[ID: a warm red brown and cold white toned digital artwork depicting Rytlock and Canach from Guild Wars 2. They are both in sleeveless shirts and pants. They are both taking a nap, Rytlock on a couch and Canach on Rytlock. Rytlock has his face directed up with muzzle open and fangs bare. Canach has his face nuzzling against Rytlock's neck, and hand resting on his chest. Rytlock has his paws slightly wrapped around Canach. The background behind them is brown red curtains covering over half of what is probably a room or a light view on the outside of the room they are in. End ID]
Canach Sleeps a Lot (I Can’t Think of a Name Part 2)
972 words. Part 2 of the trans Canach story! In part 1, Canach got shot and passed out. Content warning: dysphoria, injury.
Amnoon smelt of fish, and Lariab’s soups and stews, with a hint of alcohol that wafted around near the casino. It was fainter than he was accustomed to, but Canach could still pick it out. The fish smell was stronger too, so he assumed he was near the harbour. His chest hurt like hell.
Opening his eyes revealed Rytlock standing over him, his tiredness almost making him look gentle, with late afternoon sunlight dancing across his fur. “Cuddles,” Canach said feebly. Speaking hurt. He winced, and tried to sit up. The pain sharpened.
“Take it easy.”
Canach nodded, falling back into the pillow. “So,” he said, trying to slip back into his usual careless drawl, “what happened while I was gone.”
“We panicked for a few hours before we managed to get you to the Chantry of Shadows.” Rytlock paused for a moment, and sighed. “I thought you were gonna die.”
“It’s nice to know you have faith in me.”
Banter was an easy way to smother any serious emotions. Rytlock appreciated it. “Kas went to help the commander with Balthazar, so now I’m stuck looking after you.”
“How sweet.” Canach could feel his eyelids growing heavy, and he reluctantly closed them. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said, and drifted back to sleep.
His dreams were a patchwork of memories, poorly stitched together and low in quality. There was a flimsy version of him as a sapling, and a caricature of him at Southsun, and he slipped between both their bodies and watched events unfold. He willed his face to scowl when he saw the Pale Tree, but it remained wide-eyed and innocent.
“Why did you make me a girl?” His past self asked. He bristled, tossing and turning in his sleep. The Pale Tree smiled, and Canach felt sick.
“I thought it was best for you.”
His past self nodded. Well you were wrong, he wanted to yell, but then the scene was changing and he was sitting in a cave, refashioning his armour. He wrangled the leaves of the coat so they no longer clung to his waist. While Canach hated that version of himself, he was grateful for some things. He saw his reflection and it was his reflection, with the thorn-beard just starting to show its face and the armour masking the thinness he used to have. The manic glint in his eyes was less familiar.
He was a little dismayed to find himself in the more distant past again, striding through the Grove. He shot Trahearne a glare as he passed, but didn’t stop to throw an insult. He was heading straight for the entrance to Caledon. The other saplings sat nearby, naive, innocent, ignorant. He couldn’t stand them any more than the Pale Tree.
He kept walking past the wardens and the merchants, then past the undead that rose from the waterside. “Death… good,” one rasped, and Canach quickened his pace. It lumbered after him, its rattling breath growing fainter and fainter as it fell further and further behind.
He didn’t know where he was going. He just wanted to get away from the other sylvari, spend some time collecting his thoughts where they were’t clouded by other people’s. He ended up stopping in Wychmire Swamp, which wasn’t safe, but at least it wasn’t the Grove. He sat at the base of a tree and looked at his appearance in the murky water. He hated it.
A few minutes passed. Canach sat there uncomfortably, staring at a face that used to be his, unable to look away or fidget or escape the memory entirely. “Was she wrong?” He heard himself say. It took a moment to realise what he was talking about.
Then he was working for the Consortium. He’d figured out that he could choose the way he grew, and the energy poured into broadening his shoulders had sapped the colour from his skin. He’d changed dramatically, but no-one at the Consortium cared. He picked a passion flower and twirled it around in his fingers, until it morphed into his sword and he was standing in Glint’s Lair.
“Yeah, I’m certain.” Rytlock was speaking. “Same smells as last time. And Canach needs a bath.”
“I need a bath, he says,” Canach muttered in response. Rytlock’s words would come back to him later that night, and he’d bathe despite hating it. He would have laughed at himself, if he could choose his actions. Kasmeer’s voice blurred into the firing of a bullet, and the incessant ringing that had filled his head days earlier.
This time, he could interact with the memory, and he looked down at himself, pressing a hand to the wound. Sap glistened in the desert sun. It pooled in his throat and smothered his cries, and when he tried to breathe, air didn’t come.
He awoke in a bout of coughing which turned his throat ragged. Rytlock was gone, and the room was dark. The haziness of the afternoon had been lifted from his mind, and his armour was gone. He was dressed in rags, and a bandage which covered the bullet hole, which in turn throbbed angrily. His torso looked small. Felt small too.
His face burned, and he forced himself to get up. He needed a distraction, and the pain of moving proved to be an effective one. He padded outside and sat in the sand, looking up at the sky. The stars shone against a dark background, stained by wispy blues and inky purples, and the moon, a single, half-shut eye, watched him lazily. Nights in Elona made everything feel insignificant.
Canach silently thanked the world, and let his eyes flutter shut, focusing on the sound of the water lapping at the shore and the cold dancing across his face. The rest of the night passed peacefully.
543 words. I thought of writing a trans Canach AU a while ago, but then I didn’t. Anyway, I wish I could’ve read one when my dysphoria was bad, so I’m writing a story with trans Canach now. This is just the introduction. Content Warning: Violence, injury, swearing.
“Forged up ahead,” Kasmeer observed wearily, “and Awakened. And sand eels.”
The raptors spotted them too, and stopped suddenly. “Come on,” Canach muttered to his, “you’ll be alright. You’ve run through groups of mindless soldiers larger than this.” He didn’t mention the outcome of that occasion, which involved fleeing a rain of arrows, several of which hit the raptor and left her with a limp and an inability to leap for a few weeks. Evidently she remembered anyway, as she stayed firmly put.
Either Rytlock or his raptor growled, and the trio dismounted, readied their weapons and inched forward. “We should be able to take out the sand eels first if we go a little to the left,” Kas said, “then I can use an illusion to try to get the Awakened to fight the Forged.”
Canach nodded. It sounded like a good plan. “What do you think of that, Cuddles?”
Rytlock slashed at the air with Sohothin, a bloodthirsty grin spread across his face. “Rytlock?” Kas said nervously. Rytlock ran forwards, leaving a trail of fire, cutting the sand eels to smouldering pieces and catching the attention of both the Forged and the Awakened.
Canach sighed, drew his sword, and reluctantly followed Rytlock into battle, while Kasmeer controlled her clones from a distance.
“I’ll cut you to pieces,” one Forged declared, rushing over to Canach and bashing into him.
“Right.” Canach stabbed it a few times, then used explosives to push it away. It came zooming back. “So,” he said, “what’s it like working for Balthazar?”
“I’ll cut you to pieces,” the Forged yelled again.
“Wasn’t fast enough,” the Forged gasped suddenly, falling to the ground. One of Kasmeer’s illusions stood behind its body, and looked satisfied before it shattered.
“Open fire!”
Canach turned around, just in time to have the air knocked out of his lungs. He gasped, flailed his sword around blindly, but the blade didn’t connect with anything. His head was ringing, and between bouts of swearing, he told it to shut up. Then he could breathe again, the haze of panic left as fast as it had arrived. He looked around for what had hit him.
There were a few Awakened left, but Rytlock was having no trouble dealing with them. Canach’s gaze fell on the last Forged. It knelt down, readied its rifle, and a bullet narrowly missed his head. Canach lobbed a grenade, then finished it off with his sword. His head was still ringing, but at least it was quieter now.
“You coming, twig?” Rytlock was on his raptor, ready to go. Kasmeer was giving hers a treat, and Canach’s mount cocked her head and stared at him, waiting.
Canach trudged towards them, dazed, then the numbness left his body and he felt a stream of sap running under his armour. “I think I’ve been shot.”
Rytlock just raised an eyebrow. Canach raised his own back, and they stood there while the bullet-hole began to burn. “You look fine,” Rytlock said. “You’ll be fine.”
Do you want to read about trans Canach? Do you crave some subtle rytnach? Well I have the perfect story for you! It’s called ‘I Can’t Think of a Name’ because I couldn’t think of a name. Anyway, here’s...
596 words. LWS4 and PoF spoilers. Canach finally comes out as trans. At the end of part 4, Kralkitorrik attacked Amnoon. Content warning: swearing, injury. Part 1 is over here. I’m sorry I can’t name things.
Kas and Jory escorted Canach out of Amnoon and away from the brandstorm. It felt infantilising, reminding him of time spent with Anise, or worse, the Pale Tree. He glowered the whole way. He didn’t even have any explosives, so he couldn’t help his friends clear the path ahead.
They ended up staying at the Northern Way Station, and while Kas and Jory planned ways to track Kralkitorrik, Canach sat nearby and sulked. Hopefully the others would be back soon, so he could tell them about how the Pale Tree fucked up when assigning genders. Or maybe he’d just lose the tiny scraps of courage he had and keep it a secret. He’d done that a few times now.
Canach watched the storm fester in the distance. He definitely wanted Rytlock to know, although telling him would be nearly as painful as getting shot, and if he reacted badly it would be a lot worse. And Rytlock wouldn’t understand anyway. Canach’s experience with gender wasn’t a common one, and if he hadn’t had it, he wouldn’t understand it either.
“What’s on your mind?” It was Jory. Canach was silent for a moment, then he sighed.
“Might as well get this over with,” he said, then didn’t continue. He opened his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. “The Pale Tree is shit,” was all he managed. Half a minute passed.
“Is that all?”
“And she gave me the wrong gender.”
“Oh.” That was not what Jory had been expecting. Canach held his breath. “So… what gender are you then?”
“Oh! No, that’s not what I... I’m a man. It’s just when the Pale Tree made me…”
“Oh, right. Sorry.”
“I should have been more clear.”
“Don’t worry about it.” They sat in silence for a while. “Who else have you told?”
“No-one. I was going to tell your whole guild, but now half of them are off fighting dragon minions. Who knows how long that will take. And they’ll probably get swept up in another adventure as soon as it’s over.”
Kasmeer came and sat next to them, and Canach began to go through the ordeal of telling her, until Jory offered to do it instead. “Canach’s a trans man,” she said simply.
Trans. Now he had a word for it. Although he was still fond of ‘given the wrong gender by the Pale Tree.’
“What made you decide to come out?” Kas asked.
Canach shrugged.
“Are you going to tell the others?”
“When I get the chance.”
“Well, good luck.”
More silence. The scene was extraordinarily awkward. “Looks like the brandstorm’s clearing,” Jory remarked. “We could start heading back. Then Kas and I will have to try and find Kralkitorrik.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to start that now?”
“It would,” Jory said. “But I don’t want to.”
Canach grinned. The group mounted their raptors and followed the track back to Amnoon, where the clouds had finally stopped hammering the earth with lightning. They found Taimi collecting debris, probably to analyse it, and Rytlock standing near the harbour.
“The cactus is back,” he grunted.
“Good to see you too, cuddles. Where’s the commander?”
“They’re already gone.”
“I should have guessed.”
“On that note,” Jory said, “we should go too.”
“Have fun.”
“I won’t.”
Kas and Jory linked arms before marching back into the desert. Canach stifled a smile. Everything had gone back to normal so fast, although it wasn’t quite normal. It was better than normal. A weight had lifted off his chest.
He turned back to Rytlock. “There’s something I need to tell you…”
422 words. At the end of part 5, Canach was about to come out as trans to Rytlock. Content Warning: transphobia, injury.
Canach sat alone in his room. The bullet hole in his chest had been replaced by rough bark, and the pain it brought was only slightly uncomfortable. The pain from being alone, however, was a different story.
He wanted to kick something. Rytlock’s face had been seared into his vision, and it gave him a puzzled stare, while the charr’s voice echoed in his head, asking questions he didn’t know how to answer and wouldn’t have wanted to even if he did.
How do you know you’re not just mad? His mind asked in Rytlock’s voice. He tried to sweep the thought away. How do I know I’m not mad? It said, in his own voice this time, and Canach didn’t know. That was why it hurt.
He had heard things like that before, but a long time ago, and never from Rytlock.
As if on cue, he heard intricate plates of armour clinking together in a telltale and usually pleasant sound. “If you could kindly piss off it would be much appreciated.”
Rytlock sighed. “Look, Canach, I’m sorry. I didn’t understand—”
“I noticed.”
There was a brief period of silence. “I still don’t,” Rytlock went on, “but I’m trying my best. I didn’t realise how much this mattered to you, and you never struck me as weak—”
“Wow. Great apology, Rytlock.”
“I didn’t think I could hurt you,” Rytlock almost yelled. He didn’t meet Canach’s eyes. “But I was wrong. And I’m sorry.”
Canach glared at him, but his gaze quickly fell to the ground. He wanted to forgive Rytlock. Badly. But he couldn’t just brush away their argument like it didn’t matter. Tears forced their way from his eyes, despite his efforts to stop them. Crying only ever made things worse. He tried to hide his face, and fix his stilted breathing, and silence the pathetic whimpers that managed to slip through his bared teeth.
Rytlock sank into the bed beside him, and he turned away. He wished the charr would just leave. More than that, he wished he had been more accepting. More gentle. But, of course, Rytlock was never gentle. He didn’t know what he expected.
Canach felt Rytlock’s arms around him, and stiffened. Surprise stemmed the flow of his tears. “I wish I’d taken things better,” Rytlock said quietly. Canach looked up at him.
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’ve said.”
“I’ll be less of a jerk now. I promise.”
“Thanks.”
“Is everything alright?”
Canach thought for a moment. “It will be,” he said, and hugged Rytlock back.
885 words. PoF spoilers. I’m really struggling with naming my writing at the moment, which you probably noticed. Anyway, at the end of part 2, Canach went to sleep outside. Content warning: dysphoria, injury.
“What made you think sleeping out in the open was a good idea?” Rytlock was pacing around the room, while Canach sat on the bed, flicking grains of sand off the linen. He shrugged, and Rytlock scowled. This wasn’t the playful anger Canach was accustomed to. “There was frost on you this morning.”
“You don’t need to worry about me.”
Rytlock stared at him. “The whole point of me being here is to take care of you. Don’t make it any harder than it is.”
Canach nodded, staring at the ground, waiting for the tension to settle. Rytlock left to get new bandages, since the other ones were full of sand, and Canach took the opportunity to explore the house. It didn’t take long. There was his room, which had the bed and a locked chest, and what was probably Rytlock’s room, which had a bed, a rug, and a mirror.
Canach hated mirrors. They had a knack for ruining his day. He found a key on the windowsill, and ran back downstairs to open the chest. He lifted his armour out and put it on, then walked back up to the mirror. He gave a satisfied nod to his reflection.
The comms unit crackled to life, and brought a smile to Canach’s face. “I have some good news and some bad news,” the commander said. They sounded both exhausted and exhilarated. “And some sad news too.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Balthazar’s dead, so you’ve won your bet. The bad news is Kralkitorrik absorbed most of the energy he released. Aurene got some too, but she just flew off. That’s the sad news. I have no clue where she’s gone.”
“We’re heading back to Amnoon before we start looking for her,” Kas said. “We’ll be there in a few hours if we’re lucky.”
The static flared up again, and that was it. Canach was alone again. He walked outside and sat in the sun, where the heat quickly became uncomfortable, and he circled around to the shadow of the house. He propped himself up against the wall, folded his arms, and waited.
Soon enough, Rytlock returned, and tossed him the bandages. “You don’t need your armour,” he said. “There’s nothing to fight.”
“I’m wearing it anyway.”
“I noticed.” They both stood there for a while. “Are you going to redress the wound for what?”
“I’ll do it soon. Where’s Sohothin, by the way?”
Rytlock scuffed his foot in the sand. “I gave it to the commander.” He muttered. “To help them fight Balthazar.”
Canach stared at him, an incredulous smile spreading across his face. “Come again?”
“I gave it to the commander.” He silenced Canach’s laugh with a glare, though the gleeful expression that remained plastered across his face wasn’t much better. “You still haven’t replaced your bandages.”
Canach shrugged.
“Go do it.”
“It can wait.”
Rytlock folded his arms and frowned at Canach, searching his face for something, although he didn’t know what. “Will I have to do it for you?”
“No.”
“What’re you hiding?”
There was no point in lying. “I don’t want to take my armour off,” Canach said slowly.
“I figured that out. Why?”
He grimaced. “Uh,” he said. Then he went inside, took off his armour, and began to unwind the old bandages. The closest layer had a coating of dried sap, and the wound stung as Canach pulled it away. He wrinkled his nose. It looked like a worm had burrowed into his chest, and the effect was dizzying.
He took the clean bandages and wrapped them around, giving a small sigh of relief as the beginnings of nausea vanished. Unfortunately, breathing out shrunk his waist, and the nausea came right back and hit him in the face. He shut his eyes and fumbled for his coat, trying to control the panic building in him. He fastened it clumsily, gritted his teeth, and willed the feelings to pass.
When he emerged from the room, he must have still looked shaken, because Rytlock looked concerned. “Let’s go for a walk,” Canach said hurriedly, and Rytlock agreed. They strolled down to the waterside, where they watched the boats bob in the harbour, and Rytlock spotted what appeared to be a giant choya rampaging around on an islet.
A band of adventurers quickly came to take it out, and the fight was entertaining, but short lived. The commander sent a short message through the comms, saying they were close, so Rytlock and Canach wandered to the entrance of Amnoon to wait for them.
A speck appeared on the horizon, wavering in the heat, and was quickly joined by a second, and they slowly grew larger. It took a minute for them to be recognisable as raptors, and after another minute Canach thought he could see the faint glow of Kasmeer’s staff.
“So,” Rytlock said cautiously, breaking the silence, “are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
“No,” Canach said simply, and was a little surprised when Rytlock accepted that answer. A little disappointed too. There was a short and agonising silence as they watched the other two grow closer. “Maybe later,” he said. “If I’m up to it.”
If I feel safe enough.
He felt Rytlock’s paw on his shoulder, quickly followed by warmth in his heart. He smiled subtly. Everything was going to be fine.
585 words. LWS4 spoilers. Canach (who is trans) experiences some gender euphoria. This occurs right after Nature Conservation, which in turn is set just after War Eternal, but you don’t need to read that to read this.
Canach found himself in Lion’s Arch with time to kill. It would have been helpful if Almorra had sent him on an airship to Amnoon when she banished him from Dragonfall, but the airships only led to Lion’s Arch. The ugliest city, and Canach’s second least favourite.
The next airship from Lion’s Arch to Amnoon was leaving early the next morning, in 10 hours. If he slept for eight, starting as soon as it grew dark, he’d only have to be conscious for two. Two hours would have been easy to kill, had Almorra not confiscated his explosives when she banished him.
He didn’t want to find Dragon’s Watch. He was still rattled from the events at Thunderhead Keep, and besides, they’d likely be celebrating, at the centre of attention as Tyrians rejoiced the fall of another Elder Dragon. The only thing worse than killing dragons was being congratulated afterwards, and being expected to react kindly to people who glorified months of misery and deaths.
A poster on a tavern door advertised ‘THE RETURN OF THE GREAT PACT COMMANDER!!!’ in the Grand Piazza, a two hour event featuring ‘HEROES!’ and ‘ALE!’ and, if the poster was any indication, an abundance of exclamation marks. Canach skirted around the Piazza, where Lionguards were setting up a stage.
He ended up at the bank, where he found some of his old human clothes. He’d bought them in Queensdale as a sapling, in an effort to upset the Pale Tree, but she hadn’t been bothered by his rejection of her, and her ambivalence left him upset instead. They ended up in the bank, because they were too scratchy to wear. Canach couldn’t think of anything better to do than try them on.
They didn’t fit. He became trapped in a shirt with his eyes peering over the collar and his fingertips hanging out the short sleeves, while his arms strained against fabric which could stretch no further. His shoulders were too wide,, his woody imitation of a ribcage too large, and even his arms were thicker than they used to be.
Canach had started changing the way he grew as a consortium worker, after a bad encounter with a mirror. A week in, he started waking up with aching, sickly grey skin, but he’d muscled through.
One day he’d looked in the mirror again, and it had been… alright. His shoulders had been slightly broader, and he’d messed around with his armour until it padded out his tiny torso, and he had thorn stubble on his jaw. He’d thought that was as far as he’d get, but evidently his body had kept growing, filling the armour.
Canach wrestled the shirt off, tearing it in the process. His heart was swelling more than when he’d blown up a mountain, and he was grinning wider than he thought possible, because a shirt didn’t fit him anymore.
He was too manly for it.
Canach strode through the Grand Piazza, ripped shirt in hand, ignoring the overwrought speeches gathering momentum on the pop-up stage. He took the Asura gate to the Grove and the Omphalos Chamber, where the Tree’s Avatar stood.
“I’m not the sylvari you made!” he announced, brandishing the shirt in triumph.
The Avatar and the saplings gave him dumbfounded stares. Canach threw the shirt in the Avatar’s face and left, cheerfully, without waiting for her reaction. He didn’t care what she thought. His old life was behind him, and he was the man he had always wanted to be.
