Frol poked at the equations. X, Y, Z and W split apart, but refused to derive into anything sensical. Frol frowned, combined them in different ways on purpose, combined them in different ways at random, and finally wiped the entire mess off the screen with a miserable wave. To hell with calculus.

She leaned back as far as the cheap, student egg-chair would go, which gave her a very nice view of the edge of Tada's head. She snapped the chair forward again and used to momentum to collapse dramatically over her cramped terminal. The lower edge dug into her stomach for all it was smoothed and rounded to perfect, modern style.

"Can't you keep it down over there?" Tada's voice snapped from across the room. "This assignment is due tomorrow and I've still got four chapters to read tonight!"

"Shut up!" Frol surged up, eager for a good, simple argument. "Just scribble down some bullshit about conductors and Van Deeling's Laws! Circuit Engineering's easy !"

Tada gave her a respectable glare for about five seconds before sighing and giving her that irritating confused puppy look she couldn't fight against. "Having trouble again? There have to be some study sessions you can go to for help," he said, only sympathy in his voice. Frol could punch him sometimes.

But you just couldn't work up a good head of anger against someone who refused to push back. Frol flopped back down in her chair and spun around to face Tada properly. "I've been to every study session Prof Tathesas offers. I just don't get how to work these damn things. You know Fourth-dimensional Calc is a required class and if I don't pass the midterm in at least the 90th percentile I might as well drop and kiss piloting goodbye." She pulled up one knee and rested her forehead against it. "If I can't get a piloting license, what do I do then?"

Tada stretched and stared out the window. "Something else?" he offered. "You did well in Material Properties and Warp Physics, didn't you? Those should transfer to a starship engineering degree."

"Guess what also requires passing Fourth-dimensional Calc with at least a 90 percent." She fiddled with the edge of her skirt. Fussy thing. "Tada, I have to pass this class. If I don't I might as well give up and go back home."

"Frol! Don't say that." Tada looked reprovingly at her, then back to the window. "You're not the sort of person to just give up. I know you don't want to go home."

"I don't!" She didn't. She stubbornly reminded herself about her sister's weddings, Cere's complaints about being the newest wife, Lafi's never-ending tiredness after her marriage, her mother's handmade sweets, hiding under Aunt Etis's bed when a storm blew through, playing on the lake with everyone... She shook her head. "I absolutely don't want to ever see that planet again! It's just...it was a lot easier on the White ."

Tada snorted. "Are we remembering the same White?" He considered for a bit. "But I guess I can see why you'd say that. I was wrapped up in my confusion...but you were so much more straight-forward about everything. And now...it's not like that?"

"Your intuition again?"

"Heh. Nope, just observation." He closed his eyes and sat up straight in his chair like a proper professor. "Allow me. You're struggling in your classes and that makes you feel less certain and confused about your chosen path in life, right? With that comes-" Frol's cup hit him dead-on in the forehead.

"Shut up! I don't need your half-baked psychoanalysis! If I wanted to hear garbage like that I'd go talk to Nuum!" She flopped back onto her chair with a huff. Who was Tada to just go around acting like her mind was an open book? Her mind was hers, dammit! No Tadas allowed!

Tada rubbed at his head with the irritated expression that always made Frol feel a little guilty. "Dammit Frol, you promised to get your temper under control if we were going to be roommates. Keep this up and you're paying for rent on your own."

"...sorry." Frol hunched over, kicking her legs. "Maybe I am confused. I thought everything would go smoothly after we got into university, but..." But it was never quite that easy. Most of their fellow test-takers seemed to be doing well enough - Amazon had been full of energy when they last went out to dinner, though Frol couldn't remember if he'd said a word about school between all the bragging about his latest trophies. Toto had found his niche in the Biology department and already professors were fighting over who got him as an assistant. King had some sort of rebellion in the first year of his reign, but before they'd even had time to get worried (or decide if he deserved it) the entire thing had fizzled out without bloodshed. Something about water importation rights out of Alitoska La, Frol hadn't really followed what it was all about. And that just went back to the main problem.

It had all seemed so simple on the White . Pass the test, get into university, become a man, get a degree, go back and lord it over her father. When she'd come down with Dell's Red Spot, then she still had become a woman, marry Tada, live on Shibbelith and never go back. But now...she had gone into university and tried to become a woman and honestly, really, truly honestly... "I'm not good at school or being a woman." There. It was out.

Tada, of course, completely missed the point. "You have to be good at school, you got this far," he protested. "You can't get into the entrance tests without being smarter and more dedicated than 90% of the galaxy. Of course you're good at school, Frol. You're just having trouble with this one class, and everyone knows it's a killer. I know a Segulan in my Linear Algebra class who smashed his head against 4D Calc three times before giving up and going into economics."

"And what about being a woman?"

"If it's not working, give it up." Tada shrugged. "I made the offer when we thought you wouldn't have a choice, I didn't think you'd keep going along with it after we passed."

Frol stared at him.

"What?" Tada looked back in confusion. "There something on my nose?"

Frol counted to ten, very slowly.

Then...

"You imbecile!" Frol exploded. "All this time I've been struggling with skirts and make-up and being a lady and you don't even care? Fight like a man, dammit! Do you want to marry me or don't you?"

"Er, um, well..."

Someone banged on the wall hard enough the window shorted out, blinking and flickering to a blank wall. "Keep it down in there!" the Invidian next to them bawled. " Some of us gotta study tonight!"

"Sorry!" the pair chorused back. Another couple bangs and the Invidian stopped, their angry grumbling still faintly audible through the light plastikine walls.

They avoided looking at each other after that. Eventually Frol got up and fiddled with the window again, just for something to do. The image turned between a romantic Altissian beach sunset, a harsh Bagpettine storm, a wet and misty Terran forest, until it finally clicked into a relaxing lake like the one near Frol's home. She- he- she, dammit, Frol didn't give up that easily, left it there, almost enjoying the cold lump of nostalgia in her chest.

There was some shuffling from Tada's desk. Pretty soon his voice floated up, hesitant. "I mean, it's not that I don't like you, Frol. If nothing else, we're friends, right? Friends from the White ."

Frol drew aimless patterns on the windowglass. It really did look exactly like Vene. Tada kept going. "And that's why. I don't want to make you unhappy. If that's being a woman and marrying me, or being a woman and staying single, or marrying someone else, or becoming a man...I'm behind you 100%." There was another pause. "Sorry I didn't notice earlier. I would've explained."

"You can't be a woman and stay single," Frol said, distantly. "Not if you don't want to be a priestess, and they're boring." Dressing in long plain robes and chanting and reminding everyone that death came for all and the material world was vanity was not Frol's idea of a good time. Sure, everyone died eventually, but Frol planned to have as much fun as possible first.

"Maybe not on your planet, but there's lots of worlds in the galaxy. My planet's parliamentary rep is a single woman." There was more shuffling, then Tada spoke up again. "What about men? Can they be single?"

"Of course not!" Sick of looking at the lake, Frol spun around. Tada was still sitting at his desk, chin in one hand and the other tapping at his knee. "Men always have to get married, it's the law. A single man will cause the destruction of his line by fire and flood and storm within the generation." Tada raised an eyebrow at this and Frol frowned. "Well, that's what the legends say. Nowadays they just get fined and forced to marry whoever the state picks. I've heard some rich families have tried to do switcharoos, send their eldest off to the priestesses and pretend the second child was the first all along, but it's never proven. It would be a huge scandal if it was true."

Tada looked surprised and a bit stricken. "That's not a lot of options for anyone, is it? Geez."

"Don't give me that 'you're all a bunch of backward savages' look," Frol warned. "I've had quite enough of that since I got here."

"Heheh. I'll try." The look dropped off his face, thankfully. Tada was good for that, at least. It was replaced by a considering look. "Well, none of that really applies to you, does it? You were always planning on leaving. So you can do whatever you want."

"But I don't know what I want." Frol slumped back against the wall. "Besides being a starship pilot, and that's not working out."

"It'll be fine," Tada said with his endless confidence. "You can do it. Stop worrying about being a man or a woman and just be Frol; then you can concentrate on studying better. If you don't pick, you'll turn into a man or a woman naturally, right?"

"Right." Frol picked at her skirt again. "I've got a few years before the change anyway." She'd only thought it would fall into place once they got into university. More confusion had not been on the planning sheet.

'Just be Frol' was such a Tada thing to say, anyway. She'd spent so long trying to be the best man possible, then the best woman, and failing at both. What the hell was 'being Frol'?

"Don't worry about it," Tada broke in, then waved his hands for peace when Frol glared. "That wasn't intuition either! You just looked worried. Most planets are a lot more relaxed about how genders can act than yours. Only ones I can think of are Alepeauan and Shamva, but they're strict on everything."

"I've heard of Shamva. Aren't they the one with 50 different ways of saying 'hello' and using the wrong one can spark an interplanetary incident?" There had been an Shamvan in Technical Writing; Frol had never seen anyone speak to her for fear of causing offense.

Tada laughed. "That's an exaggeration, but not by much." He gave her a friendly, reassuring look. "Either way, if 'skirts and make-up and being a lady' is a struggle, give it up. Be like Professor Yulessian - she wears overalls and cusses more than you do, and she's one of the most respected biologists in the galaxy. Stop studying to be a woman and focus on studying to be a pilot. The rest will come naturally."

Frol sighed. He kept harping on that...and hell, maybe he had a point. At least about setting it aside until 4D Calc was over with.

Gender wasn't something to just be 'set aside'.

It would be nice to stop having to worry about watching their language and keeping the skirt below their knees.

Aunt Ytor would kill her. Him. Them. Whatever.

But Aunt Ytor would do that anyway. She had probably already picked out the knife and the best way to keep Frol from hiding behind Aunt Etis and Lafi. Had probably done it as soon as she'd seen the note.

What a headache.

...which probably meant Tada was right and it was time to stop thinking about it.

Her mother probably did want an update, though. She'd made several pointed comments about keeping in touch when Frol had told her about getting into University, a telecall wouldn't go amiss.

Tomorrow. Tonight was for Calc homework and when that was done, lots of drinking.

Frol rubbed at their forehead and sat down in the chair again. "I'll try it," they mumbled, and 'they' still didn't feel quite right, but nothing else fit either.

Tada kicked back, looking satisfied. Frol stared at the X, Y, Z, and W again. "...and I'm going to call that Lotan, whatshisface, and see if they've figured this damn shit out yet."

"That's the spirit!" Tada sounded like he was settling back in too. "Make sure you do well, I'm probably going to need your help when I get to it."

"You damn freeloader! I'm going to make you do it all yourself!"