Disclaimer: Tamora Pierce owns the wonderful world of Tortall. I do not even own a microscrope.
Like a Girl
Joren learns not to be such a bully the hard way...
Joren stumbled out, his face ashen, from the Chamber of the Ordeal, his undyed robes soaked in sweat, his fine blonde hair plastered to his face. Everyone watched him in shock, staring to make sure they weren't imagining it. Or were they? Because it seemed rather like, well, Joren was a girl.
He seemed to have noticed it to. Maybe that's what brought the pale pallor to his skin, and caused his eyes to burn with such feverish brightness. None were willing to step forward, none were willing to truly come to terms with the fact that Joren of Stone Mountain was, well, the first Lady Knight. Because there was no doubt about it, Joren was irreversibly, unchangeably, female.
"Joren?" his mother whispered at last, stepping away from Lord Burchard. "Is, is that really you?"
Joren turned round slowly to face his mother, opened his mouth to speak. Though the voice everyone heard was clearly not the voice of Joren. This was sweet, melodious, with the faintest hint of birdsong in it. A beautiful voice, but not Joren's.
"Mother," he whispered. "This can't be happening…"
Five hours and fifteen icepacks later, Joren was safely ensconced in his room, with all his friends barred outside, because you never knew what boys like them could get up to…
It seemed the only people allowed in were a horrified Lord Wyldon, Joren's sobbing mother and stone-faced father, and, well, Keladry of Mindelan.
It was strange, to say in the least, that Joren's arch-enemy was allowed where none of his friends were allowed, but this was an emergency situation, and situations such as these called for dire methods.
"Oh Mithros," Lord Wyldon was muttering in the corner. "Please let this not be my fault, please let it not be myself who is at fault…"
"Joren?"
Kel was trying to make Joren wake up, after he'd fainted for the tenth time, after discovering his new gender.
"Don't call me that," he, or rather, she, tried to croak out. "According to the chamber, this is my punishment…"
"Punishment?" Kel asked, as gently as she could, as Joren, or whatever she was called, began to burst into angry sobs.
"You know! For calling you a Lump, and hating girls and all! The chamber wanted to teach me… and this is horrible! You're not the first real Lady Knight! I am!"
"Well I won't hold it as a grudge against you," Kel said calmly, and dropped another icepack onto his forehead.
"What should we call her?" Joren's mother was whispering to her husband, Lord Burchard. "Joren isn't exactly a girl's name…"
"What on earth could I have done to deserve this…" Lord Burchard was muttering. "I had a son, the most promising squire in all Tortall, and now, nothing…"
"Maybe Jorrina?" his wife asked. "Or Jorena?"
"Don't care," Lord Burchard muttered gloomily. "It's all the same to me."
Three weeks had passed, and the new Lady Knight Jorrina of Stone Mountain had sufficiently recovered from her Ordeal to get up, assisted by Kel.
"I don't really know why I'm letting you help me, you know," he mumbled at Kel. "I'm supposed to hate you, aren't I?"
"You can if you like," Kel mumbled absently, as she tried to find a spare dress for him to wear. Joren, surprisingly enough, had declared that if she was going to be a woman from now on, she would wear dresses. So Kel had found herself being 'requested' to donate one.
"What are you called now, anyway?" she asked distractedly, as she hovered between her fawn coloured dress, and the russet one.
"Jorrina," she answered, and sounded much happier about the news than she had during the past week. Kel finally came to a decision and dragged the fawn coloured dress out of her trunk. Jorrina (to Kel's shock) squealed.
"Ooh, Keladry! That's for me?"
"Are you alright, Jore-Jorrina?" Kel asked, a little suspiciously. Joren was getting a little too girly for comfort.
"I love that gown!" Jorrina was gushing. "I think it will complement my hair perfectly, don't you?"
"Um…"
Kel was at loss for words. Was it entirely normal for girls to react like this? Having spent most of her teenage years amongst male company, she had more or less forgotten what girls, or more specifically, young women, could be like.
"Can I borrow your other gowns, Keladry?"
Joren looked expectantly towards Kel, who hesitated.
"Well…"
Joren gazed imploringly up at her, big blue eyes blinking away what seemed to be tears.
"Don't you like me, Keladry?"
"No of course I don't, of course you can borrow my dresses, I mean, um…" a flustered Kel said. She looked towards the door, invitingly open.
"Um…I'll be going now…er…see you later Joren! I mean Jorrina!"
She nearly sprinted down the corridor, slowing down to a walk only when safely away from her rooms. She needed to see Master Numair about this problem, because Jorrina was really starting to get on her nerves. Much as she hated Joren, he was certainly preferable to Jorrina.
"Mmm," mused Numair Salmalin, as he studied the blonde-haired girl frolicking around the Royal Gardens from his window. "I suppose you have a point - erm-"
"Keladry," the girl supplied, and stared out of the window with something bordering on disgust, as she watched Jorrina run screaming because a butterfly was chasing her.
"Help! Someone help me! Ahhh!"
Kel peered a little closer. Did, did Jorrina just faint? It was a bit hard to tell from the crumpled heap of dress and blonde hair lying on the ground.
"Well…" Numair continued, as he pondered this issue in the depths of his brain. "I suppose it is possible to physically change Joren back, though his mentality may still remain geared towards that of a girl. It's a difficult concept, and I will need to discuss this with his, or rather her parents."
Kel squinted a little as she looked outside. It seemed Jorrina was reviving herself - one arm was twitching slightly…
Numair was looking expectantly towards her, as though expecting a reply.
"Keladry?"
With a last glance out of the window, Kel turned around and smiled up at the mage in relief.
"I can imagine Lord Burchard wants him back as a boy as much as I do," she answered.
"No, Burchard!" wailed his distraught wife, as the Lord of Stone Mountain immediately agreed to Numair's proposal that they turn Joren back into a boy.
"I don't want to hurt my baby any more!"
"He won't get hurt," Burchard growled.
"Well," Numair said cheerfully. "There is the distinct possibility he could end up stuck in between, you know…"
"Burchard!" screamed his wife. "I don't want my baby to end up like that!"
"Just do it," Burchard muttered to Numair.
He needed a headache remedy. A really strong one.
"Stand here, Jorrina please," Numair requested, and the girl happily acquiesced, skipping merrily over.
"Anything for you, Master Salmalin," she giggled, and batted her eyelashes.
Numair looked a little sickened, and shared a look with Kel, who simply raised her eyebrows, as if to say, "See? Look what I have to put up with!"
"Let's just get on with this, shall we?"
He closed his eyes and began to concentrate, his black gift swirling over his hands like a glowing mist, increasing in size until it overwhelmed the room in power. Jorrina giggled from somewhere, and Numair frowned, focusing even harder on this spell, as he forced his power into it. Kel could feel a strange pressure building up, increasing in intensity, until it seemed like she could no longer bear it…
BOOM!
Then the entire room exploded into darkness.
"Numair? Joren?" Kel called, racing towards the vortex in the centre of the room which swirled lazily around, disregarding any danger at hand. "Hello?"
"Curse you Mindelan," a very disgruntled and male Joren spat, as he emerged from the blackness. "If it hadn't been for you, I would never have gotten into this mess."
Kel raised her eyebrows.
"And if I hadn't been here, you would never have gotten out of it either!"
Someone coughed from the corner of the room, hidden by the depths of black smoke. Kel forgot about Joren immediately and rushed towards the mage.
"Master Numair?"
He suddenly materialised into view, his robes burnt to a crisp and his hair all singed, face blackened with soot and ash.
"Never," he croaked. "Never doing anything like that, ever again."
"Well at least it worked," Kel remarked. "Joren's back to his old, horrible, chauvinistic self again!"
"Well, I suppose I do owe you a thanks," Joren said grudgingly at last. "Cheers, Mindelan."
"No problem," Kel said calmly, but there was a smile on her face as she watched Joren patting himself to make sure he had no extra body parts.
"But Mindelan," Joren warned, as he peered down, pinching and prodding. "Don't expect me to ever thank you again."
"Oh I will," Kel said cheerily, "And by the way Joren?"
"Yes?"
"You're still wearing my dress."
She laughed when she saw the look of shock on his face.
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