To See Olivia

I wake up, sandwiched comfortably between Mia and Ivy. Last night was an absolute blast, and I smile to myself thinking about it. I snuggle tighter into Mia and she sighs sleepily, pulling me closer. I keep my eyes closed and enjoy the moment, the soft blue glow of the chandelier above my head letting me see the room without being too bright to disturb our rest.

We take our time getting up, and Paige especially doesn’t want to get out of bed. She really wants to keep cuddling with Ivy and Skylar, which I can definitely understand. We coax her out of bed with the promise of kisses and affection if she comes down to have breakfast with us, and she finally relents.

With the delivery of the promised kisses and affection, Paige’s grumpy mood from getting out of bed and no longer cuddling with our girlfriends becomes a much better mood. Ivy serves us breakfast, and we sit at the table together, eating and chatting away somewhat tiredly. We’re all still waking up, but we’re all still riding the high from everything that happened last night.

“How’s it been, figuring out that you have autism and everything?” Paige asks, after the conversation shifts to the topic. I smile at her. “It’s uh…it’s been a journey.” I chuckle. “When Mia first suggested the possibility to me that I might be autistic, it was sort of a lot to take in.” “I knew you were autistic within about five minutes of speaking to you love.” Mia giggles.

“What? How?!” I ask, surprised and giggling with her. “Neurodivergents recognise other neurodivergents easiest. It’s actually kinda crazy how easy it is, once you know what to look for. The easiest tell if you’re neurodivergent yourself, is if somebody feels like they’re on your wave length and thinks like you do.” Mia explains.

I shake my head. “You’re strange. I love you.” I tell her. “Love you too babe!” Mia cackles. Rolling my eyes at her and grinning, I return my attention to Paige to keep answering her question. “It’s been a long journey since then, and I don’t know if I’ve fully come to terms with it.”

“I understand autism a lot more and the different symptoms it has beyond what people normally like, know about, and I fully accept that I have it. It’s taken some time to undo the mindset my parents drilled into me, and accept that self diagnosis is valid. Most neurotypical people don’t have a reason to think they have autism at all, so they don’t spend a ton of time questioning it.”

Paige nods, listening intently. I smile at her care for me. “Another interesting thing I learnt recently is that apparently male autism and female autism generally presents differently. Autism is under diagnosed in a lot of people, but especially in women, since the typical male symptoms are much closer to what stereotypical autism looks like.”

Ivy rubs my back gently. “You really have been doing a lot of research and learning about this. I’m proud of you.” She says. I smile at her, squeezing her hand gently. “Thank you Ivy.” She and I share a moment of loving eye contact, before I keep talking. “Turns out that I fit all the criteria for female presenting autism.”

“Really?” Paige asks. I nod, grinning. “I know! It’s pretty cool, and really affirming too. Me being AMAB and all that, I would have expected-” “Sorry, what does AMAB mean?” Skylar asks. “Oh, assigned male at birth. It’s phrasing that’s helpful for trans people to talk about our sex at birth without invalidating our identity.” I explain, and the umbramancer nods in understanding.

“With me being AMAB, obviously it’d generally be expected that if I had autism, it would present in the typical male way. But the fact that my autism presents in the typical female way explains why it was missed by so many psychologists, because there’s so little mainstream understanding of feminine type autism, and it also is yet another sign that I was always meant to be a woman.” I say happily.

My girlfriends smile at that sentence. “What are the differences though? Like, what’s the difference between male and female autism?” Paige asks. “So in terms of the different female autistic traits that I have, one of them is an advanced vocabulary for my age. I used to call people methane heads when I was 7, because I knew methane gas is what farts are made of, and I knew other people didn’t know that.” I say, and my girlfriends chuckle.

Smiling with them, I continue. “I mask my problems in social situations, I don’t have much desire for social interaction, I tend to pick up or mimic other people’s ways of speaking and I do non verbal communication a lot.” I explain, and Paige nods in understanding. “On the other hand, typically male autistic traits are much closer to the autism stereotype.”

“Things like a difficulty developing close friendships, difficulties with emotional communication, and being less expressive in social situations, even with people they’re comfortable with. Also not smiling or using eye contact when speaking to somebody or being spoken to. Stuff like that.” I finish, taking another mouthful of food.

“Fair enough. That’s really cool, I never knew that!” Paige says. “Yeah! The more you know, huh? I’m proud of you Gemma, you’ve come a long way with this. I know it’s a difficult journey, but you’re doing really really well.” Mia says, massaging my hand lovingly. I smile at her. “I could never have done it without the support of my amazing girlfriends.” I say, looking around the table and smiling at them all.

We finish up breakfast, and we all pitch in to help clean up. With all of us helping like we do, it’s done in no time. We resolve to get one dungeon run done before we go to campus, primarily because I’m really wanting to reach level 60 today, and we only need to go through two dungeons for that to happen.

Skylar, Ivy and I check on our pets, making sure they have enough food and water, before we all don whatever battle gear we have and set out to go through the first dungeon for today. As previously resolved, we’re going through the elves dungeon until we’ve collected the full set of air elemental armour for Mia.

Currently we’ve gotten about half of it, so hopefully today we can get the rest of the set. It’s a relatively long dungeon, involving a decent walk through a forest while being on the lookout for ambushes set by groups of two or three elves. Neither of those two things by themselves would be bad, but combined, it makes for the slight strain of being always on the lookout, even though these are weaker enemies.

We make our way to the elven army boss, and being careful to support Paige and Skylar in the ways that they need, we manage to make it through with minimal injuries. We collect the loot, and while we do get more of the air elemental armour, we’re still missing a piece. Putting that aside for next dungeon run, we focus on getting ready to go see Olivia.

We dress nicely enough to look presentable, but not too nicely so as not to attract too much attention. Mia calls Elsa, and after confirming that it’s an okay time to talk for the Fateweaver, the two of them have a quick conversation. Mia asks if we can borrow a car from the Fateweavers, to drive out to campus.

Elsa declines, saying that it’s against their policy, but instead offers the use of her car, as long as we take care of it and are back within a few hours. Turns out, not only does Elsa drive, but she owns a decently big car that’s able to fit the five of us without being cramped or anything. Mia thanks her, and Elsa says she can be out in a couple of minutes to give up the keys, and they hang up.

We finish up getting ready, with Ivy and I changing our hair colours to be a more mundane brown for the both of us, and Ivy shapeshifting her form to be less eye catching, wearing regular clothes instead of her regular bodysuit, along with a more natural skin colour. After being satisfied with our final once over check, we head out to the Fateweaver barrier.

Elsa is waiting for us, and we greet her with a hug. We quickly introduce her to Paige, the newest member of our guild and polycule, who shyly says hi to the petite blonde woman. Elsa giggles at her shyness, handing the keys to Skylar. She jokes with us that we’re paying for a new one if anything happens to it, to which I reassure her that we will.

She smiles at my sincerity, and asks when she can come by the kingdom barrier to study it, and to hang out with us. We let her know that we’re free just about any time, and that she’s always welcome. She thanks us, and tells us that she’ll get together all the instruments and equipment she needs and that she’ll be ready in a couple days.

We depart with another hug each, save for Paige who shyly waves goodbye. After Elsa is out of earshot, we tease the gothic terramancer for being so adorably shy around pretty girls, and she hides her face in her hands. We get into Elsa’s car, a decently sized SUV, and collectively take a deep breath, preparing ourselves for the drive and exposure to the outside world.