“‘But she told me that she did—’
“‘Oh, she’s an awful fibber—’
“And Sola would give Gahoostawik a look, a fierce one, and she’d say, ‘Shame on you for fibbing, Little Wooden-Head.’ And then she’d listen to all the other dolls to find one who wasn’t fibbing. She’d tell me how Arlie had gone to visit the castle of the winds, or how Wallan had explored the caves within Forever Mountain, or how T’stanawan and Dhola had gone scouting for the treasures lost in the shallow seas of Hetsko Crater and met the eel-snakes who guarded them, and how they’d tricked the queen of the eels into giving them a box of crimson pearls, but they’d lost it when they crossed the land of dreams on their return—you can take things with you into the land of dreams, but you cannot bring them out again. So the fabled crimson pearls were lost forever, except in dreams.
“On this day, when we both were laughing at the jokes that Dhola told so badly and were crying over long-lost riches, our conversation turned toward wistful things. I don’t remember why, but I asked Sola about Choice. Perhaps it was because I perceived her as being safe to ask—because of her special difference.
“She became very embarrassed then. In my innocence—or stupidity—I’d asked about the one thing I shouldn’t have. Not that she minded, she’d long ago grown used to her handicap—but she knew the rest of the family was embarrassed that she was a deviate. Sola was ‘Unchosen.’ She’d never had a Blush, and although her soul had found its proper shape, her body never had. Some people in the family thought this was a curse visited upon her for some undiscovered sin; they blamed Sola for it and they kept pressing her to admit the reason for her shame. She thought them ignorant and foolish; she’d already scourged herself far worse than they might try—did they think she was so stupid she hadn’t covered all that ground already? It was an empty path to follow, and she told them so, without apology or anger. Accept me as I am, she said; her deviance was natural-caused—the genes of Choice were sensitive—and she had had Virulent Fever. Eventually they’d reached a state of mutual tolerance—those who loved her, loved her for herself, and those who didn’t want to love her would seize on anything to justify distaste; fortunately there were not that many who thought that way within our circle, but those few who could not accept her, made every effort to pretend she didn’t exist; and for her part, Sola returned their indifference, albeit with regret. They were ignorant anyway, even I knew that—Sola always moved with magic, her deviance had made her special; she moved between the worlds and saw things that the rest of us would miss; and if we were very good and listened very hard, sometimes she’d share those things with us. And that’s why she was special—but it embarrassed her to talk of Choice because she’d never had one. She said, very calmly, ‘What do you want to know?’
“‘Does it hurt to choose?’
“‘Which way would you have chosen, if you could have?’
“‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Sometimes, I thought I wanted to be Dakkarik—there was someone that I loved very, very much. She was Rethrik. Older than me too; I worshiped her and wanted to marry her.’ She sighed. ‘But other times, I thought I would be Rethrik, so I could be like her instead, and make babies of my own.’ She shrugged sadly. ‘But I never blushed, so I never chose . . .’ And then she looked at me. ‘Which way are you going to choose, Little Pumpkin?’
“‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘When I was littler, Yuki and Olin and Dardis and I were all going to be male. But Uncle Marro’—here, Sola’s face went sour—‘moved away and took Yuki with her. Olin stayed, and when Kaspe indentured in, she and Olin became the best of friends, and Dardis too. And then Dardis went back to the sea and the circle didn’t work without her, and Olin and I would fight all the time and there was no one left to play with—’ I guess I started to cry a little then, realizing how lonely I really was, because she let me climb into her lap. ‘I have no one to play with anymore, Aunt Sola—except you.’ I added, ‘I love you,’ and her smile could have lit the ocean like a moonstar.
“‘But I can’t always be here,’ she said. ‘That’s why you have Gahoostawik and Dhola and Arlie, and all your other dolls—’
“‘That’s not the same and you know it.’
“Sola nodded. ‘Yes, I do, Little Mouse. I know something about loneliness. There are some ways to make it less, but never to make it go away completely. That’s why you’re going to go to Option—you’ll make lots of new friends there; you’ll make your Choice and meet your first lovers, and perhaps you’ll find a circle of you own. You’ll have fun, you’ll find new happiness there. You’ll be too busy to be lonely.’
“I wasn’t sure I believed her, but she told it so well. She could have told me that the moonstars were made of silk and candy and I would have believed her. But, this—‘Have you been there?’
“‘They didn’t have Option when I was your age. But if they had, I’m sure it would have been a lovely place to Choose. Kuvig and Suko have your best interests at heart, you know.’ She saw I was still doubtful, so she added, ‘Listen, Little One—your dolls are sometimes better friends than you might realize. Listen to them as do I—they’ll tell you the stories that they won’t even tell to me. Ask them of loneliness and Choice and see what happens—why, they’ll tell you things within your heart that you didn’t even know were there. Really.’
“I remember her telling me that very clearly—at the time it seemed a funny thing to say, and later on, reflecting back, it seemed downright silly. I wondered if she’d been patronizing me. But there were times soon after when I grew so lonely I would have tried anything to lessen the pain—and that was when I remembered Sola’s words and began to understand what she had meant. In her own way, she’d been right again—they did speak to me; not out loud and not in words, but in ways that only I could see and hear. All I had to do was watch the way I played with them as if from a point outside myself. Gahoostawik was often me and when she did things that were silly, it was really me who was the silly one—and looking down at her, I could stop her from doing stupid things before she did them, and maybe sometimes too, I could even stop myself.
“I let those dolls act out all of my fears and fantasies—and I was titillated, scared and almost always stimulated. None of my dolls were chosen yet—at least not in my own mind. Perhaps the time had come for them to make their Choices too. I told them so; I’d watch how they decided.
“Gahoostawik, the little liar, decided she was male, so was Arlie, and Wallan too. Bargle, T’stanawan and Dhola went for Reethe. Rhinga—like Sola—stayed undecided. I dressed them all as they had chosen. Rhinga complained about not having any Choice—she didn’t want to be so different—and I explained to her that she was special, like Sola, but still it bothered her. Inside, it must have bothered me as well; all my dolls reflected different aspects of myself, and even though I loved Aunt Sola, when Rhinga said she didn’t want to be like her, it really was my own fear speaking.
“I dressed Bargle, T’stanawan and Dhola in kilts and wraps and robes, headbands and scarves, and halters round their breasts; I tied their hair up on their heads because they had gone Rethrik. The others, the Dakka ones, I dressed in loin-cloths to hold their budding organs, and boots, and ribbons on their arms; I painted them with stripes across their chests and faces, as if for festive-day, and hung rings and necklaces on them to make them as pretty as I could. Perhaps, I thought—I still do now—that was why they’d chosen male; they like dressing up like peacocks. Not that Rethrik didn’t prance and posture for each other and their mates—but the Dakkarik always overdid it.
“All of them were proud of their new Choices. Except Gahoostawik, of course; she was proud at first—but when she changed her mind. It was fun to dress up fancy, and every time a new piece of clothing was made up, she would want to wear it too, no matter whose it was, to see how it looked on her. This included all the Rethrik clothes as well. It was as if the little dummy had no idea what she wanted. If Bargle wore a red kilt, Gahoosta
wik had to have one too—until Wallan wore a blue loin-cloth and ribbons, and then she wanted blue. When I dressed T’stanawan as Reethe, then she insisted she was Rethrik too—I hoped that she might stay that way, at least for a little while, but she bounced back and forth in her desires like a ball of putty in a tumbling vat.
“Soon all of them began complaining—they should have the chance to change their minds as well—and so they got to choose again and this time they reversed themselves, although Rhinga remained unchosen. It gave me a strange feeling to switch their clothes around. I’d already tied their hair and painted all their faces—they looked their chosen roles, but now they all wanted to be their opposites, which meant untying all their hair, cleaning all of them, retying and repainting, dressing them again—it was an afternoon both tedious and filled with discovery. I saw them each take on new characteristics in my eyes. I’d seen my dolls as all unchosen, and I’d seen them each as Reethe and Dakka—I’d seen how each one’s personality remained the same beneath the role, and yet how each one changed as well when she took on the surface qualities of her respective Choice. I was caught in wonder, I was deep in seas of thought. I’d discovered something on my own about the nature of Choice—
“I used to think before, that Choice would change me into someone else—well, it would, of course; it would make me someone older, more mature, an adult—but when I saw the souls of my dolls remain unchanged beneath their roles, I realized that so would I remain unchanged inside. And yet—they were also wondrously enlarged by taking on their Choices, and so would I be magnified when I too made discovery of who I was supposed to be. Which was why it gave me such a funny feeling to switch them all around—to reverse the Choice did not enlarge it once again so much as it devalued it. It shrank their Choices, made them insignificant, made it something casual like a dress or hat that could be doffed at will. And I’d seen in my own dolls that Choice was something more than that: an enlargement of the soul; the styles could be changed, the magnitude of Choice could not. I looked at all my dolls again, and saw them all as chosen, their personalities had taken on the shapes of Reethe or Dakka, a permanent development of each of them; they could not wrench themselves out of the molds they’d chosen. Some of them were dressed all wrong, and had to be redressed their initial roles; others were just fine the way they were—but all of their Choices now were permanent. At least for now, and probably forever.
“But Gahoostawik was still unhappy—and because she was so very close to me, and so necessary to my life, I let her choose again, and still again, hoping that in all that choosing, eventually she’d discover who she was. But all that really happened was that she confused herself, and me as well, even more than we had been before. Neither she nor I had any idea what her Choice should be, but she was determined to keep searching for it—trying on one role, then another, ceaselessly. I suppose I felt the same way too, and hoped that her discovery would lead to mine; but instead she just decided the only thing for her to do was to be both, and change her sex whenever she wanted, to suit each passing mood. I tried to explain that she could not; once Choice was made, that was it, she had to live with it—so choose the one that feels best, I told her. That’s why Choice must be discovery of what your soul really wishes. But she wouldn’t listen to me, and insisted on her own way. I pitied her naiveté, the little melon-head, but at the same time I wished that I could do that too.
“Eventually, because we could not make a choice for her, we decided she should go back to wearing child-kilts again, and be a child for a while longer. At least for now.
“Later, just before I left for Option, I held a parting. I built a raft and loaded all my dolls upon it and returned them to the sea. These were my childhood companions, and I was leaving my childhood behind. The next time I came back to Kossarlin, I’d be an adult.
“All of them were dressed and wrapped and loaded on the barge; I sent them back to Mother Reethe and thanked her for letting me know them, I offered up a prayer and asked that she would cherish them as much as I. It hurt to say goodbye, I didn’t want to, but it was time—and when a moment reaches fullness, one accepts. Rhinga, Dola, Wallan, Bargle, Arlie, T’stanawan—all except Gahoostawik. She didn’t want to go, she still wasn’t ready either to say goodbye to her, my special one. So we decided she should wait for my return. I was soft enough to want to save her, just in case it happened that I wasn’t too successful as an adult, I would still have one doll left at least.”
They were lovers and they became a legend. That much is certain.
The rest may be myth. Perhaps not. What facts there are have been embellished by twenty generations of storytellers. The truth has become myth and myth has become truth. It is told that Lono and Rurik were of the fourth generation, less than one hundred Holy Calendar years after the Beginning, which is reckoned from the first birth on the new planet. It is told that Lono’s omen was that of the losil plant that is a slender wisp of green in winter’s rain, but turns dray and stiff in summer’s blue winds; quietly she sheds her seeds into those winds. The name Lono means “gentle growth” as of a flower on an island hillside.
Rurik was called Ruriki, and her name means “the Red King.” It is told that her omen was the Dakka fish, all red and black, and with a ruff of silver spines about its head; she swims in dark and troubled waters.
In those days, not all were of the Choice; Lono and Rurik were chosen, but there were many who were born already given to one god or the other, and they were called Unchosen. These were the ones who could trace their ancestries back to the dawning of the Pilgrimage. In that, they supposed an inborn sense of majesty—as if those descended only from the Savior who gave us Choice were somehow artificial and not completely human.
As each new generation turned, there were less unchosen born, but in the traditions they had fostered, their influences echoed after them for many years. The fashion of the time, especially among those who were not themselves of Choice, was to believe that genitalia and gender had to match. Should a child be born unchosen, her gender must be shaped from the moment of her birth; a female must be raised to be a mother, a male must be raised toward lesser burdens of the body, to serve and protect her wife. But when a child was of Choice, there were confusions to those parents who were not. A Choice makes the shape of genitals an arbitrary option, and thus the shaping of the gender must be postponed until the genitals have grown into fulfillment. This makes all children equal, for none can dare predict that this one will follow Dakka and that one will follow Reethe, so all must learn the lessons of the mother, all must learn the lessons of the father. There are separate roles to be learned, only one role that can express itself as either Reethe or Dakka. Such breeds only understanding, sensitivity and sharing among chosen—but in those early days, there was also fear and tension; for those who followed old traditions saw them threatened and decaying, saw them dying, saw the ultimate destruction of the roles of the genders; for if the genital was arbitrary, so was gender. They feared the creation of a new order that had no place for them. Perhaps these fears seem quaint to us—we know it now that gender is not always arbitrary; often it establishes itself quite early in the child and genital can be made to match—or not, if that is the feeling of the person when she reaches Choice. But in those days, there was not the knowledge that there is today—Choice had spread too far too fast. The older generations had not fitting concepts with which to measure the situations that they faced. Here were younglings who were neither this nor that, but something still unformed.
Younglings who were themselves unchosen saw that their peers were either left unguided, or guided so that they would know their role in either Choice—these younglings felt insecurities and envies of their own. They emulated those of Choice and rejected models of either role, and created further consternation in their troubled parents. And those who were of Choice were also troubled; many felt uncertain, lonely, out-of-place—they tried to emulate the unchosen and adopted roles within their lives too soon, reje
cting out of fear their right to choose their sex. They would chose a way and live within it, often years before their bodies were ready to follow. When Choice came to the, they denied its options and followed their own way, often to years of trouble further on. And yet, despite misgivings by those who sought to let Choice develop as a natural thing, this practice was encouraged—often by those who once themselves had been of Choice. Perhaps it is that once a person has rejected Choice within her heart, she needs that decision reaffirmed and must convince her fellows that they too must reject Choice within themselves. Such was Rurik’s father.
Or perhaps she was Unchosen. Whatever Rurik’s father was, her feelings may be known by her later actions on her child. Rurik might have been, indeed must have been, one who was not easily certain of herself, nor of her ultimate goals. She would have been a quiet child, the innocent one who does not act on life so much as allowing it to act instead on her. She moves through her youth as if through a wondrous forest, not thinking if it has an end, not caring where the path might lead, so entranced is she with all the colors of the flowers. She is content with wonder and with learning, and not in a hurry to become a larger person until she has learned to be the size she is today. By contrast, Rurik’s father was a builder—or so it’s told; she was one who conceives of things that don’t exist and moves in impatience to bring them into fact. She might have felt threatened by the lack of factuality within her child. She must have been impatient for a resolution.
But Choice is made within the heart, and usually not until the body has learned the tasted of Reethe and Dakka both. It is only after blush that a person truly learns to live at ease within herself, for blush is more than merely tasting options; it is the living of a variety of lives and the discovery of which one of those is actually oneself.
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