Change

AUTHOR'S NOTE: In sociological terms, the word "sex" refers to the biologically determined physical distinctions between males and females, and "gender" refers to socially generated attitudes and behaviors, usually organized dichotomously as masculinity and femininity. THIS IS NOT A STORY ABOUT INTERCOURSE!!!!! >.<

CHANGE

I knew my time was coming a good three days in advance. All the little signs that tell the People that the Change is upon us were there. I felt extremely fatigued, as if I had not slept at all the night before. I kept nodding off in class, my eyelids falling and rising, as uncontrollable as the tide.

“Kami, wake up!” Master Rekai commanded. I hadn’t even heard her leave her place in the circle and come to stand before me. She knelt down, so that here eyes were level with mine. “What‘s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” I said, and it was true. It was just my time coming upon me. Soon--a day, maybe two--it would be obvious, but for now I wanted to keep it secret, to relish it alone.

My best friend Arin glanced over at me with a knowing smile on its face. My secret was not so secret then. But it was okay. I would have told Arin by the end of the day anyway.

“Are you scared?” Arin asked quietly after class as we walked to the eatery.

“A little nervous, maybe,” I admitted. “But I’ve seen my brother and sister go through it, so I know what to expect.” Dorain’s Change had taken only four days, but Sevai’s had lasted over a week. It usually takes longer to become a woman than a man. We don’t know why, but it does.

Arin didn’t ask what I thought I’d become. I’d been born at a time when there were more men than women. I’d been given a girl’s name and taught politics and science. I learned only enough about weapons to defend myself, and was taught how to run the ceremonies to bring rain, bountiful harvests, and the goodwill of the Gods to the village. I read books on war, and learned strategy, for it was a woman’s job to plan battles and a man’s job to fight them.

Arin didn’t have to take as many academic classes as me. It was to become a man, and men needed to learn to fight and build things. It would have to defend the village with the men, and hunt, and fight to expand our lands. It would not stay at home, like I would, to administer the village and educate the next generation. To much education was likely to turn a child who was supposed to become a man into a woman, and that would upset the delicate balance of men and women in our society. An unbalanced society would not function correctly. We had learned that in the past. So we are very careful to train our children from birth to ensure they become what they are intended to become.

“How long do you think you have?” Arin asked, after making sure nobody was listening. It knew I didn’t want everyone to know. Not yet.

I shrugged. “Three, maybe four days.”

Arin’s slender eyebrows rose. “That fast? Do you feel well?”

“A little tired, but otherwise well,” I said with a smile.

That changed gradually over the next twenty-four hours. There was no pain or illness, but it was not a pleasant time. My limbs began to feel leaden, and to tremble with the least exertion. I grew grumpy, snapping at people for no reason. My eyes were heavy, drooping at the most inopportune times, such as in the middle of class or at the supper table at home. That night I slept nearly fifteen hours, waking up late enough the next morning to have missed my first two classes. Hunger burned constantly in my belly, and my stomach rumbled loudly, causing my classmates, friends, and family to giggle.

By the end of the second day, everyone knew. My mother, sister, and grandmothers began planning my Rite of Passage ceremony. My friends, teachers, and family members started giving me their congratulations and making good-natured jokes.

“I think it’s going to eat everything on the table all by itself,” my brother Dorain laughed as I spooned large portions of food onto my plate.

“I think it’s going to eat the table,” my sister Sevai said dryly, handing me the biscuit off of her own plate. Grinning, I gulped it down in four bites.

On the third day, I passed out cold as I climbed out of bed to get ready for school. I was not asleep for very long, and when I woke up my brother and sister each had an arm around my waist and were hauling me off the floor. Laughing gently, they set me on my bed and propped me up with pillows.

Dorain went to the kitchen to get me something to eat and Sevai sat down on the edge of my bed. Her fingers brushed my forehead, and she smiled sweetly. I hoped I would look as beautiful as her when my Change was complete.

“You’re warm,” she said. Children of the People are never warm unless ill or beginning our Change. Our metabolisms speed up rapidly during this time in preparation for the transformation to come. It’s part of the reason we are so hungry right before our Change begins; we need the extra energy.

My mother entered the room with Dorain, carrying a second tray of food. They both set the plates before me and I began eating ravenously.

“We’ll throw your Right of Passage ceremony tonight,” she said, feeling my skin as Sevai had. “Your father responded to my letter. He’ll be arriving this afternoon.”

That gave me some energy. I had not seen my father for almost two weeks; the Queen had called him, along with some of the other village men, to the border of our land to address a possible threat from the south.

“What do you think he‘ll bring me?” I asked eagerly, and smiling, my mother put her fingers to her lips.

“It‘s a surprise,” she said.

For the rest of the day Dorain, Sevai, and my mother took turns trying to keep me awake and making me comfortable. If I had wanted that day, I could have let myself fall asleep and my Change would have begun, but it is custom to have a Rite of Passage first to mark the event. It is not just an important milestone in my own life, but an significant time for the whole village. All of my family, friends, and teachers would be there to see me begin the journey to adulthood and give me presents. The village elders would attend as well, to gift me with my adulthood name.

When the sun began to shine through my window, heating my room and making me almost unbearably hot, Sevai and Dorain gave me lots of water and moved me to the garden room, which was on the other side of the house and shaded. Although I sweated and did not feel well, they gave me nothing to reduce the fever. In our great-grandparent’s time children going through the Change were administered willow bark tea and other drugs to alleviate the fever, but this made the Change take nearly twice as long, and the new adults emerged from their Change incredibly thin and sometimes were ill for weeks. It is better, we know today, to allow the fever to take its course so that the Change is over more quickly and adolescents do not go as long without nourishment.

Around mid-afternoon my father arrived. He put his spear, bow, and arrows on the ground outside and came immediately to see me.

“How are you, my child?” he asked, taking a gourd of water from Sevai and handing it to me. My hands trembled as I took it, but not so badly as before. My father was a warrior, and I am his child; I did not want him to see any weakness in me.

“I am ready for my Change to begin,” I admitted in exasperation.

He laughed, loud and boisterous. Dorain glanced over from where he stood in the sun practicing his sword form, an amused look on his tanned face. “I am sure you are, little one! I remember how it was for me. I couldn‘t wait to go to sleep. But you will be glad that you waited until after your Rite of Passage to begin your Change. Though it may not mean much to you now, seeing as you are more interested in getting the whole thing over with, in the future you will look upon this time fondly, and will be glad you had a ceremony to celebrate it.”

“Oh, I look upon it fondly enough already,” I said with a chuckle. “But I just wish it didn’t last so long!”

He patted my head, then gave me a kiss on the forehead. “You know what they say; the longer the time before the Change, the stronger the adult after.”

When the sun began to set that evening, my friends and family began to arrive. Everyone assembled outside on the beach, placing leaf or sealskin-wrapped gifts on a large stone that had been used for this purpose thousands of times. Torches were lit and arranged in a circle in the sand.

Back at home, I put on a fresh robe of dark blue silk---a good, feminine color---and walked unaided outside with Sevai and Dorain in attendance. Luckily for me, the ceremonial place could be seen from the garden window, and I did not have to walk far. Nevertheless, I was tired and weak, and glad my siblings were there in case I needed them.

A blanket had been placed in the center of the circle of torches, and I went there and sat down, dizzy with exhaustion. Then the feast was brought forth, and some of that exhaustion was alleviated as I began to eat.

Arin left its mother and younger siblings to come sit at my side. It ate with almost the same single-minded attentiveness that I did, and its hands trembled slightly as it reached forward to grasp a crab leg. I watched, amazed and hoping.

It met my eyes and grinned. “It started today,” it whispered. “I haven‘t told anyone yet.”

Overjoyed, I grasped it by the shoulders and kissed it hard on the lips. Leaning my forehead against its own, I murmured, “You know what this means, don‘t you?”

It nodded, smiling, and kissed me back. “Yes.”

When we straightened, Sevai and Dorain were watching us sagely, and several of the villagers were nodding and whispering amongst themselves with small smiles on their faces. Among the People it is custom to marry someone who becomes an adult at the same time as you. Until now I thought I was the only child going through the Change and that I would have to wait to see who my husband would be. But the onset of Arin’s Change ensured that we would be paired, and we had often talked about our hopes that this would happen.

Soon, the feast was cleared away and people began approaching with gifts. My mother and father were first, for I was their child and it was their right.

By this time I was sitting in Arin’s lap, leaning back against its chest for support. I felt comfortable there, and accepted my mother’s wrapped copy of Balai’s Scroll, a treatise on the reign of Queen Fedai the Industrious, with a smile. Then my father gifted me a small, wickedly curved dagger and the promise to teach me the Bazuq system of self-defense as soon as I was an adult and big enough to train in earnest. Sevai and Dorain had pooled their resources to give me a seashell and pearl necklace, which I tied around my neck after kissing them both.

The gifts continued to pour forth, and my eyelids steadily grew heavier and my body limper in Arin’s arms. Then the three Elders of the village stepped forth and knelt before me. I managed to pry my eyes open, wanting to stay awake long enough for this, the most important part of my Rite of Passage.

“Child, rise, and come with us,” High Elder Halai said. Since I did not have the strength to rise, the three women helped me to my feet and half led, half carried me down the shore toward the rolling tide.

Fear burned acidic in the back of my throat. If they took me too far into the water, I could drown; I didn’t have the strength to swim. But they only led me far enough in so that the cool water lapped at my knees. Carefully, Elder Carai untied my robe and handed it to Elder Jadai, who folded it carefully to keep it from becoming wet. Then High Elder Halai bade me to sit, and Elder Carai stood beside me as I did so, supporting me as the tide pushed gently against me.

“Hold your breath,” High Elder Halai commanded, and I obeyed. They ducked me backwards, swiftly, and then lifted me again so that I sat, dripping and sputtering, in the shallow water.

“With this cleansing,” the High Elder began, “we wash away childhood sins, and replace them with adulthood responsibilities.”

They dunked me again. This time I was better prepared, and did not cough or gasp when I surfaced again.

“With this cleansing, we wash away your childhood name, and gift you with the name you will carry throughout adulthood,” the High Elder said.

A third time I was submerged in the water, and when I sat up again and the water cleared from my ears, I heard her say, “Kamai.”

The cleansing drained what little strength I had left. The High Elder was not a large woman, but she was strong, and she carried me in her own arms back onto dry land, wrapped me in my robe, and lay me upon the blanket. Then my family and friends gathered around me and began singing quietly, voices rising and falling with the waves. The sounds rolled together into a calming drone, my eyes grew heavy, and I fell asleep.

The rest of my Change is but speculation, for I was not conscious enough to be aware of it. I suppose everyone took hold of the ends of my blanket and carried me up the beach to my house, for this is what happened to Sevai and Dorain when their time was upon them. I know I was lain upon my bed and covered lightly with another blanket, because this is how I awoke a week later. My family probably distributed the remains of the feast among the visitors, who continued singing as they made their way to their own homes. I suppose I was given some water and honey as I slept, to help keep my strength up and ensure I did not become dehydrated. But for the most part, I was probably left alone, for my body knew how to make its slow Change toward womanhood without any outside interference.

At the end of the eighth day it was done. I climbed toward awareness through a haze as thick as ice fog. At first I would hear small snatches of sound and feel the sensation of something soft on my skin, but then I would drift off again to sleep before I could determine what exactly I was experiencing. But gradually my returns to awareness grew longer, until I would stay awake for minutes---then hours---at a time.

My strength grew gradually as well. I hadn’t eaten anything since my Rite of Passage eight days before, and after a week of extremely fast development, my body felt the lack sorely. When I took my first meal, I was hungry enough to eat as much as I had before my Change, but Dorrain and Sevai restricted me to small portions for a few days so that I did not become ill.

One day Arin---Arain now---came to visit me. Although his Change had started two days after mine, it had only lasted four days total and he had woken up before me. Since then, he had completely regained his strength, as I had nearly done.

I was sitting in the garden doing the homework I’d missed when I saw him walking through the trees toward me. He looked much the same as he had before, only now his black hair was pulled back in a warrior’s tail and he carried a sword at his waist.

“It’s a gift from my father,” he said, his voice a little lower now than it had been before.

“It’s nice,” I said, wondering if I seemed at all changed to him. I thought my body might be a bit curvier than it had been before, but I was still too young to look completely like a woman was supposed to. That would come, in time.

“I brought you… something,” he blurted out. Kneeling beside me in the grass, he reached into the leather pouch at his waist and began searching. Watching his nervousness, I suddenly had a feeling I knew what it was going to be.

Sure enough, he pulled a silver bangle out of his pouch, and handed it to me, blushing. “Kamai, I would be honored if you would be my wife.”

My fingers closed over the bracelet, and I tried to think of something to say. “Yes, I’ll be your wife,“ felt too impersonal and too wrong. “I’ll be your wife if you’ll be my husband,” was just flat out cheesy and affected. For a moment I thought this was going to be very awkward, for us both; we just had so little experience with this side of our relationship!

Then I grinned. This was my best friend and the man I wanted to marry. There was no reason for it to be awkward!

I handed him the bangle back, and he took it with a look of panic and confusion crossing his face.

“You’re supposed to put it on my wrist, silly,” I whispered, grabbing his collar and kissing him.