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The air shimmered.
It was the shock, he thought. Unable to keep up their mental construct.
Back and forth they changed. Human, Zygon, Human, Zygon, different Human, Zygon, different Human again, Zygon, and on and on. He knew he wasn't any good at this sort of thing, and was pretty sure he didn't have a card for this situation.
“It’s ok. It’s alright, I’m not- You don’t have to do that.”
They settled. Flickered. Settled again.
“You don’t have to look like a human. I’m not human. If you want to that’s fine, but not for me, not for my benefit. Whatever you want to look like is fine.”
They sat and breathed for a moment, fully stabilised now.
“I know I should have told you, I just didn’t want you to…” They flinched and curled up a little more.
“I’m sorry if I gave you the impression I would.” He tried to make himself sound gentle, it probably was his fault, he'd been funny this time around, unlearning things he thought he'd had down. Starting a new cycle seemed a bit like starting from scratch in some ways.
“No, just, you’re taking this well.” Their eyes peeked up above their arm. They seemed genuinely confused. They came away with him into time and space but thought he would dump them if he found out about this? He found himself as amazed by their courage as much as he was ashamed that he could be so misunderstood.
“I want you to be you. Whatever that means.”
“Why?”
He couldn't think of what to say. It was partly why he needed the cards, the ideas are in his brain but he can’t make them come out. An automatic defence mechanism - it’s too much like vulnerability, putting himself on the line. But he sort of knew “why” and they need to know “why”, and so he had to try.
“There’s a story, on my planet…”
“Once upon a time, there was a land of lizards. Some of the lizards, if they were clever enough, got to to be chameleons. The chameleons ruled over everything, they were taught all kinds of secrets, like how to change their colours and how to grow back their tails instead of dying.
But even above the chameleons, were a small group of high-born lizards who stood above all. The chameleons both needed and greatly resented them. These lizards were sometimes called prophets, or seers. They would never be able to change but instead would stay as they were, in the same place forever, and be part of the Sisterhood.”
“So they were all girls?”
“The chameleons thought that to be a Sister they had to be born able to bear children, but give that up. You see once you became a proper chameleon - after your first tail-drop, you couldn’t have children any more, and while they found ways around this, they thought it needed to be something that had to be given up in order to have special powers like they did.
So, one day, a high born lizard was born, and they looked at them and thought “this lizard will be a perfect little girl to become one of the Sisters.” They didn’t ask the lizard, who was too little at the time to understand, but began to train them. All they understood was that their best lizard friend, who was like a baby chameleon already, got to go to special classes where he learnt interesting chameleon secrets, but they had to go with the Sisters, and get taught really boring things instead. The lizard’s friend would tell them all about the things he had learnt, even though they both knew that they would never be allowed to become a chameleon like he would.
As the lizard got older, the sadder and sadder they got. They didn’t want to be stuck the colour they were, didn’t want to stay in one place, didn’t want to live forever without their friend, didn’t want to become a Sister and didn’t really feel like a girl any more at all. The lizard told their friend that even though they felt like they had been a girl, they didn’t feel like that any more, and the lizard’s friend said it was like how the grown-up chameleons changed their colour and said he understood. They both got sad, thinking that if they could become a chameleon, then they could be whatever they wanted, and if they changed their mind, they could just change what they looked like. The lizard’s friend said that it would be awful for them to be stuck forever being treated in a way they didn’t want to be and that maybe they could come up with a plan.
The lizard talked to the Sister next time they had a lesson. The Sister nodded and seemed to think, and then carried on teaching them about boring things. The only difference was that the Sister would say things like “Stop fidgeting, Boy!” - which made them wiggle with happiness and get an extra report for disobeying.
Unfortunately, just as some things were getting better, other things got worse. The Sister had talked to the lizard’s father and he didn’t want the lizard to stop the lessons. The Sister said that it wasn’t right to make a boy lizard be one of the Sisterhood, and that they should be a chameleon instead - and would probably be better at it. But he said no, that the lizard was a girl and that they would just have to learn to cope with it. He was a very important chameleon and having his child be part of the Sisterhood would make him even more important. So even though the Sister didn’t want to, she knew she’d have to do as he asked, or the resentment between the chameleons and the Sisterhood would grow even bigger.
The lizard felt very alone and very frightened. They would soon be old enough that their friend would go and become a chameleon, and they would have to go with the Sisterhood forever. So they decided to run away. The lizard’s friend was very scared about this plan - if the lizard went into the Outlands to live with the other lizards, they might have to become a soldier, they might not have the chance to come back and be a chameleon. The lizard decided that so long as they didn’t have to be one of the Sisterhood, that anything was better.
So they ran. In the Outlands was a nice lizard who took in all sorts of baby lizards whose parents had died, or left, or who had gotten lost. They called her the mother-lizard and she looked after them, and always listened. Like all the other little lizards, they had to be called something new, but it was like a code more than a real name. The lizard liked it because a code could be for a girl, boy or anything else and you couldn’t tell. Even though it was sometimes scary in their new home, they preferred it to where they had been before, even if they really missed their friend. The nice mother-lizard dressed them how they wanted to be dressed, talked to them how they wanted to be talked to, and made sure everyone else did too.
Lizards start to change into grown-ups before a lot of creatures do, but take a lot longer to go about it. When the lizard started to change, the mother-lizard took them to a lizard doctor to get them medicine, even though it was a long way away. They weren’t sick, but it would make sure the lizard grew up to look more like how they felt, so they wouldn’t have to correct everyone all the time. Around the same time, some chameleons came around to test the growing lizards’ abilities to see if they should come to the chameleon school. Because of everything the lizard’s friend had taught them, they did well enough to go and become a chameleon - just like they’d always wanted. The mother-lizard was very happy, made sure that they would be able to get their medicine, and told them that they could always come back.
So the lizard got to train to become a chameleon. They got to see their friend again, but their father didn’t want to talk to or see them and pretended that they didn’t exist, so who they were before they ran away became a kind of secret. This made them feel a bit hurt, but when everyone was treating them right it didn't matter quite so much, and they didn't have to worry about being punished for embarrassing him. They knew special high-born secrets and no-one knew how that was possible, but the lizard quite liked being mysterious.
The lizard had lots of fun in their training and got into lots of mischief - mostly during the boring bits. They didn’t mind thinking about who they had been, remembering playing with their friend, acting a different way and once it turned out that something that the Sister had taught them back then saved their life - even if it also got them into some big trouble. And so when the lizard finally became a chameleon, they decided it was okay to change who you were, so long as you remembered the people you used to be.
The chameleon got to choose a name that, like their orphan-lizard code, allowed them to be whoever they wanted when they changed their colours. They got to have children and grandchildren, they got to change in all sorts of ways when they tail-dropped and didn’t need medicine any more. They got to travel to all sorts of places, help all sorts of different people and do truly amazing things. All because they got the chance to be who they really were, rather than just being what other people expected them to be.”
“That’s why I want you to be you, not whoever you think I want you to be. I want you to show me just how amazing you really are - and whatever form that takes is fine with me.”
The air shimmered.