Moonspear eye of the untold her

Pie felt wretched by the time she crossed over the borders. Her head hurt. Her feet hurt. Her heart hurt worst of all. She paused to glance up the mountain, oblivious to the red staining her left eye, and decided to yip a note letting her pack mates know she was back.

Lacking the energy to make the climb, the Ostrega shuffled to a cache buried near the foot of the mountain. She didn’t have much appetite, yet she forced herself to eat the first thing she found there, which happened to be a wood rat. She took small, halfhearted bites and thought about what she needed to say to @Kindle.

Since the arrival of weird little Goldfinch, Kindle had been thinking they ought to store a little more food at the bottom of the mountain. He didn't approve of theivery and he did not approve of adopting all these frail little girls into their ranks — but even he wasn't so heartless as to allow them to starve. What if they didn't catch the next one in the act and draw them into the fold? What if they only found a meager meal and staved off death for a few short hours?

So he carried a fat rabbit he would rather have eaten himself down the mountain, grumbling to himself all the while. Right up until he heard a familiar voice, at least.

Kindle sped up, then, making a beeline toward — well, the cache he'd already been heading for, as it turned out.

"Pie," he said. A little more forcefully than he'd meant to. The rabbit lay forgotten in the snow and he stalked forward, tail whipping in a motion halfway between eagerness and annoyance. "You're back," he added, as if she did not know.

Her latest mouthful nearly stuck in her throat when she heard the telltale sounds of someone coming down the mountain and saw that it was Kindle. Pie made a small noise and managed to swallow it, albeit a bit painfully.

Hey, she replied, staying in her supine position despite the urge to jump to her feet and into his arms. I didn’t mean to be gone so long.

Pie glanced down at her meal, then pushed it away and stood slowly. She still wanted to go to Kindle. Instead, she stood still and just looked at him.

We should talk.

Well, that was quite the reception. Kindle supposed he hadn't done her any better, but a frown still made it into his face.

We should talk, she said, and his frown deepened. That was what Kira had said to him, of course, when he'd confessed Treepie's private business to her. He'd have to reckon with that at some point. Perhaps imminently, because [I]we should talk was still ringing in his ears.

"I love you," he said. Again, with too much force.

She hadn’t anticipated a love confession. Treepie’s ears pulled backward and her face began to crumple. It would make this even harder, especially because—she might feel grateful about this at a later date—she didn’t think she was quite there yet. Terrible guilt squeezed her battered heart.

I can’t have your children, she said, her voice shaking as she began to cry, and I’m not…

Her mind flashed to Sobeille. There was no love lost between them now, but she’d once felt deeply for the woman. She wished she could deny it, but she didn’t bother trying. Her guilt deepened when she realized she’d felt more in love with Sobeille once than she did with Kindle now.

But that realization gave her the strength to say, I don’t think I can be your girlfriend anymore, Kindle. I’m so sorry, between sobs.

There is was, as he'd feared. It didn't change anything that he loved her. She couldn't have his children, so she had to have someone else's. That — that made sense. He knew it did.

It didn't keep him from feeling crushed.

He was silent for a long moment, swallowing down some unkind words that itched to be unleashed. He was angry with her, despite it all. Angrier at himself and the world at large, but still angry with her. That would fade, he knew. Love would fade, too.

But it still hurt.

"I hope you find what you're looking for, Pie," he said at last.

But he couldn't stick around to see it.

His response made her cry harder. It was perhaps the most gracious thing he could do, could say, and it made her feel like such a monster. Treepie felt desperate to explain, though he made no such demands of her.

I don’t think I’m a girl, she admitted in a throaty voice, breath hitching. Oh, gods, she said next, starting to fold to the ground.

She didn’t know what she was. She felt like a woman, in so many ways, yet her body was more masculine than feminine. And it seemed her heart might be too. It sounded simple—maybe she was just a man—but she bent at the middle just like she’d done during their last conversation.

But this time, she didn’t hold back the screaming.

The response was not entirely unexpected, but it still blew him away to hear the words. He supposed, privately, that she must be right. Her lady parts were ornamental, and she had all the right equipment to be as much a man as Kindle himself. But he loved her, and he wanted her, so that must make her a woman. Mustn't it?

He didn't say that, though. Didn't say much of anything except, "Hey," and a few gentle, quelling sounds as he pressed forward, instinctively seeking to shut her up by way of soothing her. Eventually, "Listen to me," he urged — and then waited until he thought he had her attention to say,

"You're Treepie, alright? And you're the best woman I know, whatever else you are or you aren't."

He hated that he was the one comforting her. He knew she needed it, that she'd suffered a blow here that would last a lifetime. That this was the disappointing culmination of a lifelong dream and the death of the girl she thought she'd known. He knew this, but he was still so very angry.

"You'll be a mom," he told her, firmly. "You'll be a parent, at least, if you can't believe that. I'm sorry it can't be the way you wanted."

And he was. He was.

It didn’t go on forever, though by the time she slumped forward, breathless, her throat was raw. Kindle’s voice broke through the sound of her ragged breathing, though his reassurances did not make a difference. Pie was not female, she couldn’t bear offspring. The rest was semantics.

She knew he was right, that Alaric was too. Treepie recognized that her parts actually aligned with her preferences, now that she’d stopped trying to deny them. Assuming her male anatomy functioned, she could father children on a woman.

It didn’t alleviate her grief, nor her guilt. It still meant she didn’t belong with Kindle. And that, no matter what, nobody would ever call her anaa. Because she would never carry children, or birth them, or nurse them—all things she’d spent her life dreaming about.

No answer came. Kindle supposed he didn't need one, at this point. And whatever else Treepie needed — well. Kira had been right. His own needs mattered, too.

Kindle stole stole one last press of his nose into her cheek, breathing deeply the scent that he'd so grown to love. When he allowed himself to think about it, he conceded that his own identity might not be quite what he'd thought, either. It was certainly an easier revelation for him than for Treepie, however.

Still. He could not be the one to comfort her right now.

"Be well, Tiuttuk," he said into her temple, trying to infuse some kind of cosmic order into his words. But then he pulled away, moving wearily to depart.

He would skirt the mountain so that she did not question his trajectory — but then he would leave without word. After all, he would be departing alone. The Morningside blessings could not apply to lone travellers.