Inheritance

Part 2. Chapter 7: Plants

Pollyanna was baffled by what had unfolded in front of her.

Not only did Eory and this waif seem to know one another, but Eory's personality seemed to have become the opposite of what it normally was.

Never in a thousand years would Eory have called her a bitch to her face. Never would he have let out that unearthly shriek that this woman calling herself Taylor had moments before. He was quiet and sweet, and this woman was certainly neither of those things.

And Pollyanna, after thinking for a moment, realized what precisely had happened to Eory.

That damned Kori! Pollyanna thought to herself. She's responsible for this!

Them was laughing raucously at the whole situation. "You truly never planned to kiss me, beautiful? You're always teasing!"

Taylor giggled a little in response and she wrapped her arms around the waif's neck and sat on his lap. She pursed her lips together and said, "you should know better by now, you fool. I'll give you that third kiss when you have lost an arm for me or when you have earned me one-thousand gold pieces!"

Them couldn't stop smiling as he poked her pointed nose. "You're just too much fun to have around! I'm glad I can finally, truly touch you! Meeting on that dreamy plane was simply no fun at all! I might just steal a kiss if you will not let me have one! It could be in a few seconds, it could be in a few days, or it could be no—"

His face lurched forward at hers and she half shrieked, half laughed, as he did so—shoving his face back with a pale hand, climbing off his lap and clapping her hands to her now red cheeks. "You beast! You demon! You scallywag! You shall never take advantage of me!"

Everyone was awake in the caravan now and watching the melodrama being put on by Taylor and Them.

Pollyanna's eyes widened and her brow furrowed as she seized Taylor's wrist and made her sit by her. "You are not acting like a proper lady should! You must—"

Taylor interrupted with an intentionally high and prissy laugh. "Advice on being a lady from an oaf like you! Please! You think fairy women are like human ones? You think we are expected to sit up straight, cross our ankles and that the only things we are allowed are allowed to say is 'yes' to men! Fairy women are expected to have their own minds! We are expected to control our men and our children! We can be as outgoing, loud, and open as we please, unlike you!"

"You are not a woman! You are a man!" Pollyanna whispered in embarrassment as all eyes in the caravan seemed to be glued on them.

Everyone around them was whispering and chuckling.

Pollyanna grabbed Taylor's shoulders gruffly, "don't you understand what has happened to you? You were never meant to exist! Your mother saw what you were like and decided she wanted a boy instead!"

Taylor's face twisted into a hideously angry one and she shoved Pollyanna with strength that the old warrior-maiden didn't know Eory possessed.

"Yes, yes. I know what mother wanted and what mother thought! She was a stupid and batty woman! She picked me to be a girl for the first five years of my life, only to change her mind and decide to change my name along with everything else about me even though she knew it would... It would hurt me. She took away my fine dresses, my cute jewelry and saddled me with—with this!"

Taylor motioned to her man's clothes angrily.

Pollyanna had only seen one case like this before from the Arrozan family in all of her hundreds of years defending them.

It was a poor, confused thing by the name of Rebecca.

Unbeknownst to nearly everyone who was not a fairy, all fairies started off as little seedlings who were planted in a patch of soil. The seeds were conceived by the females of the species and would fall out of their hair after growing for a time.

Rebecca had been raised the same way all fairies had been raised for the first fourteen years of her life. She had started off as a seedling, raised as a girl, and took on the traits--both physical and mental-- of a woman.

Pollyanna remembered how amazed she was when she found out this little secret, as she, like most other humans, had assumed that fairies were grown the same way every other species on Yharos was.

Fjorn had hauled her by the hand to come take a look at the 'recent batch of children' and he dragged her out to a secret garden tucked away behind the castle where little white-stemmed plants were slowly growing.

"In a year, they will be old enough to pull from the ground, and they will weep for their mothers like regular children." Fjorn explained.

Pollyanna was rarely expected to help with the seedlings or any newborn children, but she spent a lot of time with the child, Rebecca, because the poor thing's mother wanted little to do with her.

Pollyanna remembered the young girl being a very silent, odd, and self-depreciating thing who always seemed to be pining for some kind of attention, but was too frightened to seek it.

Pollyanna was ordered to keep her company much of the time, but she also wanted to be a friend to the young girl of her own free will.

"What are you doing hiding out here by yourself?" Pollyanna asked when she would often find the girl hiding out in the garden by herself.

The girl brightened when she saw Pollyanna approaching as she always did, and she threw herself into Pollyanna's arms. The old warrior-maiden lifted the girl up and spun her around which elicited giggles from Rebecca, and then placed her on the ground where the girl sadly explained, "mother wants nothing to do with me. She told me to get out of her sight."

And Pollyanna would reply with a comforting smile, "that's alright! We'll have ourselves a game of hide-and-seek instead!"

But one day, when Pollyanna found the girl out in the garden, she was no longer a girl at all. She was dressed in a man's clothes and staring forward wordlessly at the white roses which were planted across from her.

"Rebecca, what's wrong?" Pollyanna had asked.

And the girl—or boy—as he now was, turned his back to her and lay down in the fetal position on the bench.

Rebecca's long braid had been cut off—her hair shorn—her bracelets, earrings, and necklaces had been removed, and her personality had either changed or gone. Her chin seemed stronger, her nose seemed bigger, and her arms and legs seemed to be more muscular.

When Pollyanna asked the queen why she had begun referring to Rebecca as a boy and why she had ripped the girl's identity away, the queen replied, "boys are boisterous. That girl was a wet blanket at the best of times. A change in sex usually fixes fairies like her."

"Change in sex?" Pollyanna replied confusedly.

"Fairies change sex based on many things. That girl wasn't fit to be the head of any fairy family. She will live a greater life as a man." The queen said with a sneer.

Rebeccea, or Myles, as he had come to be known, did not live a happy life. He lived recklessly and dangerously until he was killed by a group of humans. He would always tell Pollyanna in secret that he missed being a woman.

And as Pollyanna gazed upon the flirtatious Taylor who was joyously sitting next to the annoying waif, Them, and teasingly wrapping her arms around him, she realized what must be happening.

That damned waif, Kori, raised him like a woman and so Taylor never went away entirely!

And she was worried she might lose Eory to Taylor forever if she couldn't get him to start behaving more like a man.