by Ana Mardoll
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations, and events are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the word marks mentioned in this work of fiction.
Copyright © 2018
NO MAN OF WOMAN BORN by Ana Mardoll
All rights reserved.
Published by Acacia Moon Publishing, LLC
Cover illustration by Anna Dittmann
Audio narrated by Cori Samuel
Books by Ana Mardoll
The Earthside Series
Poison Kiss (#1)
Survival Rout (#2)
Rewoven Tales
Pulchritude
No Man of Woman Born
To Elliot and Siobhan, who taught me the words I'd searched for my whole life.
No Man of Woman Born
Rewoven Tales
by Ana Mardoll
Table of Contents
Tangled Nets
Content Note: Violence, Bloodshed, Community Ableism, Sacrificial Victims, Self-Sacrifice
King's Favor
Content Note: Border Walls, Population Purges, Violence, mention of Self-Harm
His Father's Son
Content Note: Violence and Sexualized Violence; Bloodshed; Death of Family, Parents, and Minor Children
Daughter of Kings
Content Note: Misgendering, Parental Bigotry, mention of Parental Death
Early to Rise
Content Note: Magical Curses, Non-Consensual Kissing, mention of Self-Harm
No Man of Woman Born
Content Note: Governmental Oppression, mention of Emergency Cesarean Births, mention of Rape
The Wish-Giver
Version History
Author's Note
Fantasy novels were my escape as a child. On cold or rainy days when the world closed in around me and my chronic pain flared up, I hid under my pink duvet clutching a library book and read until my troubles were forgotten. Peter Pan, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, Dragonlance, and Piers Anthony's Xanth series formed my childhood; the complete works of Patricia C. Wrede (which had been banned from my household as the 'wrong kind' of magical fantasy for good Christian girls to enjoy) were my first purchase when I moved from my parents' house into a place of my own. Talking dragons and magical witches and daring swordsmen were everything to me, and carried me through good times and bad.
My first attempts at creative writing were based in fantasy worlds, yet every time I started a new work the project would stall. For all that I loved high-fantasy settings, I didn't feel I had anything to add. My focus shifted to fairy tales where I could explore domestic violence in my 'Beauty and the Beast' retelling, Pulchritude, and to urban paranormal in my Earthside series where I write queer and disabled protagonists who escape from abusive situations to find freedom and a supportive community whose members who share their marginalized identities. In short, I wrote where I felt my voice could have the most impact, and high fantasy remained on my reading stack for pleasurable escapism only.
What I hadn't anticipated when I set out to change the world with my writing was how much my writing would change me. Between publishing Poison Kiss and Survival Rout I realized the transgender and nonbinary gender characters I'd included in my fiction carried within them large parts of myself. I came out as trans to my friends and a weight lifted from my shoulders. All the messy, confusing, complicated gender feelings I'd carried with me for so long had a name, a label, and a community—I wasn't alone and I wasn't the only one. I was happier than I'd ever been.
After the heady rush of coming out had passed, I looked at my reading stack and saw with a pang how often I wasn't included in those fantasy worlds. I spent many a night peering at The Lord of the Rings and wondering who among the cast (possibly Merry?) I could imagine as a genderfluid demigirl with neopronouns like mine. I realized I did have words I wanted to add to the fantasy genre. I set aside the Earthside draft I'd been working on and started a new project. I would write stories I needed to read, each with a transgender character who was the hero of their own tale. My words would be chosen for fellow trans people seeking escapism; I didn't want to provide 'Gender Theory 101' or write big 'coming out' discussions for each character. Their gender would be the same as for cis characters: real, valid, and affirmatively theirs.
I wanted to write the stories I'd needed as a trans child hiding with a book under a pink duvet.
No Man of Woman Born is the name both of this collection and one of the stories within. The title comes from a trope of prophecies in fantastical settings wherein an event which seems impossible nevertheless comes to pass because of a loophole in the rule. J.R.R. Tolkien is popularly (and possibly apocryphally) believed to have created the character of Éowyn (shieldmaiden of Rohan, and slayer of the Witch King of Angmar who 'can be killed by no man') after being irritated by Shakespeare's weak resolution to the 'no man that's born of woman' prophecy in Macbeth. After all, if no man born of woman can accomplish a given task, that seems like an excellent time to bring in a woman to do the job, rather than introducing a man who isn't born of a woman because he was 'from his mother's womb untimely ripped'.
Whether or not this origin story for Éowyn is true, the tale has stuck with me. Éowyn was one of the first female characters in a fantasy setting I read as a child, and was formative in many ways for me. She dressed as a man and rode to battle as a man and fought as a man, but she was no man herself. She proclaims her gender on the battlefield—"But no living man am I! You look upon a woman."—and everyone believes her. She doesn't have to argue or explain or justify herself; she simply states what her gender is and is not.
Éowyn is written as a cis woman, of course, and this is a privilege cis people have that trans people do not in our society: the privilege to have one's gender accepted and not considered a matter for debate. Yet what if she were not cis? What if she were assigned female at birth like me, but neither a man nor a woman? What if she were both? What if she were a trans woman and the prophecy knew even if those around her didn't? Where were stories about those characters: trans heroes and heroines whose genders broke, subverted, and fulfilled prophecies as neatly as Éowyn's gender fulfilled the prophecy about the Witch King of Angmar?
The stories I've written here do just that: break, subvert, and fulfill the same gendered prophecies that cis characters have encountered since the dawn of storytelling. The heroes and heroines in these pages aren't special because they are trans; they are special and they are trans. They face trials and tribulations as any character does, and emerge triumphant. No trans character is killed in the pages that follow, none are deadnamed, and misgendering is kept to a minimum. The assigned genders at birth of the nonbinary characters are not revealed unless necessary. Trigger warnings are provided before each story, as well as pronunciation guides for neopronouns used by nonbinary characters. Wherever possible, I have tried to make this collection accessible to trans readers, with cis audiences welcomed but not centered.
These are stories I needed to read, sent out into the wider world for anyone else who might need them too.
Tangled Nets
Content Note: Violence, Bloodshed, Community Ableism, Sacrificial Victims, Self-Sacrifice
Neopronoun Pronunciation Key: Xie ("zee" or /ziː/), Xer ("zur" or /zɜr/)
Mist rolled over the bay in the wake of the summer storms, bringing a wet chill that seeped through every crack and soaked each blanket. The bitter morning wind forced Wren to bundle up in xer second set of clothes before leaving the hut to lug xer fishing nets down to the grass-speckled hill overlooking the bay. Perch
ed on xer favorite rock, xie worked until xer fingers were chapped numb from the cold ocean spray, repairing holes and strengthening the weave of xer nets while the sun crept over the horizon.
Wren could work by feel now, leaving xer eyes free to wander over the jagged waves and their white peaks whipped to a dancing frenzy by the wind. Yet no matter how often xie tried to look away, xer eyes were always drawn back to the gray cliffs ringing the bay and the dark gash cut into the stone high above the line where the sea stained the rock a brackish green. In rare moments when the wind died, Wren could hear the white dragon slumbering in that dark cave. Ponderous snores marked the massive bulk of the creature, each lung in its chest the size of the small human shivering on the rocks below.
Despite the bite in xer fingers, Wren didn't mind the work. Routine was calming, a distraction from the coming winter and its heralding fog which blanketed the village in silent dread. No matter the weather or week, xie hiked to the hill laden with nets, sat on xer rock, and let xer fingers fly over the thick webbing that had kept Wren alive and fed from birth. Mending a tear here, reinforcing a spot there, xie made the nets ready to be stretched like a fence along the ocean floor where they would entangle the strongest swimmers.
When the sun shook herself free of the horizon and just before the village fishers poured down the hill, Wren rowed out in the battered community rowboat to bring up nets xie had placed the day before. Xie sorted the haul, threw back the smallest, and set repaired nets in place for the next day's catch. Light danced on the water as villagers who could afford boats of their own began to row out to join xer; those who couldn't waited impatiently for Wren to row back to shore, wet netting lumped in xer lap and fish flopping over xer feet.
On land, Wren wrapped the haul in xer nets and lugged everything back up the hill and through the sparse forest that cradled xer family home. There xie sorted the catch a second time, deciding what to cook, what to trade, and what to store. The ritual of filleting the fish was calming, the sharp edge of xer knife flashing in the midday sun. Lunch was set on a pan over the fire to fry while Wren hung strips of flesh in the tiny drying shack opposite the hut door. Xie carried embers from the hearth to smolder in the base of the shack; the smoke would ward flies away, while heat and wind dried the meat for winter.
The routine was comforting in its familiarity, designed to store enough food to keep the family alive over the coming winter months. But everything had been easier when Dwynwen was still with them; her fingers had flown over the nets like a stone skipping the bay, and when they took their catch down to the village to trade she had bargained with the devil's own quick tongue. In the wake of her loss, there were now only two mouths to feed but the amount of work had not lessened.
Their mother, Eirlys, did what she could to help but was habitually sickly. Whenever illness confined her to bed, she could rise only to tend the drying shack and stir dinner. She had never recovered from Wren's birth, and her health sustained a second blow at Dwynwen's death. Eirlys had slumped insensible to the ground during those final rites, wailing feverish curses as her daughter of seventeen summers was led in procession to the valley. Wren had helped her walk back to the hut afterwards, xer mother's arm slung over her youngest child as together they struggled with each step.
On that first night back, Eirlys slept dead to the world. Only with great difficulty had Wren been able to wake her and coax down a small portion of the grain Dwynwen had bought for them. Dwynwen wouldn't want them to waste her sacrifice, and Wren repeated this until Eirlys weakly acknowledged the truth. The grain had been good for her and she'd rallied, leaving her bed in short bursts to clean the hut. She hiked monthly to the valley, visiting the little grave they'd dug for Dwynwen's braid. Sitting beside the wooden grave-marker, she sang songs or wove flower garlands to leave on the tiny dirt mound.
Over time, however, the visits brought her more pain than comfort. She fell ill again and missed a month, then another. After she recovered, she never visited the valley again. Now, almost four years to the day after Dwynwen's death, Eirlys was ill once more. Wind slipped through cracks in the hut walls to lay icy claws at her throat. Wren watched her from the doorway, pausing when xie stepped inside to pull lunch from the fire. Eirlys lay on their only bed, wrapped in every blanket they owned and still shivering.
Xie told xerself she would be fine. Sickness rose from the shoals every year, endangering infants and elders, yet Eirlys always recovered. She was stronger than she looked, her frail body beating back disease time and again. Wren would go down to the village and trade with merchants for goods: livestock bones to make a heartier broth than could be coaxed from fish, and medicine made from the herbs that clung to the rocky hills surrounding the valley; precious things paid for in fish and oil. Xie would be forced to dip into their winter stores to afford these luxuries, but the alternative was unthinkable.
Wren couldn't let Eirlys die, even if others would. Xie glared fiercely at the speculative whispers which had begun to trail xer whenever xie went down to the village. The villagers lived in fear of the changing seasons, and were hungry to hear that a lottery would not need to be held this year. They had a knack for sniffing out sickness, like wild hill dogs circling a flock in search of its weakest member. But they could not have Eirlys. If Wren could have xer way, they would never again have anyone. No creature should suffer Dwynwen's fate, and no one should be forced to endure what Wren and Eirlys survived.
"Hallowed day is coming."
Wren knew right away xer tone of voice was wrong; xie sounded too defiant. Xie had intended to sound calm, even grateful. Supplication and humility were appropriate in xer position, not anger. Yet the terse words were free in the air with no net to catch them, so Wren set xer shoulders and stood like a tree.
If the mayor noticed, nothing showed on his face. He sighed where he sat on the long bench at the head of the common building, shuffling papers around the table like pieces in a game. "It is, yes. Already the autumn harvests are coming in. The Dyers had an especially good year. It always seems to go that way, doesn't it? When the fishers have a bad year, farmers thrive. When the farms struggle, fish leap into the boats. I suppose we should be grateful we don't all starve at the same time."
He paused to make a mark on one page, his spidery handwriting covering the precious sheet with inky tracks. If Wren knew how to read the markings, xie would see the names of the farmers with numbers representing the wealth of their harvests. A nearby basket contained stones and shells, each with a hole bored in the center and strung with knotted thread to represent fishing hauls over the year. These knots and numbers added up in an arcane way to the portion each house owed the community. The yearly tax wasn't high, but was enough to feed a single desperate family facing the prospect of a hard winter.
Wren's token was a simple black stone, hollowed out years before by Wren's father and identical to the ones used on xer nets as weights against the ocean current. Other families marked their nets and hauls with decorative shells—xie knew at a glance the flashy white ones for the Mannerings and delicate pink ones for the Brownes—but common stones had been all Wren's family could ever afford. Wren didn't mind this, at least not when xie could avoid thinking about it. Now was not one of those times.
"I want to volunteer. I want to be the sacrifice."
Only now did the mayor look up at Wren, blinking rheumy eyes at xer. "Say that again, child?" He frowned, rubbing at his chin and leaving a streak of watery ink where his thumb grazed the leathery skin. "You're hardly old enough to volunteer."
"I'm seventeen summers." The same age as Dwynwen when she'd had this conversation, but Wren pushed that thought away before it could show on xer face. Sacrifices must know their place and maintain decorum. Eirlys' wails during Dwynwen's final rites were excusable; after all, it wasn't unusual for family members to lose themselves in grief. However, it wasn't appropriate for Wren to be angry four years later, xer rage nurtured like an ember against the dragon, the lottery, and the villag
ers who escorted xer sister to her death. Xie struck an obedient expression and tried again. "I'm old enough, sir."
"Seventeen already?" The mayor hummed and hawed, stroking his jaw. Despite his protests, there was no official age limit. The dragon wouldn't accept children if they were too small, but villagers as young as fourteen had gone in procession to the valley. The qualification wasn't age so much as the ability to make a satisfying meal. Wren was big enough, which meant Wren was old enough. Xie waited as the mayor's eyes took on a faraway look, reminiscing over times long past. "Can you believe I remember your birth as though it were only a season ago? Your poor mother was in labor for two days. How is she doing?"
"Poorly." Wren shifted on xer feet, uncomfortable standing but not wishing to sit on the bench. That would be too intimate, sending a signal that xie wished to stay longer than the time necessary to conclude xer business.
"That's a shame," the mayor said, his brow knitting into a tighter frown than before. "But all the more reason why you shouldn't volunteer, child; Eirlys needs you. After your father and sister died, you're all she has left. Are your food stores low? If that's the case, my wife and I could spare a little. And if Eirlys is truly ill, I'm sure she'd much rather give herself than—"
"I said, I choose to volunteer. Sir."
Xer abrupt words hung in the air between them. The mayor blinked, unaccustomed to being so rudely interrupted, and ran a hand over his eyes before responding. With an insight unaccompanied by guilt or pity, Wren realized that the old man was trying to be patient with xer.