Circle of Flight

Circle of Flight

The fires howled, mixed with the screams of the dying as they tried to claw through the burning walls of the buildings trapping them. The whole village was burning, the trees were burning, it was as if the whole world was set ablaze. And still those evil lances of blue fire kept coming, slicing down out of the sky, boiling the air into a soup of plasma as they passed. Just outside the village, a lone young man fell to his knees and sobbed.



16 Years Later

Stird was crying again that day, but they were not tears of sadness. As he cradled his infant son in his arms, he felt a deep sense of peace, a connection with his past. For once, the fires and screams quieted in his mind, banishing themselves to some far corner of his consciousness, not gone, never gone, but set aside.

It was light years from that place of tragedy. Here, his son would be raised, never knowing his ancestral home, never knowing the fate of his clan. But in some small way, the clan would continue. And that was good enough for him.

"What do we should we name him?" His wife Msani said, sitting crosslegged on the hospital bed. She tucked her hair behind her ears and tied it back with a hairband, her keen amber eyes planning as always. Even exhausted from birth, they still had a bright cunning to them. Stird loved her eyes. The eyes now shared by his son.

"Malaki." Stird said without hesitation, cradling the boy, tracing imaginary naming marks on his face.

"A Matari name?" the women said frowning. "Are you sure that's good idea?"

"My brother's name," he said almost apologetically in response. "I know we're not matari anymore, but I want some part of my family history to live on, even if the meaning is lost."

She pursed her lips, getting that slightly faraway look that she got when she was deliberating on a complex issue. "It is a nice name..."

He nodded absentmindedly, already preoccupied with his son, tickling under his chin and cooing at him.

"Alright Stird, if its important to you, then yes, Malaki it is." she smiled wolfishly, he knew, and she knew, that by conceding this point, she would be able to leverage him on other issues in the future. He didn't mind, he loved her, and he loved his son. For just this one day, as before, on the day of their wedding, all was right with the world.

A few minutes later, the doctor came back in, a kindly, rounded Intaki women, with deep set almond eyes and a gentle smile on her lips.

"Monsieur and Madame Truzhari? I have some paperwork for the both of you, and I will need to do some medical tests on your son, and give him his first set of AVABs."

Msani nodded to her and took the pair of digital notebooks from her, and Stird reluctantly handed over his son. She smiled and carefully cradled the boy and exited the room. The door had barely been shut for a moment before his wife spoke.

"I know what you're thinking and the answer is no. No voluval. No naming marks. We will raise our son Gallentean, entirely Gallentean. I don't want you to even mention our ancestry to him. We are not Matari. Not anymore."

He sighed, knowing he had willingly walked right into this position. "I know love. I won't make an issue of it. We can put my old RF stuff in the storage unit."

"You should get those tattoos removed."

The flat look he gave her made her instantly back off on that suggestion. She knew there would be no winning that particular argument.

"All right fair enough." She grinned cheekily, "Will you just come over here and kiss me now?"

He smiled and happily obliged.

8 Years later.


Malaki stomped his feet dramatically; in a display of unbridled 8 year old frustration. Stird shifted Damien, his second child, a bit over a year old now, in his arms.

"Now Mal," he freed his other hand reached down to ruffle Malaki's hair, and gave him a gentle but firm smile, "You're a boy, so you wear boy clothes. And you look really handsome in them too."

"I don' wanna look hansome! I wanna be pretty!" he stomped his feet again, "Mom gets to wear pretty clothes, all the girls in my class get to wear pretty clothes. Why Can't I wear pretty clothes?" He pouted his lip.

"Because you're a boy. And boys don't wear girls clothes. Its not normal." Msani said sharply. "Now tie your shoes, we're going to be late for the party." The boy ignored her and stomped out the door angrily.

"I'm a bit worried Msani, he's been doing this an awful lot. Do you remember the awful fit he threw when we went to get his hair cut?"

His wife nodded, taking Damien from him so he could finish getting dressed for their dinner party. She pursed her lips, thinking, "We have to be firm about these things. Boys wear boys clothes. Girls wear girls clothes. Boys have short hair, girls have long hair, those are the rules."

"I'm still worried. What if this continues. What if he's a woman spirit?"

Msani sneered slightly, "He's not."

"How can you know that for cert--" Msani cut him off.

"The witch that cursed me out of my home and made everyone turn on me was women spirit. Our son is not that."

Stird frowned but nodded quietly, he knew from experience that Msani couldn't be reasoned with when she was like this. Still, the thought left him deeply concerned for the well being of his son--or daughter, if he was right about this. But there was nothing he could do. He sighed and shrugged on his jacket and headed out the door, absentmindedly tapping the security pad to lock the house.




Stird pat his knee and Malaki sat down in his lap, letting Stird ruffle his son's hair, it was getting a bit long and raggedy again, but Msani seemed to have given up trying to keep it short since Malaki had found her a girl's magazine featuring boys with long hair. The air was cold enough for him to see his breath and he wrapped the blanket he had over his shoulders around his son before staring up into the clear night air, watching the meteors streak overhead.

The cliffs outside Heuromont the next ridge over were dark, and afforded a view out over the rolling ocean waves, and the stars over the sea shone like brilliant diamonds.

"Daddy, what star is...that one!" Malaki pointed a one of the distant lights excitedly, he was up way past his bedtime and clearly taking full advantage of it, having just hit his second wind.

Stird smiled, having no idea, but not one to dampen his son's rampant curiosity. They were alone, and a flash of insight came to him. "I believe, that one is Pator."

"What's that?" Malaki said, beaming.

"Well," Stird knew that if Msani knew what he was about to do, there would be serious repercussions. But with things going, continuing to go, the way they were, then Malaki had the right to know. "Can you keep a secret from your mommy?"

Malaki nodded rapidly, instantly curious.

"That's the planet our people are originally from."

"I though we weres Gallentean?"

"No, we're minmatar."

"What's that mean?"

"It means, that somewhere out there, are people like you."

"Like me?"

"Yep. You're extra special." He ruffled his son's hair, or daughter's as he was becoming suspicious of. "Don't tell Mommy I told you that. She doesn't want us to be special, she wants us to be like everyone else."

"Why?"

"Because special people were mean to Mommy."

His son nodded in a surprisingly mature and solemn way for a nine year old. He smiled down to his son, then looked back up to the sky.

"I won't tell."

They didn't speak after that, they just sat quietly, watching the meteor shower.

5 Years Later


Stird sighed heavily and sunk down into his chair at their kitchen table. He studied the grain for a moment then looked up and gave his son...no, daughter, a critical look. It seemed like just yesterday that she was just a tiny infant, cradled in his arms in that hospital bed.

"You've known, haven't you?" She asked. "You've always known."

Stird looked at the datasheet in front of him for the third time, it was a psychological analysis of his child. One that confirmed what he'd feared.

"I have yeah." He looked up at her. The 14 year old standing across from him was very sight of frame, thin, petite. Her now long black hair was tied back in a ponytail. It was like he was seeing his sister alive again. But she'd been dead for over twenty years.

"My sister's name was Kikia. It was going to be your name if you were born a girl...I've been thinking of you like that for a while, you look like her..." he sighed again, "Listen, you are Kikia to me...if you want that name." It was very easy for him to make the mental flip from thinking of his son as his daughter. She was right, on some level, he'd always known.

She looked at him across the table, her brilliant amber eyes locking with his tired greys. She smiled very sightly.

"I like it...it feels right to me." She nodded thoughtfully, looking at the table. Unbeknownst to her mother, she knew everything about her father. She knew they were Matari, she knew that her father's clan, the Dancing Wolf Clan, had been annihilated by an Amarrian raiding party years ago, and she knew how much meaning and history was behind the name that her father had bestowed upon her. She looked back up at him. "So you'll help me transition then? You'll talk to Mum about it?"

Stird knew what was coming. He felt himself tensing up, this wouldn't end well, but he had to say what he had to say.

"You can't tell your mother. We have to keep it a secret." he said quietly, like he as almost ashamed. His daughter looked at him like she was about to cry, her hopes suddenly and completely dashed. He knew how she felt. She didn't want to hide who she was. She wanted to be able to express herself. She gave him a pleading look.

"Why? Why can't you tell her? Why do you keep secrets from her? Why is she so..." Kikia kicked the corner of the table, rattling the bowl of flowers in the middle and splashing water on the tabletop.

"Honey, please, listen, your Mother was treated very badly by the matari people, and doesn't want to have anything that she considers Matari in her life an--"

"This isn't about being Matari! This is about me being me! Me being happy, and feeling good about myself! Is that too much to ask? Really?"

"I know, I know, but your mother is very--"

"Demanding? Controlling?" She half towered over him, he saw that same fire in Msani in her now, and knew this wouldn't end well. She was on a very short fuse. Her plans to live her life her way had just been stomped on. She kept shouting. "You know what I think? I think you're just too much of a coward to stand up to her! She's got you wrapped around her litte finger and when she says jump you say how high!" She kicked the table again.

"Kikia Truzhari, I am not going to turn on your mother. I will support you but she can't know about this, not yet." He spoke sternly, hoping to arrest her mounting anger, it didn't work.

"How long am I supposed to wait? You've already made me wait years! You always take her side!"

"Because I love her!"

"Don't you love me too?!"

"Yes but that doesn't mean I'm going to cave to the whims of a 14 year old!"

"Well screw you then!"

Stird tried to say something but she stormed out of the room and slammed the outside door before he could get the words out. he sat there in shock for a few moments. Then the tears started. Stird's shoulder's heaved and tears trickled down his face. He rested his head in his hands and cried. He cried for his daughter, he cried for his clan, and he cried for his family, which he knew would never be whole again after this.

And the worst thing of it was, deep down, Stird knew she was completely right.




He had a certain mysterious charm to him. Charisma, looks, attitude. Kikia was utterly infatuated with him.

Jyrai Kyomoria grinned at her, his white teeth contrasting sharply with his tanned olive skin. "Well, all the more reason to tell them to shove off eh?"

They were sitting under a tree in a park on a hill overlooking the Old City. Kikia was curled up in a little ball, her chin resting on her knees, hugging herself. "Why does he have to be such a wimp though? Mum's really not that scary. I mean, sure, she's loud, and she can be a bit mean, but she's not scary. Its like he's terrified of her."

The older Vherokior boy looked at her solemnly, he knew how she felt. He was one of the first people she'd confided in about herself. "I don't think he's afraid of her. I think he's afraid of losing her."

"What do you mean?" She asked, poking her head up a bit.

"Everyone he cared about before is dead. Your mum, you, and your brother are all he has. If you were him, wouldn't you cling to her like a drowning man?"

"I'd be a Drowning woman."

"You know what I mean."

Kiki pouted. She knew he was right, but she didn't like it. They sat in silence for a few moments before Jyrai spoke up.

"On another note, I think I need something else to call you. It feels really weird to call you Mal, and if you're going to keep crushing on me, we should probably think of a name that doesn't make people think I'm gay."

Kikia instantly turned brilliantly crimson and buried her face in her knees. One of the things she really liked about him was his blunt honesty, but sometimes...

"Oh come on now, no need for that." He ruffled her hair, "Wanna go use my dad's datapad to look up matari girl's names?"

She mumbled something that couldn't be understood.

"What was that? I didn't quite catch it?"

She looked up, her face still beat red but now a twinge of amused anger in her eyes.

"Is it Bretta? I bet its Bretta. Cause, we all know the reason you and her fight like a married couple is that you really want to be--" she kicked him in the shins. A playful grin teasing itself into the corner of her mouth.

"Its Kikia. It was my Dad's sister's name. Before she died."

He looked up into the blue sky, as if mentally debating the pros and cons of the name. After a moment he looked back down at her, his expression a bit more serious.

"Does it make you happy?"

"Yes."

"Good, keep it that way."



Patient Information
Name: Truzhari, Malaki Sabien
Age: 14 years
DoB: YC90.03.26
Blood Type: O-
Height: 154cm
Weight: 45kg

Diagnostics
Presiding Physician: Doctor Jenene Masuratee MD
Psychologist: Doctor Nathaniel Jennison PhD
Differential Diagnosis: Generalized Gender Identity Disorder
Diagnostic Reasoning:
Malaki Truzhari appears to be in good physical and mental health, testing negative for Schizophrenia Induced Identity Crisis Disorder, as well as Paranoid Delusional Identity Disorder. Patient is physically fit, and does not express displeasure to his body structure or fitness, only in his gender. Magnetic Brain Imaging tests indicated an invariance of the Frontal and Parietal Lobes commonly found in individuals with GGID. Magnetic straining indicated that this was not caused by Sarcosia Syndrome or by Reckenfeller's Disorder. This leads to the conclusion that the patient suffers from Generalized Gender Identity Disorder. Treatment advised.

Treatment
Suggested Actions:
Patient should be permitted to transition to living as a female for a period of no less then three years, after with the patient should be permitted to seek gender changing surgery, or mental download. It is also suggested the patient be put on hormone shifters to aid the transition to living as women, and low leve antidepressants for the patient's mental wellbeing until physical gender adjustment is permitted.
Suggested Medications:
200mg Estrasynth, administered orally once a day.
50mg Pentadalactone, administered orally once a day.
Up to 10mg Tradicase, administered orally as needed.

((I liked it! Any material that shows a character's background before becoming a capsuleer is great. I also liked how Kikia pointed to the stars and sensed Pator, rather epic.))

2 Years Later

"You're not going and that is final." Msani looked at her errant child with a look of barely contained fury. They were once again sitting at the kitchen table. A pile of documents and papers was scattered across the table. Kikia scowled, her dark amber eyes darted to her father for support, but Stird remained silent, his hands clasped in front of him as he tried to remain impassive. She could tell he wanted to side with her, but was afraid of upsetting Msani. He was a coward, Kiki seethed at him and matched her mother's gaze.

"I am legally an adult. I've graduated from the regional school. I have the grades and the aptitudes, and I've been accepted on a scholarship. I am going to Caille." She set her jaw and squeezed her fists together. She sensed her mother's anger building and braced herself as it spilled out into yet another screaming match.

"Malaki Truzhari, I am your mother and I will not have that tone from you! You are not going to Caille! I forbid it, I will not loose my first born son to that den of filth!" She spat out each of the words, the veins in her arms stuck out. Kikia stood up looking down at her seriously and calmly. Her voice was like ice.

"My name is Kikia. I'm not a boy. And I'm going."

"I said I forbid it! And Your name is Malaki, I won't have you disfiguring your body and mind over some childish obsession! You are a boy!" Msani was screaming now, her black hair flying into her face, her eyes almost bulging out, her whole body was tensed.

"You forbid it?" She asked calmly in response. Before Msani could say anything she started gathering up the papers. She met her mother's gaze one last time. "Forbid this."

She turned and walked out the door, down the front step, and around the bend in the road, that was how far she got before her composure broke down and she started crying.




Stird pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed Msani's shoulder.

"I feel like I have failed as a mother." She said, sitting on the bed in the room of her child. The room had been stripped bare. Kikia had fled the house while she and Stird were out running errands. Everything was gone. "I just can't believe he would do this."

"I can." Stird said. She looked up at him, her eyes still red from crying. Looking at the note again.

"He chose himself over his family. I can't understand how he can be so selfish." She clutched the letter Kikia had left then screamed, crunched it up, and angrily threw it at the wall. Stird said nothing, he just rubbed her shoulders.

"She'll be back I think. When she's ready."

Msani turned to him with a hurt, furious gaze, "We have a son Stird, not a daughter."

Stird let go of her and said sharply, "This is happening Msani! whether you like it or not our child has chosen to be a girl, and we can either accept her as she is or drive her away."

Msani scowled and said nothing at first, staring at the floor. She said quietly. "You want to leave this room."

Stird sighed, squeezed her shoulder again, then grudgingly obliged.




Dear Mum and Dad,

I'm leaving for college. I'm going to find myself and find my future, which its clear I can't do here. You won't let me. I wish I didn't have to do this. I wish you could love me as I was. I hope some day you will be able to. I love you both, and know I am going to miss you. But I have to do this. I'm done hiding who I am, I'm done living I lie, I'm done being miserable. Consider Malaki Truzhari completely ended. I'm done being a boy. Completely and totally done with it. When I'm finished changing, I'll try and come back to you. I hope by then you can come to terms with who I am. I want a fresh start with us, as a family. I want us to be able to be a family. I love you both, and Damien too. I'll finish college in four years. Maybe I'll be back then. Maybe sooner. We'll see. I know this is going to hurt deeply, but I need to go and live my life. I can't be the person you want me to be, and I felt bad about that for a long time, but I don't anymore. I am my own person. I'm done hiding, I'm going to be myself. Its all I can do. Keep safe, think of me often, and try and learn to accept me please.

Your loving daughter,
Kikia