Chapter One.
Episode Three (3) — Gender, Mother, and... An Anomaly?
Eight weeks postpartum.
Oh, Hippocrates.
The initial weeks of my nascent existence coalesced into the viscous slurry of infant ontogenesis.
The pervasive scent of breast milk.
Interminable attempts to orient myself within the temporal stream.
Ghargh...
My adult consciousness revolted against the eighteen-hour somnolence.
Yet the body—this diminutive, tumid little frame!
Like a proficient autocrat, it dictated terms of existence.
Every analytical endeavor, every act of reflection...
Cognition depleted glucose reserves more rapidly than I could possibly assimilate them.
Only toward the nadir of the seventh or eighth week did I finally perceive that the "drivers" of my optic nerve had calibrated.
Oh, Hippocrates!
What an exquisite reprieve.
However... let us proceed systematically.
The primary impediments in "data acquisition" swirled around those inaugural days.
I suffered from absolute proprioceptive blindness.
How so, you inquire?
To the extent that I could not discern where my extremities terminated and the swaddling began.
The perception of my own somatic orientation remained entirely abstract...
I was positioned supine... wrapped... overturned.
Like a mere log!
I could observe the ceiling... the countenances of my mother and father.
But not myself!
I sensed that... well... ahem, I possessed a physical form?
Warmth or discomfort is hardly a mirror, damn it!
One cannot simply disregard the debility of the sternocleidomastoid muscle and incline one's head...
Oh, Hippocrates... if only you knew that realization dawned not through vision,
But through tactile perception and professional anatomical erudition!
And moreover, during the act of being cleansed!
Oh, fuck...
My professional ethics engaged in a visceral pugilistic bout with rudimentary bashfulness.
Nevertheless, I emerged triumphant.
Ha!
As my mother sponged me, I focused intently on the tactile sensations.
My brain, functioning like a sophisticated engine, instantaneously rendered a 3D model of the genitalia.
Naturally, this did not occur all at once.
I distinguish the nuances of neonatal care with precision.
It differs between females and males,
Owing both to structural idiosyncrasies and the divergent risks of infection.
Incrementally, I assembled this mosaic... piece by piece.
Oh, hell... I would have preferred not to know how to assemble it.
My world, the female world, fractured.
It shattered.
It was torn asunder!
This stupor.
This indignation!
Incomprehension and a multitude of internal tribulations.*Sigh*...
Why, you may inquire?
Pray tell, how is a seventy-four-year-old woman supposed to react to the revelation that she is a boy?!
DAMN IT ALL TO HELL!
The situation: my mother is conversing with my father following my "mishap";
I am recumbent, naked upon a soft, slightly tepid fabric;
the frigid air brushes against my dermis, and my receptors instantaneously dispatch a lucid signal to my brain;
as a physician, I have no requirement for a mirror in such a predicament;
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
the configuration of thermal signals and the proprioception of my own anatomy provided an unequivocal response...
Ha... A response.
Ha-a-a...
THE VERDICT!
This world is thrice cursed...
By headless devils!
I, Siana Sha’Tyes, am a b...
A bo-o-oy...
** silence within Siana’s consciousness **
A boy.
Greetings everyone, I am a boy.
And indeed, I possess a penis.
Where the fuck would I be without it!
I am a boy, yeah... Yeah, yeah.
You must comprehend that I am a laboratory Kolosian.
I was bred there!
Amidst calculations, precision, norms, and protocols.
I AM ACCUSTOMED...
Accustomed to objectivity and command.
And this is some sort of godforsaken purgatory...
** Siana’s consciousness weeps most bitterly **
Naturally, my primary course of action was to conduct an inventory of the physiological advantages of the male organism within the context of an unfamiliar world.
After all, how was I to ascertain the standard of their medical advancements?
I addressed myself as I would a patient in a clinical setting.
Deliberately, conscientiously, professionally.
Fine, greetings to "gratuitous" testosterone.
Elevated hemoglobin levels, an accelerated metabolic rate, and a more efficient acquisition of muscle mass.
In a world where one might conceivably be compelled to brandish a sword or traverse vast distances on foot—this is, quintessentially, a strategic boon.
** although Siana recalls the bitter truth and the stinging tears upon her roseate cheeks **
As a medical professional, I am acutely aware of how arduous a woman’s life can be...
Particularly in a realm devoid of modern hygiene products, analgesics, or hormone replacement therapy.
** at that juncture, Siana’s diminutive form did not yet possess sufficient data to gauge the technological proficiency of this nascent world **At the very least, I am no longer menaced by endometriosis or anemia resulting from menorrhagia.
I shall not succumb to puerperal fever or sepsis.
My probability of physical survival has escalated by forty percent—at a minimum.
Based on what Nalis imparted to me, in numerous realms, the path to universities is bifurcated, and remains sequestered from female physicians.
As a male, I shall be permitted to practice medicine officially.
I could establish a clinic… perhaps even ascend to the position of a court physician, without having to conceal my intellect behind the facade of a "witch" or an "herbalist."
Provided, of course, that the concept of "courtly status" exists within this world…
** Oh, the wonders of the rationalizing medical mind and the marvels it can conjure. **
Furthermore, traversing between cities or navigating the darkness is inherently safer in a male guise… and simpler, let us candidly acknowledge that.
Presently, I reflect upon this with a certain degree of irony.
Yet, in the initial moments of realization, my brain—schooled on Sinelnikov’s anatomical atlases—experienced a veritable short circuit.
I suspect a literal plume of smoke must have been emanating from me.
Nonetheless, I compel myself to maintain a rhythmic respiration.
I approach this with equanimity.
To the extent that I am capable.
I owe a debt of gratitude to my damned rationalism.
I wonder, what would George Sand of Lexium-Prime have posited?
However, this epoch was characterized by more than just the euphoria of a "gender reveal."
My infantile physique has precisely shed that particular "haze" from its vision, and I have ceased perceiving the world as if through a malfunctioning, antiquated television set.
I am now empowered to focus my gaze upon countenances and significant details.
This world has ceased to be a mere kaleidoscope of "chromatic blurs."
I now scrutinize my "new" mother during my morning ablutions.
She appears more youthful than I had envisioned while hearing her "adult" voice.
Furthermore, my new mother is a seamstress!
She is svelte, somewhat ectomorphic.
Yet she is petite; it seems her body has not yet had the opportunity to return to its "baseline" state post-parturition.
That "maternal" aura of hers—it is as if it were woven from a warm, comforting textile.
Her shoulders are slightly protracted… as if from a habit of rendering herself "smaller" than she truly is.
From my professional experience, I can discern that her physique is "utilitarian," much like my former self…
I immediately recognize a fellow professional accustomed to sitting for protracted hours, stooped over her labor.
All her movements appear to me so cautious, so restrained.
She eschews abrupt gestures, even when in haste.
** I wonder, whom exactly does she remind Sianа of? **It is likely a vestigial habit from my past… regardless, I immediately began to scrutinize her hands with clinical precision.
After all, she uses them to swaddle me… and they can also reveal a great deal about her persona.
My mother's fingers were elongated, slender, and remarkably sensitive.
Their tips appeared calloused, likely from the repetitive use of needles and thread.
Since she remains at home with me, she evidently conducts her labor within our residence.
** it is difficult to designate the two rooms Siana has managed to visit as a "house," but so be it **
When she manipulates the fabric, her hands seem to possess an autonomous existence.
Due to such meticulous work, her hair is perpetually gathered.
Whether in a simple knot or a braid. Occasionally, she weaves in exquisite hairpins… Jade, they shimmer so brightly it makes one blink!
And her hair color is, damn it, identical to mine before I turned gray—a sun-bleached brown.
Ugh, a beautiful woman.
** is Siana definitely praising her mother, and not herself? **
She moved about in a clean, albeit threadbare apron.
Quite practical, resembling a medical garment. It was equipped with numerous pockets.
This attire concealed her fair skin.
Once, I managed to discern something akin to scars or old thermal burns on her wrists.
Or did I merely perceive it so?
I require more empirical data!
However, I noticed something profoundly intriguing…
While she was working, an absurdity occurred.
And I interrogated myself repeatedly.
Verifying whether I had been mistaken… wondering if it were a hallucination born of sleep deprivation or perhaps hypoxia of an obscure genesis.
But nothing anomalous was happening to me.
The anomaly resided here—in this world.
An extrasystemic phenomenon I had yet to encounter…
Neither on Twaylas, nor here.
//— Search, little lamb.//
What the?
A wolf?
My body commenced its weeping once more.
A voice.
I just heard a voice.
Not my mother's voice.
It was a predatory voice.
Lupine.
Growling, almost piercing.
But I physically cannot be hearing this… I am within four walls.
I imagined it again.
Merely an illusion…
Right?
