them that they can embrace each other. Look, her soul says, we're together, touching like this. Look how the three of you are touching too. Each of you is worthy. Each of you counts. Each of you is loved.

Ohmygod someone sees her. 

She grabs at the contact entirely instinctually, like she's drowning, like she's never breathed air before in her life and now someone's given her a bottle of it. 

She's being helped. By someone who knows what they're doing. 

This is her moment, the chance she's been waiting for, she has to do her best and stay focused -

Her brain crackles with thoughts that aren't hers. 

It wasn't her who kissed Jason. 

It wasn't her who bought those dresses, or went and got estrogen. 

They've been looking out for her, in their own ways. 

How did this girl know? 

Whatever the fuck she wants, she's going to grab on and hold tight. 

Sable is a blur of soulstuff spread like machine oil lubricating the separations between these three souls. She can barely perceive the external world enough to shout "Now!" at the nurses, who activate the machine.

Suddenly everything inside the three girls' mind feels... malleable.

Holding this malleable state is hideously expensive in terms of Aura cost, but as fast as it drains the Morning-Glory girls, Sable is pouring her Aura in to replace it. And it's necessary. In an endless, timeless moment, Sable is pointing out that this remembered experience feels like one girl, while that fantasy feels like another, on and on through their entire mind, never looking at the contents of the things she sorts, just feeling and naming them, all of them at once, each thought or memory drawn to its proper owner as though magnetized, as though compelled by gravity. She holds them upright, building temporary struts and supports throughout their souls and their mind to keep everything separate until the malleability ends, even though she's starting to run a little low on her own Aura after a triple awakening and fueling this, dipping below half her pool for the first time in months.

There's so much less of her than she thought there was. 

She flails for a moment as her mind is partitioned -

Sh. Don't worry, everything is going to be just fine. 

We're here for you. We've always been here for you. 

They can't know that.

But she's going to have to try and believe.

She feels a bit like she's melting, but she thinks the souls are properly separated finally. Forming words takes effort.

"C... Cut it. Start the final treatment."

The malleability cuts out abruptly, the dramatic Aura drain going with it. Their mental space snaps back into solidity, all the space they've made separate from each other now open and free. They can embrace each other or not as they choose, and their borders clear.

Then tub gets hooked up to their IV. A fluid that feels like ice or maybe electricity flows through their veins.

And now the Morning-Glory girls get to feel like they're melting. Or perhaps burning. Their body feels like it's shifting and warping all at once. A cloud of steam wafts off of them.

And the drain starts back up.

If they thought the previous drain was intense, that's nothing compared to this.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT

WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING 

Gosh that's an interesting sensation. 

Their body is coming apart at the seams. 

Something is horribly wrong. What is this girl even trying to do? 

She's trying to help us! 

Violet throws all her weight behind the pain and SHOVES. 

And their body shifts, just a little bit -

This is insane. Using Aura to force a transition instantaneously? And whatever the fuck this burning liquid in their veins is? 

She doesn't give a fuck, she wants it. She wants it more than she's ever wanted anything in her life. 

She throws herself into the change.

This is insane. It's also her only option left. 

She puts aside common sense and throws all the power of her soul behind it. 

And -

- something -

- breaks.

The burning fire in their veins crystallizes into a flaring core, a perfect sphere of compacted energy deep between their souls, made out of the raw, insane DESIRE TO BE MORE. It's not a human emotion. It's beyond that. Above that. 

It sears like a star, and brands itself deep into them. 

And abruptly she KNOWS the procedure will succeed. 

This NEED in her core won't let anything else happen.

Sable feels something truly bizarre happen in middle between the Morning-Glory girls' souls. She can't process what it was right now, but it's an unmistakable experience burned indelibly into her memory at this point, so she can deal with that later.

All she can think about right now is how she's pouring every drop of Aura she can into these girls to keep them alive through the transition. She can't think in words, can't speak, can't plan. All she knows is that as much Aura as she can stuff into the girls has to go in.

Luckily, one of the nurses attaches an Aura monitor to Sable just in time. "Gods. Orchid's running dry, here. I'm tapping in as a battery, someone call in everyone we can." She laces her fingers through Sable's free hand and squeezes tightly, reaching out with her Aura to try to touch Sable's Semblance. C'mon, notice I'm here, whole 'nother tank full of Aura to feed these girls. C'mon, Orchid. Pull.

Barely, dimly, Sable manages to perceive the sensation of another soul touching her own. She latches on with her Semblance, her metaphysical grip rougher than she'd normally prefer, and starts draining. Her breathing evens out a bit.

Over the next fifteen minutes, eight different nurses and trainees allow Sable to drain them each down to a quarter of their Aura reserves.

Finally, the changes stop. The strange liquid in the Morning-Glory girls' veins is used up.

Sable stops draining Aura from everyone the medical wing can spare.

She gasps herself awake, and looks upon what she wrought.

It looks like three years of dedicated aura HRT have happened in moments; the body has distinct breasts now, narrower shoulders, wider hips. The height's still about the same, but all the stubble that marked her face has fallen out.

She looks over at Orchid, and a smile comes to her lips.

Her voice croaks a bit as she first starts to speak, but she smiles and greets the girls. "Welcome back, Misses Morning-Glory. You may or may not remember clearly, but my name is Sable Orchid. We've just completely rebuilt your mind and souls. How do you three feel?"

December sits up slowly, her whole body still aching, and tries not to tug at the IV line in her arm. Her eyes settle on Sable as she rubs her face to get off the remnants of her stubble. 

... She feels good. 

She feels whole. 

"Better than ever," she says.

Fuck she's hot. And... that's just really good to hear. She lets out a long, relieved sigh. "I'm so glad. That... was possibly the hardest treatment I've ever done. But so worth it. Your souls were shaking to pieces in the storm, and I'm really glad I could help set that to rights."

"We really have three souls?"

"You really do! Nobody on campus is better-qualified to tell you that than I am, even. Aura-transfer Semblance that can stretch to soul manipulation when I work at it."

She lays back in the bed and closes her eyes for a moment. 

"That's so good to hear."

Her eyes open again, and she takes a slow breath. 

"Was that thing that happened in the middle there... supposed to happen?"

She thinks back to it, ponders it, shakes her head. "Honestly, no. That was completely unexpected and unprecedented. It felt like your souls contacted some external wellspring of power and claimed it, and then it had... was it a probability-warping effect?"

"I have absolutely no idea."

She focuses for a moment, feeling the imprint. 

"Whatever it was, it's now... part of us. And I don't think it's going anywhere soon."

She laughs. "Welcome to Beacon, where bizarre events happen at minimum once a month."

That startles a laugh out of her. 

"Alright," she says. "I guess I'll just have to do my best."

Gosh, she's really at Beacon, huh? 

She's never had good luck like that before. 

She grins warmly. "You'll do fine. I had an argument with the Headmaster, pushing him to find some way for you to attend even though you haven't been to combat school yet. Maybe auditing or something. You would've been invited on a need-based scholarship if your foster parents hadn't been declining on your behalf the whole time. We'll see what he manages, though."

They what.

"Anything is better than staying with my fosters more."

Speak of the Wizard and he shall appear? Here comes Professor Ozpin. He strides into the room, clasps his hands over the head of his cane, and gazes thoughtfully at December.

"You're in luck, Miss Morning-Glory. I had a spare bit of grant funding available, and repurposed it to cover room and board for a civilian auditing classes for the remainder of the current school year. Something tells me that our Miss Orchid will be willing to tutor you, which is fortuitous, because your only option to stay here longer than that is to join the academy properly. Learn fast, and you can become a second-year student next fall."

She's been voluntold to what? I mean, yes, of course she'll tutor the Morning-Glories (or whatever collective name they wind up picking), she'd love to, and probably the rest of JSMN will be on board as well, but what. Ozpin expects her to somehow turn a civilian into a second-year Huntress in a semester and a half?

Well, they have been doing the same thing with Jaune...

She tilts her head, and then nods.

"Yeah, I'd be glad to tutor you."

Holy shit it's Professor Ozpin. 

She looks back and forth between Ozpin and Sable, and nods. 

"Alright," she says. "I'll do my best."

"Rest well. Once you're cleared to leave, you'll be escorted to guest quarters in the first-year student dorms. You'll have a room there, unless and until you decide to move in with one of the existing teams. You'll join the students for breakfast tomorrow morning."

"Thank you, Professor." She manages a smile. 

"And a good afternoon to you as well, Miss Morning-Glory, and to your third also." And he turns and walks out.

How on earth did he know that.