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Thirteen-year-old Jane Shepard examined herself in the bathroom mirror.
Raising her arms over her head, she watched unfamiliar breasts rise. She let her arms drop into her hips, which had widened noticeably. She twisted to examine her posterior.
Amazon.
She sighed.
That’s what Hannah Shepard had said, with no small amount of pride, as her pre-pubescent daughter became… well, pubescent. At an alarming rate. “You are as strong and beautiful as an Amazon woman.” Mythical female warriors from Ancient Greek tales back on Earth.
Jane had been to Earth once, on a family vacation. “It’s nice to see where you come from,” her father had explained.
But they hadn’t gone to Greece.
This body – her body, but not her body – had changed quickly, and it was clumsy and big and awkward and made all of her clothes fit wrong.
“Jane!”
She heaved a sigh, pulled on said ill-fitting clothes, and hurriedly tied her hair back into a bun.
She knocked over her orange juice with her elbow as she sat herself down at the table for a quick breakfast. Groaning long and low, Jane took the now-empty glass with her as she stalked over to the sink and grabbed a kitchen towel.
“Don’t let today be one of Those Days,” her mother advised sagely from the other side of the table, looking up from on the datapad she’d been reviewing. The table was strewn with them as she used her breakfast time to catch up on Tamayo Point’s evening shift report.
Jane gave her mother the stink eye as she sopped up the spill, the presence of the towel redirecting its flow. Hannah smoothly shifted her datapads out of the orange juice’s new path, pointedly ignoring her daughter’s look.
“We have swim lessons today,” Jane remarked in a belated response as she went back to the sink to ring the towel out. She rung hard on the fabric.
“Hm,” Hannah hummed softly before stepping over to join her daughter at the sink. Gently, she eased the innocent towel from her daughter’s adult-strength grasp and rinsed it under the tap. “You know… I’m sure I brought my bathing suit with me.”
Jane sighed. She had always taken after her mother. Lately, they’d been confused for sisters. And now, she could apparently share a wardrobe with her. It was mortifying.
“I’ll see if I can dig it up.” Hannah pressed the damp-but-clean towel into Jane’s hands. “Wipe the table again, please. Orange juice has a way of sticking around.”
When Hannah came back to the kitchen, the table was clean, and her daughter had her head down upon it in clear teenage despondency.
Hannah placed her hand on her daughter’s back. “Remember Penthesilea?”
Jane rotated her head to look up at her mother with one eye. “Yeah.” Penthesilea Starkiller was their shared creation, back when Jane was younger – a brave marine, a fine leader with a fiercely loyal crew, who worked together under the banner of an old navy motto.
“Fortes fortuna juvat, sweetheart,” Hannah reminded her.
Fortune favours the brave.
Jane plunked her forehead back down on the table and held out her hand. She felt her mother press her bathing suit into it.
Swim lessons for a person still adjusting to her long arms and legs were… worse than expected.
From the edge of the pool, still spluttering herself, Jane made to reach for the girl whose eye she’d clipped mid-stroke. “I’m so sorry,” Jane choked through the lungful of water she’d inhaled in panic. She grabbed onto the girl’s wrist and gave a yank.
She stormed along a crowded hallway, heading home in a cloud of rage and humiliation, garnering looks from nearly everybody, including (perhaps especially) the handful of aliens that were aboard the station.
Jane waited for the hammer to fall while the girl coughed, one hand managing to cover both her injured eye and the blossoming goose-egg on her forehead. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated. With her good eye, the girl glared daggers at Jane – well, maybe just one dagger, came a traitorous voice in Jane’s mind.
Like any space station, nearly every kid on Tamayo Point was like Jane: temporary, in transit from one station to the next, following their parents’ latest postings. But cliques always managed to form – and this was no way to get in with one.
Jane tried to arrange her face to look innocent and apologetic. This was not easy when also trying to quell a bout of manic laughter.
Naturally, she’d discovered her clothes were missing from the change room. Thus, Jane raged a path toward her temporary home, trying to ignore the onlookers. Because, some part of her reasoned, why shouldn’t they look at the damp, barefooted Amazon with the tomato-red face in only a bathing suit and a towel?
She wanted to die.
Instead, she hurled herself forward with blinding speed, turning a corner sharply only to bump into a tall, immoveable thing. She immediately fell backward on her butt, towel open and askew.
The tall, immoveable thing bent slightly over her splayed form. “Hm,” it said, and Jane heard the subvocals before she saw the three-fingered hand being offered to her.
She was far too embarrassed to be experiencing physical pain just then, but she gingerly accepted the assistance. The turian pulled her upright.
“Are you okay?” the turian asked. Jane looked up at the alien, slightly shocked by the polite question, and thought back to her xenobiology studies. This turian wasn’t quite as tall as most she’d seen, but a crest of horns had clearly mostly developed. A male, then, she reasoned, likely close to her age.
“Can you talk?” the turian prompted while she stood there agog. “Or is your translator broken?”
Oops. “Oh. No. I mean yes.” Get it together, Shepard, she instructed herself, and coughed to clear her thoughts. “Yes, I’m okay. Yes, I can talk. No, my translator isn’t broken. And… thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he responded, inclining his head. “You look like you’re having a bad day.”
Jane snorted a laugh, and the turian – smiled? She sensed it, rather than saw it, in the movement of his mandibles.
“Do humans often wear this type of garment?” he asked, looking her over.
The towel—! She’d left it limp in her hand, forgotten until that moment – she jerked it around herself, mercifully, without incident. All she needed now was to accidentally punch a turian.
“No, just while swimming,” she answered him. It was weird to have this new body of hers examined by a member of a different species. It didn’t feel as gross as when humans did it, but it also made her feel a bit like a science project. She tugged the towel more tightly around herself.
“Ah. I don’t swim, but I hear the pool is pretty far from here,” the turian offered in what might be considered a helpful tone, but… was he teasing her?
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I should know, considering I just walked from there.”
“Is that what you call ‘walking’? Maybe it’s my translator that’s broken. You were clearly charging – like a krogan.” Definitely teasing.
She wasn’t entirely sure how to manage by teased by an alien, but a flare in temper was probably not the best bet. “Well – good. Krogan’s what I was going for.” It wasn’t a great comeback, and it would have been more convincing if she weren’t holding onto her towel for dear life.
He laughed, probably at the lameness of her attempt, and offered his hand again, this time in proper greeting. Guess he knew something of human customs. Or maybe turians also shook – hands, talons? Was ‘talons’ impolite? “I’m Rascus Klyniak. Visiting my father here before I start my first tour.” Jane had been right, then – he was only a few years older than she was.
“Jane Shepard,” she replied, making sure her towel was secure before taking his proffered hand and shook it. “I… live here, I guess.”
“You guess?” he asked. “Must be new here. Military brat?” he asked in an off-handed way. Jane nodded. That good old temporary life – something this turian, and many like him, probably understood well.
He was eyeing her again and something seemed to fall into place for him. “You got hazed.”
She sighed. “Something like that.”
He made that, “Hm,” noise with his complex subvocal accompaniment again. “Let me walk you home.”
Jane raised her eyebrows in surprise. The First Contact War happened only ten years ago; turians and humans could have a conversation, sure, but this offer was… generous. She was immediately suspicious.
He laughed again. “Don’t worry, not all turians are the same,” he assured her. “Xenophobe,” he added.
She opened her mouth to protest, and he winked, drawing a laugh from her instead.
They started off down the corridor – the opposite direction Rascus had been going – but even with the new escort, she could still feel her state of undress, her damp bare feet, pulling the gazes of the people they passed. She closed up as tightly as she could, head bowed, arms crushing her towel uncomfortably against her breasts.
She could feel Rascus watching her, too. “Something I learned in boot,” he said suddenly as they walked, “is that you need to own your role.”
She glanced up at him, but kept silent, waiting for him to make his point.
“May I see your towel?” he asked, stopping and holding out his hand for the third time. Reflexively, she clutched her only protection closer, tighter around herself. Not to be deterred, he thrust his hand forward at her insistently. Sighing, Jane relented, and she was left standing there in her mother’s one-piece.
Rascus threw the towel around his shoulders – like she’d seen her dad do when he was shaving, only on a turian, the effect was far more pronounced. Rascus would’ve looked almost silly, except—
He strutted forward several paces away from her. Then, he pivoted and swaggered back in her direction. He was fully clothed in civilian dress, and the towel somehow looked like a perfect complement to his outfit.
When he was back at her side, he removed the towel and placed it around her own shoulders. “Try it.”
She gaped at his suggestion. “Easy for you to say,” she scoffed. “At least you have shoes.”
He laughed, and then fixed her with a stare that made her pay attention. “Jane Shepard,” he said gravely. “Own your damn role.”
Where was this turian boot camp, and could she apply? He’d sounded so commanding that she’d nearly saluted him. Instead, she turned away from him and took a few careful steps forward.
“Confidence, human,” he said loudly after her in a voice that had the effect of smacking her rear end in reprimand. She felt propelled forward.
People were staring at the pair of them. Jane could hear whispers. She hesitated, looking down at her feet, feeling on the brink of falling on her face.
“Make me forget you have no shoes,” Rascus demanded.
Fortes fortuna juvat. What would Penthesilea do?
She took a deep breath and threw her shoulders back. She had her fiercely loyal crew behind her. They were all going to the beach for some well-earned shore leave, but there were wild varren near the path that would take them there. Penthesilea marched forward, daring any of those alien dogs to try and lay a single – paw? – on any of her crew.
Behind her, Jane heard Rascus clapping, and she turned and marched right back, head high.
“Wow, Jane Shepard,” her new turian friend said appreciatively. “Nicely done. You catch on quick – for a human.”
“Racist,” she quipped. His mandibles flared. That had to be a grin.
They continued on, Jane leaving the towel draped around her shoulders. Eventually, they made it to Jane’s apartment block.
“Thank you for the interesting afternoon,” Rascus said, bowing a little. “It was nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too, Rascus,” Jane responded, smiling.
“Never forget to own your role, Jane Shepard,” he said, mock-serious.
“Yes, sir,” she said, mock-saluting him.
Rascus hesitated for a minute, seemingly weighing something in his mind. Then he said, “By the way. No one will ever be looking at your feet when your waist is that supportive.” He winked at her again and swaggered away, leaving her dumbstruck just outside her door.
Thirteen-year-old Jane Shepard examined herself in the bathroom mirror.
Confidence, human. She placed her hands on either side of her – supportive waist.
Amazon.
She smiled.