Writing exercise #0002

TW: misgendering, sexualized violence, trans antagonism

The sun was high in the sky as you walked along the hardpacked dirt path. The grasses on each side of you swayed in a light breeze and the air was fresh, not like the air of the Settlers' camps. You have been visiting a village of your own people, the Roamers. It's the season of grassmunchers and riverberries and your people have made camp in different places along the river, setting up small villages to harvest the berries and hunt the grassmunchers. The berries are small and piquant, but sweet.. The flying beasts that feed seasonally on the grasses grow up to the length of your arm. The Settlers call them "grasshoppers". You think that's not quite right because the beasts hover and skim, shearing grass with sharp pinchers, but they do not hop.

The Settlers. They came about 20 seasons back. In a great building that flies on fire. No one had seen anything like it, ever. It was the same season as it is now, hot summer days on the river. Of course, the Settlers building had not placed itself on the river, but instead on a massive bluff. Later their people cursed at this placement. The bluff is said to have become less stable. You would think that they'd just be glad to survive flying. This still disturbed you. Grassmunchers could fly, but not on gouts of flame. You had seen it yourself, but could still not quite believe it. But they had come from the ship and set up a village, planting strange plants and keeping strange animals called pigs. You had learned a bit of their language by now. You had even spent quite a bit of time with their doctor, another woman, called Rhona. She had taught you some rather foreign concepts while you in turn showed her medicines that she said worked with "great efficacy".

Now some of the Settlers approached you on the trail. They were men. You were downwind and could smell them. That acrid smell of fermented things. They carried containers, presumably of some kind of liquid because you saw one tilting their container back to their lips. And now you could see some liquid sloshed around their mouth. It was then the other one caught sight of you. They got the other's attention and they both talked about you. "Hello," one greeted you. "Come here." Then that one laughed and let out a long burp. They were closer and the smell of fermentation was strong on this one's breath. Something in your head told you to back away and you started to do just that. But in doing so while watching them led you to stumble and fall on your back. They were on you like glimmerfish on littlefliers. Tugging your dress up they then pulled your undergarments down. And then they stopped.

"Look, it's got a dick." You weren't sure what they meant by that. "It"? You were a woman, not a roundbeast. They accused you of deceiving them. They called you disgusting. They called you a thing. And then they began to beat you. One hit you in the head with their container of liquid. Some sloshed on you and it smelled terrible. The other kicked you in the side. You buckled in pain. Then the other kicked you. The beating continued until you couldn't move. Finally they spat on you, urinated on you, and left.

You laid there for you don't know how long. It seemed like days passed. Then someone happened upon you, someone from the village you were heading to. The left for the village and brought back several people and a litter. They carried you there. Since you were their "doctor", they sent for the Settler woman, Rhona. The village had one of the devices that took one's voice from one place to another. She arrived in one of their strange contraptions, a small building set on things that rolled. She immediately set to treating you. You could not talk, but she still wondered what happened to you. She talked to you in your language. You didn't realize she had learned so much of it.

Your injuries were bad, she said . But she had arrived in time to treat you, so they could have been worse she said. When you could finally talk again, thanks to the strange devices she carried, she asked you what happened. It was clear there was shock on her face. Shock about you and shock about what had happened to you. "I didn't know you were..." she had let that trail off. "But we have rules about what happened to you. Those men won't be allowed to get away with that."

Not long after, there came a trail. But the punishment was very light for them. Two weeks denied the freedom to wander. At least they would henceforth be restricted from the villages. You still saw them from time to time when you visited Rhona, but they kept their distance, with all the other people around. It didn't matter, you were still scared. You were almost always a little bit scared. When would this happen again? It seemed bound to happen again, just with different men this time. Or maybe women too. Was there no one like you among them? It was not exactly uncommon among the various peoples of your "world" as Rhona called it.

Finally the season passed and your people packed up the villages and went south as the cold rain season approached. As that season passed there would be snow and the further south in the Roamer territories your people could be, the better. They had plenty of grassmuncher dried, with glimmerfish and berries. You were still sore from the places you had most seriously been injured. Rhona said that even with the amazing things her devices could do, she could not repair you so completely that your bones wouldn't ache when the rainy weather began. And so, you could never forget, even if your mind would have let you.