Work Text:
She’s barely three when she realizes that she is treated differently than the others in the orphanage. Last in line, skipped over in daily counts, eating alone in the mess hall. She’ll wonder why, of course, but not for long. She can hear what they whisper about her.
***
At age five, her tusks begin to come in. They are small, stumpy little things that do nothing but make it difficult to speak around them, and the others notice. When she trips over her pleases and thank yous, she can hear the older girls giggling, can see the workers grimacing ever so slightly.
It isn’t fair, she thinks, that she is judged for this. She isn’t so old that she should be expected to be eloquent. Why aren’t the older boys laughed at when they trip on their words? Why is she treated differently?
Ah, but that’s just the thing. She is different. And no one will let her forget it.
***
At age seven, they all go down to the beach. She is nearly forgotten about, separated from the clump all her peers seem to have fallen into, but she manages to keep pace.
She is not forgotten about while they are there.
When she wanders off to collect seashells, three of the older boys follow her. When she puts down a shell (it still had an occupant, and she didn’t want to take anyone from their home), one of them shoves her over into the sand.
The sand is itchy in her mouth, itchy all over, and she is utterly humiliated. Her seashells forgotten, she starts to shout at them before they shove her again.
This time, she doesn’t try to fight back when she gets up. She just turns around and goes to the ocean, ignoring their jeering. She refuses to let herself care about their comments.
***
Of course, we rarely have control over what we take to heart.
***
She is still seven when she sits in front of the mirror with a file for the first time. By the gods, it hurts, but it’s satisfying in a way she hadn’t expected.
When the pain finally gets too much for her to continue, she looks at her handiwork in the mirror.
There is too much blood to see anything.
She smiles through the blood. Only the slightest bit of her tusks remain.
***
She is nine, and she is getting sick of living in the orphanage. Everything always stays the same, no matter what she does, and she’s grown increasingly out of place.
Once a week, she sits in front of the mirror with the file. It hurts as much as it did the first time, and the other children bully her lack of tusks as much as they did when she had any.
They begin to find new things to bully, too. The way she walks, the way fat falls on her stomach and hips.
The workers ignore it, as they always have.
She tries to tell one about it. He says that she needs to stand up to them, or the bullying will never stop.
So the next time she gets shoved into the sand at the beach, she shoves right back.
The boy punches her right in the mouth. Blood wells up in her mouth, and she nearly throws up when he punches again.
“What’s wrong,” he taunts. “Aren’t orcs supposed to be strong? Even half-breeds like you should be able to throw a punch.”
So she tries to fight back, tries to hit him and just get him off, for the love of the gods. Only a few of her hits connect, but it’s just her luck that a worker only comes to stop when she manages to hit him.
They both get in trouble, both get punished. She tries to explain herself, that he started it and she was only defending herself, but the worker ignores her.
“If this was really a problem, you should’ve told someone.”
But she did tell someone, she wants to say, and he told her to fight back. He told her this would be the best course of action. Why didn’t it work?
***
She is ten, and she hates her body.
She sits in front of the mirror with the file and notices her shirt is falling differently, oddly. Her pants fall in a similar manner, curves more pronounced. She doesn’t like it.
She wants out.
***
At age twelve, she envies the boy who shoves her into the sand. No one thinks it strange of them to fight. When she tries to fight back (it didn’t work the first time, why did she think it would work this time?), one of the workers pulls her off of him.
“It’s not ladylike to get into fights,” the worker says.
“I don’t want to be a lady,” she tells her. The worker says nothing, only giving a familiar disapproving sniff.
***
(She looks into the mirror, and does not like what she sees. It doesn’t feel like the right body, more like she’s been trapped in someone else’s skin. Something is wrong, there must be something she can do to change it. To fix it.)
***
(She is slipping into a boy’s clothing. She should not be doing this, her mind tells her. But when she looks in the mirror and pulls her hair back, the boy staring at her feels closer to right than anything she’s ever felt.)
***
On her thirteenth birthday, she wraps bandages around her breasts. The discomfort is nothing compared to the incredible euphoria looking into the mirror gives him her. Still her. She doesn’t like being a her, but a her nonetheless.
(She begins flinching when people call her name, even when they mean it kindly. Perhaps if he she were happier, it would not hurt so much, feel so wrong.)
***
He has been thirteen for eight months when he cuts his hair and goes into town. She needs to leave the orphanage, and she cannot leave the orphanage without money, and she cannot get money without some form of work. Overhearing the older girls talking about the hell that is working at a shop (the sort of place a “lady” is supposed to work) in the city was enough to convince her to take her services elsewhere.
To the docks, she decides, where young men are often found trying to earn their keep. He will not be out of place there, or no more than he is anywhere else.
The dockmaster takes a good look at the young man in front of him before offering a job. “It won't be easy, but it'll be worth something,” he says. “What should I call you, son?”
(The boy in front of him ignores how happy he is when the dockmaster calls him a young man. He has more pressing things to worry about.)
The name that falls from his lips is not his own. But he will make it his, with time and work. “Fjord,” he says. “It’ll be a pleasure working with you.”
***
He is fourteen, and is taking nearly the whole of his last month’s wages to try and get something more comfortable than the bandages he has now.
The seamstress sees Fjord, the scrawny dockhand covered in sweat, and nearly turns him away. He has to explain what she’s been doing, the disguise more real than the truth , and the seamstress seems to understand. She doesn’t show outward surprise, anyway. Maybe she’s made similar garments before.
When he puts on the corset, it covers most of his body. He feels simultaneously more exposed and more comforted than he ever has in his life.
It is wrong, all of this. These feelings .
But he will let it pass, for now.