The Outcast

Cassandra swam beneath the waves, the flickering light they cast on the sands below, a reminder of the deadly atmosphere above. Just the week before, Iyla had surfaced, crawling into the Old City. It had nearly killed her. Even with the best medicines, her lungs were scarred. She'd have to swim with a rebreather like the few surface people that visited. Months earlier, their friend Mirad hadn't been so lucky. They had disappeared into the old city, never to be seen again.

Thus lost in though, Cassandra reached the cave that led to the caverner's domain. She checked her bags for the umpteenth time. Just as when she had left Coast, everything was still in place. The gengineered seaweeds she grew produced the bulbs that filled her bag, each bulb containing a powerful opiate. A dangerous cargo for several reasons - burst bulbs could paralyze a swimmer, halting even their lungs. And the penalties for providing caverners with such medicine were high.

But the caverners guarding the entrance didn't interdict her. The recognized her lanky frame, the big feet so good for swimming, the small but slowly-growing breasts, the member she shamelessly left uncovered. In the caverns she had to bow to shaming customs that the sea-folk had eschewed when they took to the waves. Modification and a lack of body-shame were what her people were known for. Still, she took one of the generic shifts from the crate, drying herself with it even though that made her skin itch.

She had hung her bags carefully in the entrance alcove, shielding them from sight. No one was looking, but she felt guilt at breaking her own people's laws. Beneath the waves alertness and clarity of mind was one of the few laws. Even cultivating such medicines was forbidden. Here in the caverns, that was not so. Salvagers often needed such medicines to live the remainder of their days in a modicum of comfort. Heroes of the caverns, they combed the Old City for technology from the Before.

Making her way to their guild, she encountered many stares. Rarely was a sea-folk seen out of water. Rarer still, no matter where one went, was a changer. No one recognized her, though she had been born in the caverns. The changes to her body and her few years of adulthood had erased the one these caverners thought they knew as a boy.

She knew what caverners did to her kind, that is why she had gone beneath the waves as soon as she knew and understood. Her parents, both Salvagers, had brought many books from the surface, leaving her to sort through them. Such was the task given to young Salvagers, both a way of making children earn their keep and of training them to understand the rotting world above. It was there she found the word that made everything make sense for her: transsexual.

Always a reticent child, living in a society that hardly differentiated genders, she had never shown herself to be different. The Caverners thought they had abolished gender roles (another term she had learned from that book, the book that had become her secret treasure), though in truth they had simply become a dull and colourless people. So they never knew what she knew, that she was a girl. Her mother was her greatest idol, the most reckless Salvager, the one with the most treasure.

And here she stood, unrecognized, in front of that mother. The uneasy truce between the sea-folk and the Caverners protected her from all but the stares. Even covered with their generic shift, the beads in her knotted hair stood out, the blue-green of her skin in sharp contrast to the shades of grey that surrounded her. Her mother greeted her, "Cassandra of the Sea-folk, I see you have brought your wares. I will take them all, what boon is it you ask?"

Before it had been books, but now she sought after that which she had lost, "I want you to search the Old City for one of our own." Pretending to consider, her estranged mother hesitated, but finally said, "Done. Provide me with a picture and description." Cassandra did so, describing Mirad's springy rust-coloured hair, their purple-blue skin. She went to the device called an 'apple' in the corner of the Salvagers' office and constructed a picture that looked like Mirad. Poor Mirad, it would have brought her to tears, but what sea-folk can cry? None.

"You're quite deft with that device, few of our people have mastered it. It's too bad you're not one of us, but we cannot abide your kind among us. No offense." The shame of existence crushed her, she wanted to yell in her mother's face that she was one of them, that she was her daughter. But her mother only had a son that had vanished. Run away instead of being exiled to the surface. It had been the only way.

"Well, I am what I am, I am not one of you." Her mother smiled in that way she did, as if she thought her words were a joke, "Indeed and thankful I be for that. If you were one of us, you couldn't provide the medicine we need." Her smile twitched downward, at a thought, giving Cassandra an intuition. Her mother was guild leader these days, but where was her partner, the father Cassandra had left behind?

"Your partner, where is he?" Frowning fully now, "That is not your business, is it. Now, the medicine. I have places to be." Ah, so it was as she thought... her father had succumbed to The Burning, ravaged from too many trips above. Always cautious, her mother had escaped it. And as guild leader, she rarely went above.

So Cassandra paid her mother and departed. She had some of the trade-scrip that the Caverners used, shiny metals that would have rusted away beneath the waves. Thinking of Iyla, she bought some of the gems that were cut in the caverns. Perhaps these baubles would cheer her convalescent friend up.

Returning beneath the waves, she made her way to Iyla's tent. Maybe Iyla would let her stay and hold her. "Iyla, Iyla," she sang into the waves, "I have returned with something for you." Groaning, she replied negatively, "No, go away, you poisoner of minds."

"But these..." Cassandra was cut off, "No. If it wasn't for you, Mirad wouldn't have went to the surface. You filled her mind with dreams of being 'agender', whatever that is. We accepted you as our friend, isn't that enough?" Choked with the bitterness of Iyla's accusation and her denial of Mirad's self, Cassandra could only hang the bag of baubles by the door and swim away.

It was not her fault, Cassandra thought. She loved Iyla deeply, but the things she said were deeply unfair. Mirad was not a woman, they were agender. Maybe that denial of womanhood was too much for the matriarchal sea-folk, but that didn't make it less real. Is that why Mirad had left? In woe?

The next few weeks passed in a haze. Cassandra had unconsciously swam to the bulbs of opiate, tearing one open and smearing it on her skin. Lawbreaker, woe-lover, her mind shouted at her. But the urge to dull the pain was too much to resist. She should have went to her mentor, Asha, Mirad's mother. She didn't though, fearing more blame at the death of her beloved child. Instead Cassandra rolled beneath the waves, numb to all pain, staring up at the flickering light of the wave-tops.

That was how Asha found her. Asha of the shark-teeth, necklace made of the cast-off fangs of those extinct beasts. First she cried out, "No no no, child. I have already lost one, I will not lose another." Then she scolded, "What if it had been another that found you, girl? You would be exiled from here. You have already lost enough. Why would you do this?" So groggily, Cassandra explained.

"Silly girl, I love you as my own daughter. And Iyla will come to be your friend again. As I came to accept my child's identity, so will she, though it's too late for Mirad." Confused cassandra asked, "Too late? But it's my fault." Shaking he head solemnly, "You may not know, but Mirad loved you both. They wanted to form a union between you three. But Iyla couldn't accept that her lover was not a woman. So Mirad told me before they fled." Asha's firey hair wrapped around Cassandra as her arms held her close. "Why would it matter, Asha? Iyla loved Mirad since they were children." Clutching Cassandra tighter, it was moments before Asha replied, "To seek womanhood is one thing, but to reject it is another. Iyla follows the customs of our waters closely. You know that. How would it look to her fellow priestesses?"

Cassandra could not answer that. Could not think or hardly move as Asha uprooted her crop of seaweed-borne opiates. Could not resist as she was pulled back to Asha's home. Could not look away from all the reminders of Mirad. Mirad so sweet and accepting, to be rejected by the one they loved. Could not muster the anger that Iyla had. Could not do anything much more than eat the food that Asha made her eat.

As the numbness left, the pain returned. Oh how she wished she could cry or rage. All she could do was be crushed by the pain though. She swam past Iyla's tent. The bag was hanging where she left it. Within she could see Iyla, unmoving except for the slight tremor of breath. What was there left for her there? Nothing but hate.

Unthinking yet again, she swam to the entrance to the Caverns. Reluctantly she took the shift and walked through the various caves, ending up in her mother's office. Her mother was there, looking grief-stricken. Looking up she asked, "Where are your bags? Why have you come if not to deliver your wares." Suddenly angry Cassandra hissed, "I have come to ask your progress." Shaking her head at this, "Well we've found nothing. Some kind of surface-creature must have ate your friend's remains," then she shrugged. Gaping, it took nearly a minute for Cassandra to reply, "How, mother? How is it that you, leader of the Salvagers' Guild, have found nothing?"

"I told- Wait, what? I have no child." Fully enraged now, "But you do. I am your child. Do you think I just died in the wastes above? No, I wanted to live." Rising, her mother raised her hand, ready to slap Cassandra, but dropped it, "You are my child, those eyes, that determination. How could I have not seen it?" Rage turned to weeping, crying tears that would not come, "You know how. Our people would not allow my existence." Struck speechless, her mother could only stare. "Yes, me. How many times have you called me a freak, your own daughter? Will you deny me now, even as Father lays dying? That is what's happening, isn't it?" Crying now for the both of them, her mother finally spoke, "No, he's dead. They took his body above at dawn today."

Then everything was a blur. Running to the lockers, ignoring the yells that she couldn't be there. Donning her mother's own surface suit, climbing the shafts to the surface. And there he was, face already eaten away by the corrosive chemicals in the air. Her father, who she would never hear speak again. Damn him. She kept running. Into the ruins. She would find Mirad. Where would Mirad have gone, though? Did they seek to end their own life? Or to reclaim it? And then she knew. The sunken library, sealed off to preserve its contents, the last gesture of a dying civilization. Knowledge, proof, that is what Mirad wanted. Words to explain their being, to reclaim Iyla's love.

And that is where she found Mirad, in a healing trance. A very rare skill, possessed only by the best gene-shapers. Body still burnt, thin from lack of food, but alive. Surrounded by books. Books on gender and sexuality. Hand still marking the place in one. Surviving despite the world outside, like those very books. A font of wisdom. "Oh my love, you live. May Iyla's love live again." How, though?

Mirad's cracked and bleeding soles had left a trail back to a stairwell that led deeper into the library. Flooded below, Cassandra took her mother's suit off and swam down. Bloated like bodies, the books sat, dead. Trying to ignore this ill omen, she swam until she found the doors Mirad must have come through. Around and around and around she swam until she realized that there was no direct way back to the sea from here. It would have to be through the corrosive air. She'd need another suit. She'd need to go back.

Down and up she swam again, donning again the suit, passing Mirad's still form, barely warm with life. Back down the shafts to the Caverns. There, her mother was waiting for her. As was a mob of Salvagers. At once the mob rushed her, seizing her. "Stop!" cried her mother, "That is my daughter and you will do her no harm." Oh how Cassandra wish she could cry, with tears of joy this time. The Salvagers drew back from her, protesting in mutters. "No, this folly has gone on too long. Too long have we remained inflexible, too long we have lost some of our most brilliant children to our lack of understanding. Hear me, hear the one you chose to lead you. Our weak truce with the sea-folk most grow into a strong alliance if we are to survive." Pointing to one man, she asked, "Jeph, if not for the medicines she brought, would not your brother have died in agony?" Turning back to the crowd, "And the same could be said for many of you. If we held our siblings beneath the waves closer, maybe we could work together to cure our surface-burnt friends and family? If we held our children closer, maybe our numbers would not dwindle as they do." Silence.

Then her mother addressed her, "Cassandra, whose name I speak only now, though I have heard it before, what did you find?" Awed, she murmured in reply, "I found my friend. I need another suit though. Help me?" Then the man addressed previously, Jeph, stepped forward, "Borrow mine. I owe you, as so many of us do." And so Mirad was retrieved and returned.

Cassandra's mother met with the Cavern Council, who appointed Cassandra as their diplomat. From there, communication grew. Iyla never trusted Cassandra again, even with the return of Mirad. Love was lost and Iyla's opposition fractured the sea-folk. Still, in the years to come, the new partnership between sea and cave proved fruitful. Both societies learned better to accept their children. Medicines flowed both ways between peoples, as did knowledge gleaned from the Old City. And thus we survived.