Note: I just finished Behemoth, and I got to say, it was pretty good. I especially like Deryn and Alek and their character development, but there's one thing that is kind of underdeveloped at the moment: Deryn and her relationship with her female family members, as well as how she got to be such a tomboy. Thank goodness for fanfiction!
Deryn came home crying, twisting her hands in her skirts. Of course, it being her very first day of school, one would expect her to come home full of emotions. But certainly not negative, bitter ones.
She was trying her hardest to keep the tears in, but they came out in messy, sudden sobs.
"What's wrong, Deryn?" her brother asked.
"Oh, stuff it!" she exclaimed.
When the two siblings reached home, Deryn ran to her father. She threw her arms around his waist and buried her face in his shirt. Artemis Sharp tensed up, surprised. "Deryn, what's bothering you?"
She mumbled into his stomach.
"You'll have to speak to me and not my shirt, lassie." He gently plied her off and knelt down, at her level. "Now – are you crying?"
"Yes." She rubbed her face. She didn't like bawling like a baby in front of her da.
"Why? Was it something at school?"
She inhaled deeply, trying to calm herself before reliving the memory. "I was outside during dinner, and I wanted to play with the boys. They were playing football. But they wouldn't let me, because I was a girl." The words came out slowly, deliberately.
Her da was quiet. He pulled out his handkerchief and gently wiped her eyes. He said nothing for a few minutes, letting her dry up in silence. "Were those boys mean?"
"They called me names. I tried to fight one, but they just laughed at me, even when I bit one."
"Deryn, you can't go around biting people whenever they make you angry."
"Why? Because I'm a girl?"
"Because you've been taught better than that," he countered. "Now, I will agree that those boys should have let you play ball."
"So can I?"
His face hardened. "I think you can. But whether those boys will let you or not is another thing."
"But I don't want to play with dolls and sit around! That's boring."
"Deryn," he started, his voice soft. Deryn knew that tone all too well. "A lot of people think that girls shouldn't do boy things. Just because I don't agree with that doesn't mean everyone does."
Deryn didn't like this one bit. She was just a girl! What was strange and different about that? Just because she wore a dress and had long hair she couldn't play with a ball? "So what do I do?"
Da locked eyes with her. "Fight it. But not them."
-x-
The oil lamp on the kitchen table cast long shadows at night. Deryn would often sit at the top of the stairs and watch them projected on the wall before her, as her parents would talk and laugh. Well, most of the time. Tonight was different. She could tell by the hushed tones and jerky gestures they used that tonight wasn't the usual fare. Tonight was about her.
"She's ten years old now, Artemis. Don't you think that it's time to tell her to grow up?"
"I really don't see the problem, Imogene. She's as mature as anyone her age, boy or girl."
Ma rubbed her temple. She did that when she was angry. "Artemis, we can't let her run around wearing trousers, messing around with those balloons of yours. She's a girl. She needs to start acting like one."
"What does a girl act like, exactly?"
"Let's not get into this again. She needs to wear dresses, like before. I don't know why you let her wear trousers in the first place."
"Because she wanted to. She wanted to be treated like a human, not a woman. I seem to recall you in the same mindset when I first met you."
Deryn tensed up at Da's sly hint. Mindset? Barking spiders, does he mean…
"You know why I stopped. It was easier for all of us to live a normal life."
"Well, I don't want a normal life for Deryn. I want a better one." She saw Da's shadow pull away from the table and walk towards the stairs. Deryn bolted up and stole silently to her room, hoping that her father didn't see her. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to calm the quick beating of her heart.
-x-
She knew, in the back of her mind, that life was going to be rough now that Da was gone. Aunt Una and Aunt Rena moved in, maiden aunts who thought that Ma needed a bit of help about the house now. They were Ma's sisters, prim, proper, and traditional as a fashion plate.
"I believe this is my niece, but I can't tell between her and a farmhand," Aunt Rena sniffed, upon meeting Deryn.
"Well, someone needs to milk the cows around here," Deryn joked, pushing a lock of hair out of her eyes.
"Hmph," Aunt Una said.
"You know, Deryn, we aren't just here to help your mother," Aunt Rena noted. "We're also here to show you how to be a lady."
Deryn clenched her teeth. It seems that everyone was trying to make her into a lady nowadays. Da never would have permitted it. But he wasn't here anymore. "I'm still a girl, Aunt Rena. I don't think I have to worry about that."
"But you're twelve! Don't you think you should be worrying about being proper?"
"I'm smart, honest, hard-working, brave, and loyal. I think I'm a proper person, let alone lady."
The two aunts exchanged glances, noting that it wasn't going to be an easy task, civilizing her.
-x-
Deryn itched at the thick black stockings she was wearing. What she wouldn't give to wear trousers around the house again.
"Sit up straight, Deryn," Aunt Rena commanded. "And don't scratch your legs. It's not ladylike."
If she says 'it's not ladylike' one more time, I'm going to punch her.
Deryn had spent the last six months being told that everything she did was wrong. She couldn't even breathe without someone chastising her.
Barking old biddies.
Deryn picked up her teacup, making sure to hold it correctly. She never took tea at tea-time – for that matter, her family never had tea-time until her aunts showed up. Any time was tea-time to them.
Aunt Una clucked her tongue disapprovingly. Deryn pursed her lips and gently placed the cup on the table. "I'm done."
"Ah ah, you must ask to be excused," Aunt Rena corrected.
"Oh, get stuffed, you bum-rag!"
The look of shock on her family's faces made enough memories for a lifetime.
"Deryn, I –" Ma said.
"No, Imogene, let us handle it," Aunt Rena brushed aside. Deryn felt the rage build up inside her more. How dare they tell her mother to shove off!
"No, Aunt Rena, I think my ma should have a say in how I'm raised, don't you think?"
"Well, obviously she's totally incompetent to raise any sort of young lady," Aunt Una said. Deryn had to use all of her will power to keep from pouncing on Aunt Una.
Ma looked askance at the aunts, before meeting Deryn's gaze. Under Ma's set brows, her eyes burned bright. Deryn had never seen her mother so determined. "You may be excused, Deryn. And take those silly stockings and dress off. You can't do any sort of chore work in those."
Deryn smiled as she turned and walked away, listening to the sweet sound of surprised silence.
-x-
Deryn shifted around in her seat. Ma was meaning to talk to her. She said it was something important. Deryn didn't take this announcement lightly. She remembered the last time her mother sat her down – to tell her about her aunts arrival. Their departure, however, was a quick and unimportant affair.
Deryn went over everything in her life; school seemed to be coming along well enough. So was home. She didn't have any sort of row with Jaspert recently. Nothing seemed wrong.
Her ma trudge in, finished with folding laundry. She sat across from Deryn, the kitchen table stretched between them.
"What's it you wanted to talk to me about, Ma?"
Ma rubbed her temple. "You're fourteen now, Deryn. You know that you'll be graduating from school soon."
"Yes. If it's about work, I'm sure that the butcher –"
"It's not about that, Deryn," Ma replied. She breathed in deeply, steeling herself. "Remember that talk we had two years ago? About what the stork really is?"
"Yes?"
"Well, remember what else I told, of men and women who liked the same sex's company better?"
"Yes, what of it?" Realization clicked in her head. "Ma, are you saying –"
"No, but Miss Temple and your principal have heard rumors from other students in your grade."
Deryn bit her lip. Is that why everyone sniggered, shoved her aside? Called her names, amongst other things? Well, she had gotten used to it before. But now – well, now it was something a little more heavy-handed. "They're just like those kids from nursery school, Ma. Scared of me and wondering what to label me."
"But Deryn, you don't understand – unnatural passions are looked down on in society."
"Ma, I'm not a sapphist."
"But they say you are, which is just as good –"
"Because I dress in trousers sometimes? Because I have to help out around here because Da's dead? Because I like to fly in rigs and play with beasties and hate to sit around and sew samplers? How does that make me a sapphist? It just makes me a girl who likes those things!" She huffed and crossed her arms. "I don't even see what the problem is with sapphists, anyway."
"I know, Deryn. I always have. But the others don't. They're stuck in yesterday. And right now, you need to stay with them."
"But I can't –" Deryn started. Her mother's brilliant gaze stopped her. Ma was alight, just as bright as she was at that tea years ago.
"Yes, it's hard, Deryn. But until you're on your own, you have to stuff it. I had to keep quiet, years ago, when I was your age. It doesn't get easier."
Deryn shrugged her shoulders. She knew what she had to do.
It was the last day she wore trousers for a year.
-x-
She held a lock of her blonde hair up to the light, and cut it off. It fell quickly, swiftly to the floor. Her hair had gone to her waist now, and was such a bother to pin up. It felt freeing to have so much of it gone, like a parasite rid from her body.
The other cuts came quick and easy. She surveyed herself in the mirror. She had cut Jaspert's hair enough to know how to cut her hair into a boy's coif.
She brushed out any remaining snips of her hair, combed it, and took stock of her new look. Her thin, delicate face looked passable for a boy – a very young one, but one all the same.
She decided, after a year of being cooped up and sitting in skirts, to strike out and join the military. It wouldn't be that hard – she had studied the books, knew how to fly rigs. She was as good as a boy.
Would it last long? Maybe not. But it was the closest she could get to being herself now.
She turned around and reached for the pair of Jaspert's trousers when she heard her doorknob jangle. Deryn's heart froze. Maybe it was just her brother, giving her some extra clothes. They did have a long journey ahead of them.
Ma came in bearing some of Deryn's washed clothes. She stopped and looked over Deryn and the mess of shorn hair on the floor. Deryn swallowed. She knew what was coming.
"What in blazes are you doing, Deryn Sharp?" Ma uttered. A dark look came over her face.
"Joining the military, Ma." It was no use lying to her.
"By what? Dressing as a boy?"
"Is there any other way for me to join?" She reached over for her trousers. Ma put the clothes down and huffed.
"Why, Deryn?"
"Oh, you know ruddy well why! I'm only happy when I'm outside, flying, with the beasties. I can't do that around here. I can't even do it in London, because I'm a girl. I'm so miserable right now, I'd do anything to change it."
"By parading around as a boy in the military?" Ma rubbed her temple. "Deryn, you just can't do that! What if you are discovered? Do you know what a disgrace it would be to our family?"
"Why are you always so worried about our reputation and what's easy?"
"Because a reputation's all you have sometimes," Ma sighed. "Deryn, I know that you aren't happy right now. But you need to keep your head down, at least until you are old enough."
"When will that be, Ma?" Deryn sat on her bed. All of the frustration she felt came rushing in, so painful and sharp.
"You know, it's a lot better now than it was when I was young," Ma noted, sitting next to Deryn. "I had absolutely no hope of getting a job, a life, anything outside of marriage. I was happy to have met your da, fortunate, even. He let me keep my views."
"So what happened to them?" Deryn asked.
"You saw my family. They're mild compared to some of the people back home." Ma rubbed her arms. "I don't want you to get hurt and damaged, Deryn."
"But I don't want to hide what I believe in, Ma."
"So you're going to hide as a boy?"
"No, that's not the same!" Deryn interjected. "I'm trying to do what I think is right. Even if it means dressing like this."
"That's not any better, Deryn."
"Then what is, Ma?" Her voice grew shrill. She felt tears gather in her eyes. Blast.
Ma turned to face her. Her face was drawn, but Deryn could see the fire within her eyes. "Go. But realize that it is not your life that's only on the line, Deryn."
Deryn nodded. She quickly changed and gathered her things. She walked to her bedroom door, then stopped. She gave a quick glance back at her mother. The fire was still there.
And it was in Deryn's eyes when she left for London.