She'd always considered herself levelheaded though a little too bold for what she knew to be normal.
Her hair already was cropped far too short to be effeminate while her voice usually dropped lower than its natural pitch.
Allison knew that her mother disapproved, could pratically feel it from continents apart.
Her parents had been German born and raised; Allison had learned from them, the language that they'd already cherished.
She'd lived with them in Germany until she was old enough to seek out lessons under a new name; her mother had long since fretted over that and so her parents had moved farther away under her father's desire for safety as tensions rose in Germany.
Allison had never really considered herself all that idiotic; she was well behaved, could easily be a lady if she wanted to or felt the need to be one.
Ladies though never were ones to mask their gender and work on rockets for hours on end; they also weren't ones to flirt with the idea of loving another.
'Edward' was her roommate and longtime friend since they'd met when they both were being taught rocketry under Obert.
She'd found out soon enough despite Ed's appearance that she'd met another masked girl; Ed insisted though that she'd been a man up until she crossed through The Gate this last time.
Her stories were outlandish at best yet Allison had given herself a little bit of hope at them despite everything; Ed had a childhood best friend who'd worked on prosthetics despite being a girl and so had her grandmother.
Allison though hated this other churning in her gut; it whispered that she should reach out in a way that she was never comfortable with.
She'd grown up like a fairly normal girl despite desiring to create rockets; she'd played with other girls her age and had had more than her fair share of crushes on men.
Allison had never fallen for another girl before and that was scary enough with her pretending to be a man; she figured that Ed knew of her gender though had avoided bringing it up herself.
Some days, it seemed as if the other woman that lived with her knew and was flustered by it though other days, it felt as if she hadn't noticed.
Allison watched the other, watched as 'Edward' worked on blue prints for rockets that still impressed Allison.
She watched 'him' as she tried to ignore the light fluttering in her chest and the way she wanted to lean down and kiss the other woman as if life was not laid out for them in a fairly easy to follow plan.
Allison took risks often enough yet she knew better than to let this grow; she knew her secret only grew harder to hide if she were to allow Ed in.
