Disclaimer: Kylaia al Jmaa and the Order of the Shang is owned by Tamora Pierce.
Twelve years ago might as well be another lifetime, a half forgotten mist of child hate and resentment. Little girl whines, cries, I looked back at our sprawling house one time and ran. First one geta fell off, I did not miss it. Bare feet felt good on the grass. The next morning my other geta sank into the mud, I did not mourn its loss. By the time I had run to the next town, my kimono in tatters, I knew that I could not turn back. There were still people who knew my name in the next town, I still had to run.
Perhaps I regret, my anger murdered sense, I could have been a proper lady bound up in a kimono. I could have learned how to tie my obi properly, only the finest silk. I could have married a nobleman, bore children, all silky haired with midnight eyes. Little kittens, fed on milk from my breast, my life given to them. I could have but I ran. Tangled, unkempt, a knotted mess until I hacked it off with a knife I stole, what could have been the silky loops of a noblewoman.
They found me, half mad, and grasped me to their breast. I cried big wet tears until there was nothing left. Then they took me by the hand and led me away. Ten days in a boat, three by horse, ten on foot, we reached a mansion set deep in the forest. Too far from anything, no one could find me. Little child lips, I smiled.
The clouds cover anything else; I know there is something else. I know that deep there is something that I refuse to remember. And I know I don't want to know. Someday, when I am ready, I will remember. I will know what I have kept from myself, my true identity or my true deeds. Until then, they gave me a name and a place in society.
Lost children, they collected all of them; scared eyes stared at me when I first met them. My eyes as scared as theirs, I stared back. They stared until they realized that I was scared too. All in white, coarse pants and shirt, all the same, we are the same. Someday, some of us will become more but as children we are the same. We know. Staring at each other, we know we are the same. Warmth, acceptance, no one is left out. No one has a past and we are given our future.
"Welcome to the Order of the Shang, Kylaia al Jmaa," I am told. I bow, I accept my name.
Twelve years ago I entered the Order of the Shang. Twelve years ago I was reborn into something much more than I was. They placed a katana in my hands; I felt my arm grow. I watched the silver blade, part of my arm, slice the air so cleanly there was no sound. The kyoshi had nothing to teach me, just staring and knowing. They knew something I did not; all I could know was that the sword felt natural. Swinging the blade was like breathing and as vital. They smiled.
The other students, they struggled, swords in hand, grappling with the hilt. I stared, I helped, my little child hands next to theirs. Eventually they left the room, leaving me alone with the kyoshi. Young man, too young to be a man, with my hair and eyes, he gripped his own sword and helped me.
Twelve years later, he still grips his own sword and helps me. The silver blades crash against each other and we stare at each other, trying to see our bodies. The chest betrays. His eyes narrow, I brace myself, too many times have we practiced with each other. I know his motions before he makes them. I know him too well.
Through the window, the moon has already risen high. I patter to the window, too silent for anyone but the kyoshi to hear, he follows me. Leaning on the sill, I can see his sharp profile until he turns to me.
"Kylaia, you should be in bed," he whispers. I know what he means. I have not slept in my own bed in a year. No one mentions it but everyone knows. In their glances, the other students know. They do no speak to me anymore. Only he can see my nod.
I do not know if it is good. I do not know good. The cloth chafes, the pants I wear so that I look like everyone else. They are proud, all the same. I do not know if I am the same, my eyes slit like a cat. They look at me; I know that I should cast my eyes down. I am shameful and I do not care. The other students hate me. Once we were all the same but something changed. I changed.
The teachers look at me, smile, they know I am different. They know what I do after the moon has risen and they know what I do when the sun is high. They use me as an example, they praise me. I excel at every weapon they place in front of me, but nothing is like the katana. The slight curve, the silver blade, I can imagine it sliding through my own stomach. Death would not hurt. It would be like sleep.
My kyoshi, his smile is only for me. My smile, he uses it late at night. The kyoshi do not have to share their room, all except my kyoshi. On his sword rack, my sword sits below his. In his closet my silk kimono hangs, as red as the blood that flows every month.
We do not use words. Our swords speak, silent footfalls, well planned motions say more than words ever could. When we are alone, our words do not come from our mouths. I like it better, words fall out of my mouth like dead frogs.
"Kylaia, are you too dumb to speak? Or will you just not talk to mere mortals?" a student jeers. I do not have to unsheathe my katana to knock the student out. His friends run for help and I walk off. A mere mortal, is that what they are? Why do they degrade themselves? Mortality is precious. When I walk into my kyoshi's classroom, I do not see him. He is there at this hour every day. A fight will clear my head. I warm up, stretch, wait. He never appears all night. I run through the stretches ten times, waiting. I lean on the windowsill, stare at the moon. Elbows on the sill, the moon has a picture of a rabbit making rice cakes. Nice bunny, I smile. I dream of that rabbit.
Follow the rabbit; it leads me to my home. My mother, creases around her mouth, worries about her make-up, hair, kimono. A proper lady, her handmaids straighten her under-kimono, tie her obi, arrange her hair into slick black ropes. My mother turns to the rabbit, reaches out her hand and the rabbit bites off her hand. Instead of a bloody stump, a new hand grows. I pick up the rabbit; coddle it to my chest to protect my mother. But I don't know if I protect my mother or the rabbit, rewarding the rabbit. I try to run but I trip on my kimono, tight, a proper lady's. I crawl along the floor, pulling myself along, rubbing my kimono and my legs until I tear my kimono and rub my legs until they bleed. I continue to drag myself until my legs fall off and my hands fall off, the rabbit runs ahead. Instead of the rabbit, my mother stabs my chest.
"Kylaia," husky heavy my kyoshi whispers. "Kylaia." I turn my head towards him, his eyes worry. I force my mouth into a smile. "Kylaia." Thin fingers, slender arm he presses cold compresses on my forehead. He never liked words. My fingers brush his cheek, my arm naked. Underneath his blanket I am naked, my clothes drape on a chair red with blood. My chest is wrapped. "You passed out on your sword. Rest."
Sleep claims me. When I wake, my kyoshi changes the bandages around my chest. One of my breasts is half sliced off. I will never bear milk again in that breast. Soft, gentle, my kyoshi applies a salve to my breast, cool. Again, the bandages bind my chest, tighter than when I wrapped my chest to practice. Tight enough to glue my breast back on my chest although I know it is not enough. Nothing is, something inside me know it, my breast will never heal. I can never feed children with my own milk. I can never become a mother.
Weeks pass, I can not leave my kyoshi's room. Doctors see me, they unwrap the bandages they use their magic to heal me. It never works. I know it can't. One night, my kyoshi sitting beside the window, I whisper.
"Cut off both of my breasts," I plead. "I know that my breast will never heal." He nods. He takes my sword and unsheathes it, glinting by the light of the moon. When I slept, he sharpened it. He nurtured my sword as well as he nurtured me. My blood soaked into the sheet and my breast fell to my side like a dead fish. The sword slices through the other breast. Then he wraps my chest again, stifling the blood. His hands run against my front, trying to find the missing part. Together we sink into our blood soaked sheets.
It takes days to heal. We changed the sheets, cutting them up and using them for more bandages. The first day I rejoin the other students they do not look up. No one can look me in the face. It is hard to stand at first. The weight on my chest gone, I am shaky. Alone in a classroom I teach myself how to live in this new body. At night I sit in our bedroom, now truly ours, and slice off my hair in mourning. I never realized how long my hair could be. Behind him the door shuts and he takes the dagger from my hands. His prized topknot falls to the floor.
"You'll leave," he says. Someday, someday he will sleep alone in our bed. We do not know how soon, we can't know, but it hurts.
"I won't leave until I remember," I reply before I think. "I cannot leave until I remember why I am here."
Clad in that kimono, I leave the mansion. At my side is my katana and there is nothing else I need. I will travel until I reach my home, until I learn why I left. I will never remember until I leave.
"I will return with my true name," I tell my kyoshi. Days, months, I lose track of how long it takes to return to my home. My kimono is in shreds when I reach my home, the sprawling mansion. Instead of my mother, another woman struts around the house, her head held high. In her arms, a baby cries. My father steps to be near his new wife, their young child, and he sees me.
"Yume," he says. It is not a question. "Yume, you do not belong here." Twelve years ago my mother died. She bled to death, stabbed three times in her chest.
"I am your daughter," I reply. "I came to reclaim my name."
"You and your name do not exist to the family." Twelve years ago my mother was murdered. She was found in her bedroom with her handmaid both dead. She was murdered when the moon was high. I followed the rabbit.
Perhaps it does not matter, my mother died instantly. I turn around and walk back. My true name now is Kylaia al Jmaa, I am dead to all but the Order of the Shang. In my hands, my father's katana felt perfect. The sword slid through my mother without sound. The reason does not matter anymore. Perhaps the reason never mattered.
Ireturn to the mansion, to my kyoshi, to the Order. This time I cannot promise him that I will return. Now I have my true name, Kylaia al Jmaa the Unicorn. Unicorns can murder, unicorns are vicious. I leave him my sword and inside me is a child that I can only murder when it is born.