Kirea

Trans Female
Hella Pansexual
Mated to Bermuda




I.
Ribbons. That’s how she remembered.
Her father Dorian was a large, dark Imperial. A fisherman with a black heart. A strong, simple man, who couldn’t understand his daughter.
Before Heavenwing Eyrie, Kirea lived with her father in the land of the Tidecaller. Kirea never knew what happened to her mother. As a result, they were alone in a small hut on the beach of a cold ocean.
Dorian wanted her to join him on the fish-trawlers. He needed his daughter to make a living, but Kirea couldn’t stand it.
The boats were huge, hulking, oily things that smelled of copper and death. She shuddered every time she had to touch a live fish. Still, she pressed on through the blood. Some dim part of her was bound to please her father.
Even though she knew that she inevitably would not.
Their fight happened one stormy night. Her father caught her tossing the still-living fish overboard. The rain mingled with her salty tears as she freed the fish.
Some part of the fish’s struggle resonated with her: being caught in a net, hoisted out of their homes, forced to breathe the dry air. So she quietly, quietly dumped the struggling ones back into the ocean. She pictured them being free, jetting out into the water, to places unknown.
Then she noticed her father standing over her. A powerful, black shape in a fisherman’s jacket. As the boat pitched and yawed, his eyes crackled with anger.
He struck her then. As blue lightning flickered above, Kirea struck back. The two glared at one another through sheets of stinging rain.
Then they fought on the slick, soaked deck of the ship, struggling for purchase. Her father was snarling. Kirea was wet, though, and slipped out of his grasp.
The Tundra piloting the boat turned it toward the shore. He didn’t like the dynamic between the father and his child anyway. He dumped them back on the beach, and they fought in the brackish sand until sunrise.
The words hurled back and forth hurt far more than the physical wounds.
II.
“I’m leaving,” Kirea said hollowly. The gray dawn illumined their spare hut.
“Kieran —“
“Kirea,” Kirea corrected.
“Kirea, then. This is nonsense.” Her father looked nonplussed. His strong jaw clenched, and Kirea could see the underlying tendons.
“No. I’m forgetting who I truly am.”
“Who cares what you truly are! You’ll grow out of it!”
Dorian knew he’d said the wrong thing. Kirea glared at him. She was carefully wrapping ribbons around her wings and wrists. Ribbons!
“What are the ribbons for?”
“To help me remember who I truly am.”
Dorian was silent for a long time. When he finally spoke, he spoke slowly. “If you step out of that door wearing ribbons, you’d best not come back. It’s a harsh world out there.”
Kirea’s gaze was just as hard, dark, and powerful as Dorian’s own.
Without a glance back, Kirea set out into that cruel, harsh world.
III.
And to her surprise, she found it was far less cruel than her old world.
She took passage on an old schooner called The Freedom. There, for the first time, she had her own bunk. Stretched out leisurely on her small white bed, she decked her nails out in blue polish, and wrapped her ribbons more tightly.
After the captain threw his bookkeeper overboard following an argument, he recruited Kirea. He saw the Imperial as a soft-spoken, cheerful girl who could nonetheless wrangle payment out of the most foolhardy of passengers with just a glance.
As she and the captain dined together every evening, Kirea began to piece together a story for herself.
She was—nobility.
“Of course you are,” said the captain, bobbing his head. The Spiral captain was very easygoing, and enjoyed seeing youth make something of themselves.
Kirea flushed at his easy acceptance. She was on the run, though.
“Naturally,” echoed the captain.
And now she wanted a job — more of a quiet job — that entailed making bridges between people.
The Spiral captain chewed his food thoughtfully. “I know a place on the isles that’s trying to rebuild. They could use a nice person like you, they could.”
“You don’t want me?” Kirea asked, feeling a bit sad. The captain’s kindness was different for her.
“It’s not that!” The captain cheerfully poked her shoulder. “I can tell you’re sick of the sea.”
IV.
And that was how she came to Heavenwing Eyrie. That fascinating place was undergoing continual transformation, just like a caterpillar. Just like Kirea herself.
The new ruler, Drema, took a shine to her as soon as Kirea stepped off the dock. Drema rushed forward and embraced Kirea, startling the Imperial. But after her shock wore off, the Imperial embraced her back.
“Come, come,” Drema said. In her eyes and face, there was true nobility — true high-born aspects — and Kirea found herself subconsciously imitating her. “There’s already so much to do. Please join me for dinner, and we’ll talk of our goals.”
As Drema ushered her away from the port, Kirea looked over her shoulder.
The kind Spiral captain winked.
V.
Heavenwing Eyrie accepted Kirea at once for who she was, no questions asked.
And the beautiful, idyllic clan, though it bore the scars of some horrible past, was coming together, blooming, and growing.
So Kirea thought she, too, could grow and bloom, with flowers covering up her past.
She still collected ribbons. Whenever she won a particularly good deal between kingdoms, both Drema and the other trader sent her ribbons of all colors and materials.
And after she found Bermuda wandering through the forest, Kirea knew she was going to have a happy life.
Sometimes her lover finds her sitting by their home’s stone hearth, watching outside the window for something. And perceptive Bermuda knows that Kirea is watching for her father.
And Bermuda knows that if Kirea’s father should ever appear, Bermuda would whack him between the eyes.

Bio by Caelyn