Summary:
"It's not lady like to wield an ax like that."
The words never bothered Presea until after her emotions came flooding back. And she didn't know how to deal with it and help save the world, so she pushed those feelings she couldn't understand down. But now that everything is said and done...
What does being a girl even mean, anyway?
Notes: This is a story I've wanted to write for a while. Goes with my demisexual Zelos and aroace Colette stories, but also works as a stand alone.
I'm probably going to write follow-ups to this later. But for now this is just Presea dealing with life and figuring out she's not really a girl while experiencing some minor dysphoria, feeling the desire to confuse people about her gender, and worrying about whether this is all a result of her trauma. Presea will continue to use she/her pronouns throughout the story but that does not make her any less nonbinary. She might choose new pronouns down the line, but that would be in a different story.
Somewhere in the Middle (Or Nowhere At All)
Their family needs the money.
That's why Alicia went so far away to work for the Bryant family as a maid. It's why Presea was learning to use an ax.
It's why, when Sieg grows ill, Presea makes the deal with the man from the Church.
"We'll make you strong," they promise. Presea needs that strength for her family.
What they don't tell her is that her mind will go fuzzy and she won't feel anything anymore.
Not fear, not pain, not loss.
When Seig stops getting out of bed, Presea doesn't understand why. When Alicia's letters from Altamira stop, Presea does not realize that so much time has passed since the last one arrived.
All Presea knows is that she must do as the Church tells her because their family needs the money.
It's like a veil is ripped off her eyes and face and suddenly she can see again, breathe again, feel again.
She runs for her father because when was the last time he'd stood up, called her his precious daughter... but when she sees what has become of him...
She screams.
She can't stop screaming.
Everything is more intense than she remembered.
Physical pain terrifies her the first time she feels it, but Presea perseveres anyway. Doesn't tell anyone how intense everything is now. Not the cuts and bruises nor the soft, reassuring touches, the hugs that make her want to cry it feels so good. She's so touch starved that she craves their kindness and fears it all at the same time.
It's not just physical pain that causes her such anguish either. The loss of her sister, of course. Her desires to hate Regal and thank him for what happened with Alicia squirming around inside of her until she can't tell what was murder or mercy. But... that's not what really bothers her.
"It's not lady like to wield an ax like that."
"That little girl is so mannish, what must her parents be thinking."
"Such an unflattering outfit; if she were my child I'd make sure everyone knew she was a girl, not some longhaired boy in a dress."
It got worse. Of course it got worse.
Humans could be more terrible than monsters in their own way, after all.
Presea had heard it all before. While she sleep walked through life, that is. When cruel words couldn't touch her.
(She almost misses that feeling, the ability not to care.)
She's been a child for sixteen years, not aging in a world that's left her behind.
"Is that a boy or a girl?" someone says as they walk down the streets of Palmacosta.
Zelos has to restrain Lloyd from flying off the handle on Presea's behalf.
It hurts so much, but her friends care and that's a balm to her soul. "Does it matter?" Presea asked quietly. "I'm none of your business. It would have cost you nothing to stay quiet, but now everyone knows you're rude."
Genis congratulates Presea on a well spoken burn while the nosy adult flushes and insults Presea again before stalking off in an unseemly sulk.
Yet... the question sticks with Presea later.
Was she a boy or a girl? The obvious answer was a girl. She used she/her pronouns and wore dresses and would likely soon be start bleeding with the Goddess. As far as Presea was aware, all these things made her a girl.
So... why did the word girl sit so heavily?
Why did being a girl feel wrong?
When Presea's period starts, she sits on the toilet and stares at her blood smeared underwear for the longest time.
Eventually she calls for Raine and asks for new underwear and something to staunch the blood flow.
Raine teaches Presea what she needs to know about bleeding with the Goddess and Presea feels disconnected from her body for the first time since she woke up from her sixteen-year-long daze.
"It's strange at first for every girl," Raine tells her. "You'll get used to it."
Presea does not get used to it. And every month she feels a little dissociative, in a body that is not really hers, until the week of bleeding ends.
The world is restored and someone (Sheena) notes that Presea needs new clothes.
Presea has gotten taller for the first time in sixteen years. She wants to go back to Ozette and purchase another sturdy dress like the ones she already has, but that's too far away and she's already decided to go back to Altamira with Regal anyway.
(He's offered to formally adopt her into the Bryant family. They haven't decided what that will entail yet, but Presea is surprised to realize she wants it. She wants family. She wants Regal to be her family.)
Instead they go to Luin. It's closer to the remains of the Sylvarant Tower of Salvation and there's definitely clothes to be found in all sizes now that the city's been rebuilt better than it was before.
Sheena and Colette and Raine go shopping with Presea. They pick out dresses for her that won't be too short, that are cute, that often don't have pockets (why would anyone do that?) and each one feels more wrong than the last.
Presea looks in the mirror while wearing those clothes and sees a little girl and that's... not her.
She isn't a little girl. Presea hasn't been a little girl for a very long time.
Maybe she was never a little girl at all.
Presea chooses pants and blouses and, reluctantly, a skirt.
What she sees in the mirror, wearing clothes that are less obviously girly, is a person. Not a girl, not a boy, just Presea.
It's a start, she thinks. But a start of what, she doesn't know.
It's going to take a while before Regal's home feels like her home. But Presea is confident about getting there.
They enjoy the first week together, Regal taking the first steps to regain control of his family's company while Presea offers herself as a source of support. She's proud of him. She hopes he knows this.
Conveying emotion is difficult, but she smiles at him when he looks worried and the tension in him drains away.
They visit Alicia's grave together. The garden is beautiful and Presea wonders if Alicia liked it here, before the last remnants of her trapped in the exsphere were finally laid to rest.
Presea wishes she still had Alicia's letters, but the paper had rotted away, the pages indecipherable when she'd looked for them months earlier. She doesn't remember any of what Alicia wrote to her about. She only remembers the way Alicia closed her letters.
With all my love to my dearest father and sister,
Alicia Combatir
Presea loved the way Alicia called her sister. But she's not sure she could stand hearing Regal call her that. She doesn't understand why, when she wants to call him brother.
The second week in Altamira, they discuss their options for adopting her into the Bryant family.
The most straightforward would be if he adopted her as his daughter. Neither of them like this option, though its the one with the least amount of legal hoops.
"I do realize that you are closer to my age than your appearance would indicate," Regal told her. He hadn't asked her exact age yet, but they were both well aware of Alicia's age when she died and that Presea was the elder of the siblings.
"It would feel awkward," Presea agreed. "I'm twenty-eight years old. Or is it twenty-nine?" She frowned. "I think I've lost track of when my birthday is," she admitted.
"There are other forms of adoption we can pursue. Sibling adoption seems the most appropriate."
Cautiously, Presea tells him, "I would like very much to call you my brother. But I don't know that I'd be comfortable being called 'sister'."
Regal nods, accepting this without question. Perhaps he assumes its because of her feelings of loss regarding Alicia. She doubts he would guess its because she feels uncomfortable being thought of as a girl.
"What would you like me to call you?" he asks.
"Your sibling," Presea responds, smiling when he does, each of them relieved and pleased.
Cleaned up as she is, no one is confused as to whether or not she's a girl anymore. No one... except Presea herself.
There are ladies who still believe she should dress more lady like. But Presea Combatir... now Presea Bryant, dresses how she wants. Pants, shirts, leaning more towards masculine cuts. She almost misses the confusion her appearance caused when she was always dirty from hard travel and now seeks to rekindle that confusion in other ways.
As she gets older, she eschews makeup and maintains her proficiency with an ax, her hands covered in callouses that make women look at her oddly and comment on ways she could soften the markers of her favored trade.
She wears hats fit for men and Regal compliments her on her appearance. When he calls her lovely and she flinches, he says, "something about my words just now made you uncomfortable. What did I say, so that I won't say it again."
"I... I don't like being called lovely," she told him. "It's a term for describing feminine beauty. But I... do not feel like a girl."
Regal nodded thoughtfully. "What do you feel like?" he asks and she's grateful he doesn't just assume she feels like a boy.
"I don't know. I'm not sure I feel like anything."
"Very well. Do you prefer more masculine terms, such as handsome? I admit, I cannot think of any neutral terminology to use in this case."
"I think masculine terms would be fine, but... I don't feel any more masculine than I do feminine. Everyone just... assumes, and I want to balance that out somehow."
"I can't say I really understand, but I want you to feel comfortable. You are my sibling," he reassures her. "I will endeavor to remember your preferences."
Presea's breasts begin to grow as her body comes closer to the age of fourteen.
She doesn't like them much; they get in the way. Worse, she finds she can no longer stand to wear some of her blouses without binding her breasts flat first, which is uncomfortable and makes breathing more difficult. Her discomfort with her breasts changes from day to day. Some days it doesn't matter what shirt she wears, she needs her chest to look flat. Other days, a bulky shirt is good enough. Occasionally she can wear whatever she wants and be just fine.
It's maddening and Presea wishes her feelings on the matter would be more consistent.
When a torn shirt reveals the bandages binding her flat one day, Regal discretely contacts a seamstress to help make Presea binders that will be more safe for her to use.
The first time Presea buttons up the binder and her chest goes nearly perfectly flat, she almost cries in relief that it doesn't hurt the way the bandages did sometimes. She puts on the rest of her clothes, seeks out Regal, and hugs him tightly.
Presea does, eventually, return to Ozette. She wishes to pay tribute to her father's grave and she ignores the strange looks she receives as the locals try to figure out who she is.
A few recognize her as Presea. Some wonder who the lovely young woman visiting the town is; others ask who the handsome young man is.
She finds she enjoys their confusion. After all, she doesn't know what her gender is and if she doesn't know then why should they?
Presea brings flowers to Seig Combatir's grave and, in a quiet, halting voice, she tells him about life as Presea Bryant.
"I don't know why I feel this way, but I'm grateful Regal loves me as I am. He's always kind to me and I wish that Alicia could have married him as she'd wished. He would have been a good husband to her, as he has been a good brother to me. I hope that my not being a girl wouldn't have come as a disappointment to you, daddy. I worry, sometimes, that I'm this way because my time under the sway of the Cruxis Crystal broke something within me I'll never get back."
Most of the time she's happy as she is - whatever that may be. Other times she feels broken, uncomfortable in a world that doesn't have words for what she is.
Today, sitting by her father's grave marker, Presea isn't sure how she feels at all.
Perhaps the best word is... hopeful.
"Daddy... would you love me if I wasn't a girl?"
"I would be proud to be your father, Presea-flower, even if you were a boy."
"What if I wasn't a boy either? What if I was just... Presea?"
"You would still be my darling child; I would love you no matter what."
Notes: That last part could be a dream or a memory or both. It's up to the reader to decide.
Happy Pride Month everyone.