Odo felt completely wrong. He crouched on the shore of the Great Link, his palms digging large welts into the orange sand, willing his shape to stay the way it was supposed to be. If he could only convince his shape to stay the same, then maybe his mind would follow. He was too confused to think, his mind too preoccupied with conflicting images of his friends and, most predominantly, Kira.
He turned back to face the Link and almost lost his balance, his body wanting to turn on a different center of gravity than he was used to. Traitors. How could they do this to him? How dare they muddle his identity as if he were a marionette dangling from strings they held, merely a toy for their amusement? They must take some perverse pleasure in his misery, he reasoned. Either that, or they simply didn't care what he thought of them, only that they got what they wanted.
But inside, Odo knew that wasn't true. The Great Link didn't understand Solids, and they certainly didn't understand how much like the Solids he had become. They lived in a world where gender was assigned completely by chance, where an individual could leave them one day as a female and the next as a male. They had no concept of Solid life, in which each sentient was assigned a gender he or she lived with for the rest of his or her life, assuming no cosmetic alterations. And even then, the genetics were still the same.
Odo looked down at his suddenly foreign body. For the first time in his memory, the thought of his own nature repulsed him. He used to consider humanoid bodies repulsive. He used to think the efforts humanoids had to take to keep their bodies in working condition were unnecessary distractions in one's day. He used to think of his Changeling nature as invulnerable and controlled, with no hint of the disorder he faced daily in his line of work. He'd never expected his molecular structure to be used against him. He'd never expected to leave his people with his entire identity misaligned, with all of his friendships held in question.
He'd come with a clear goal. War was brewing between his chosen family and his people, and Starfleet wanted every edge on the Founders they could possibly get. They wanted intelligence. Of course, if Odo was completely honest with himself, he'd had his own personal reasons for taking this opportunity to return to his home planet, but he'd always intended to return to his friends. Now, his future was not nearly so certain. Did he belong here, with the ones who had such power over him that they could change every atom of his being and knock his world out from under him with a simple wave of the hand? Did he even have a choice?
For the first time in his life as a Changeling, he knew without a shadow of a doubt why humanoids cried.
With a reluctant sigh, Odo struggled to his feet, resting a hand on the nearest boulder for balance when a wave of dizziness washed over him. He stood still for a count of five seconds, willing deep breaths through his facsimile lungs. He looked down at his chest and forced his eyes to stay there, forced himself—herself? —not to cringe. The reality could not be denied any longer. He'd been stripped of the identity he'd so carefully cultivated over the past thirty-some years. There on his chest, where nothing had previously been before, was a pair of feminine breasts.
He—she? —supposed she could be grateful the Founders had altered the fit of her security uniform, as well. Nothing felt tight or constraining. But it still seemed as if everything fit wrong. She supposed Garak would have a thing or two to say about the Founders' tailoring talent, but at the moment, she couldn't care less that she wore a uniform of the same fit as the major's. Once, years ago, she'd undergone the struggle of integrating her Changeling senses with those she'd developed through her humanoid form. Now, she was back to square one.
She took a step forward, over the orange sand, getting used to her realigned balance. She closed her eyes for an instant, concentrating on her individual cells. She made one last stand of defiance, one last attempt at what she'd been trying to do for the past eternity she'd been sitting here on the edge of the Changeling ocean. Enough of this, she told her body. Stay in control! Form the shape that has always come naturally!
No such luck. Odo took a deep breath. How was it that she had spent her entire conscious life taking on different shapes, experimenting with life now as a rock, now as a pillow, now as a volume of Bajoran dirt, ordering her cells to take on every manner of shapes, and now she couldn't even fix her own gender? The humanoid template came as naturally to her as breathing did to humanoids, she had practiced it for so long. And it took no practice at all to assume this new, female form. Why wouldn't her old, male shape come back to her? Why couldn't she remember?
She ran her hand over the nearest rock. Texture. Form. Composition. Unfamiliar silicates. Her Changeling senses were undoubtedly in charge. She closed her eyes and called forth her humanoid senses. Now she could feel the softness, the comforting feel of the dusty coating of the rock. Odo snatched her hand back, startled. What was that? She'd never felt a rock like that before. But it wasn't the rock that had changed, she realized. Her male perception was drifting away, out of her reach, and was being replaced with these new sensations.
What had happened to her? It was a cruel trick. These last few years, since Odo had found her people, she'd wanted nothing more than to get to know them better. She'd wanted to understand her own nature from the beginning, but her knowledge of her origins had given her someplace to begin. Just recently, Starfleet had sent her to find answers. For once, her own secret longings had been in accord with Starfleet, even if the answers they sought were of a different nature. And now, all she had were questions.
She didn't even have the fundamental reflexes that had allowed her to coexist with her friends and colleagues up until now. Every social convention she had ever learned was tailored for male behavior. Every friendship she'd ever formed—every romance, for that matter—was based on her identification as a man.
What would Kira think of her now? Odo could barely stand the thought. The major, despite all odds, had fallen in love with her at last. Odo imagined Kira looking at her now with shock. Then revulsion. Then disgust. Odo could see it in her mind, could see the woman she had loved for as long as she could remember curling her mouth downward in a frown, pressing her lips together so as not to say aloud the dreaded words.
This changes everything, Odo. I can't love you anymore.
Odo sighed again and dropped down onto a seat-height boulder. Her body moved more gracefully than she was used to. Without thinking, her shoulders slumped. Odo lifted her hands to her face, staring at the thin, graceful fingers, willing them to change into the hands she'd always formed every day, the hands that didn't find it strangely pleasing to run their fingers through soft soil. But, as had happened every time she'd tried to change herself back, her body didn't respond. She scrubbed those infernal hands over her face, blocking out the rest of the world, shutting the dim orange-red light of the sun from her vision. This could not be happening. It was…impossible.
No. Not impossible. They'd altered her at the molecular level before. They'd transformed her into a human. All things considered, that was a far more complicated transformation than simply realigning her gender. And, Odo had to admit, far simpler to adjust to.
Kira wouldn't have hesitated like this. Kira would have plowed ahead, determined not to let one single windfall knock her off her feet. Odo closed her eyes and tried to remember the major back when things had still been normal. She could still vividly recall Kira's beaming smile, her steadfast courage, her biting fire…all things that had conspired to make Odo fall in love with her. Yes, she still loved her. More than anything, she loved her. But try as she might, she couldn't seem to work up a romantic attraction to her. Changelings had little use, Odo knew, for gender, besides mating and reproduction. There was no individual love in the Link. There was no reason for a female Changeling to fall in love with another female.
Haze filled Odo's mind. What was Kira, a lover or a friend? Her Changeling mind didn't seem to want to think of Kira as the former. And yet, the side of herself Odo had cultivated from her long life among humanoids demanded that things pick up how they had been before.
She dragged her hands away from her face and sighed.
Perhaps the simplest option was to stay here, in the Great Link. Odo had no doubt her people had done this to cut her connections to the Solid world. They wanted her to stay here, with them, and accept her Changeling heritage. And no doubt they had a solution and were prepared to help her adjust to this new reality.
No. She could not abandon her friends, especially not in this time of war. The Rio Grande was in orbit of the Changeling homeworld right now. Ah, yes. Now she was beginning to remember. What with the war currently unfolding, they'd debated taking the Defiant because of its extra defenses, but they'd ultimately decided that a runabout would be much less provocative. Besides, if Odo were to arrive on her homeworld via runabout, they could preserve the illusion that she was there to return home.
When she'd beamed down from the Rio Grande, her mission had been clear in her mind. She was there to speak to the Link, to learn from her people…no, that wasn't it. Starfleet would never have asked her to learn from them. Starfleet wanted her to learn their secrets. To infiltrate them. But the moment she'd materialized on the surface, she'd been accosted by her. The female Changeling, their spokesperson. She had convinced Odo to join the Link before she was ready. Odo had asked for a moment, for just a few minutes to herself before her return to them—she'd wanted time to plan, to gather her wits before deceiving her people—but the Founder had taken her hand and had drawn her deep into the ocean that was their home.
And Odo had been expelled onto their shoreline, confused and shivering, her mind in a muddle, with no idea of how long she'd spent engaged with her people. It could have been hours. It could have been weeks. But the time didn't matter, not this time. She had failed. Her people must have read her mind through the Link and guessed her intentions. They must have discovered her true motives. And they'd changed her. Again. They'd used her weaknesses, her attachment to the Solids, to their own advantage. Yet again.
Odo pressed her hands against her knees and clenched them into fists. Control, she told herself. Remember…control…
With an effort, she pushed her emotions back into a small corner of her mind. She lifted her head and forced rigidity into her back. Good. She could still sit straight. She pushed to her feet and stood as tall as she could, casting her gaze about the red-orange world. She could remember the first time she'd come to meet her people, Kira at her side, instincts unknown to her driving her closer to her place of origin. She could vividly remember her hurt, her sense of betrayal, that the people she'd sought after for as long as she could remember were in fact the Founders of the Dominion. They had lied to her and excluded her. Instead of attempting to understand her, they had dismissed her as a product of Solid upbringing. Just as they were dismissing her feelings for the Solids now.
Odo let out a final, shuddering sigh. The glance she cast about her homeworld was her last. The caress she gave the nearest boulder, she knew, was her last.
She tapped her combadge with a brisk certainty she didn't feel. "Odo to Rio Grande. One to beam up."