very first moment they open their eyes after althaia, the world shatters, and I think this is why our progenitor at first chose not to pass her difference on. After inception, for a woman, gone are the things that made up her identity. She has male organs, developed to a greater or lesser degree, but far more shocking than the discreet soume-lam. She loses her cycles of menstruation, and for many this feels as if they have been unwomanned. They lose their female shape somewhat: the breasts wither, the hips become narrower, fatty tissue is redistributed around the body. In the old world, a boyish shape might have been desirable for a woman, but the reality of actually having a boy’s body is something else entirely. It feels as if something terrible has been imposed upon them, that they have mutated into monsters.’
‘I have felt some of this,’ Mima interrupted, ‘but I have striven to be har. It is what I am, I’m sure. The problem I have is with thinking of myself as ‘he’, which of course I’m not, but it did not feel right to me simply to shift gender in terms of how I thought of myself. I have to, in day-to-day life, because of course to do otherwise would be stupid, if not dangerous. But the problem lies in the words, just the words. Surely, we should just think up a new term between us, that is neither he nor she, then we can all live together comfortably.’
‘There is some truth in your observations,’ Tel-an-Kaa said, ‘but the other reason why you can’t think of yourself as truly har lies beyond mere terminology. It is because aruna between Kamagrian and Wraeththu is not possible.’
‘It is,’ Mima said.
‘Really,’ said Tel-an-Kaa flatly. ‘Then tell me your experience of it. Did it progress as normal aruna should?’
Mima felt a defensive wall spring up within her. ‘How should I know? There were… well, the har concerned knew there was something different about me, but everything worked. I could be ouana with him.’
‘Of course you could, but physical aspects aside, what was your experience?’
Mima was silent for a moment. ‘The world went a bit peculiar. I felt I could have been sucked out of it.’
‘Exactly. The essence of Kamagrian and Wraeththu do not mix. It causes anomalies in reality. In effect, it can break reality down, to the point where you are taken from it. Forever.’
‘Where do you go?’ Lileem asked.
‘Nowhere you can return from,’ Tel-an-Kaa said. ‘We don’t know exactly, because no one has come back to tell us about it. Therefore, we can only look upon it as death.’
‘So,’ Mima said, ‘you’re saying that a har gave birth to the first Kamagrian, and that even though she came from Wraeththu, she is somehow set apart from it? That doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t sound like nature.’
‘The first Kamagrian did not come from a har,’ said Tel-an-Kaa. ‘It had nothing to do with nature.’
‘Then where did she come from?’
‘The same place the first Wraeththu did. We have no proof, and neither do Wraeththu, but the most enlightened among us all believe that humans created both Wraeththu and Kamagrian. They were genetic experiments. Wraeththu is a refined form of Kamagrian, which we think came first. It would make sense for someone wishing to create a hermaphrodite to use the female as a template, as all human embryos begin life as female. Who knows what genetic cocktails were concocted?’
‘But if the first Kamagrian was created in the same way as the first Wraeththu, why was one known as ‘she’ and the other ‘he’?’ Mima asked. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’
‘We can only conjecture,’ Tel-an-Kaa replied. ‘For all we know it could have simply been an executive decision. As females, among humanity, gave birth, perhaps it was decided that a hermaphrodite would be better referred to as ‘she’. Also, as you probably already know, the ouana-lim is not as developed as it is in hara. Kamagrian children appear virtually female; it is only after althaia or feybraiha that the male aspect tends to become active. In some Kamagrian, this hardly takes place at all. There is no normal physical condition for us, merely a place on a scale. Certain other feminine aspects remain, in rudimentary form, which hara never have.’ Tel-an-Kaa shrugged. ‘As I said, we know so little. Whoever created us all is either dead or has purposely abandoned their creations. Perhaps the first Wraeththu was also created from female material. We really