Marked

The girl was never given a name, but her family was Aram and so she came to be known as Arama. She was the granddaughter of the tribe's leader, a severe man, carved out of granite and bearing a beak-like nose. Arama would always remember two moments with him. The first, when she was very young. He was teaching her brother to hunt, and she was there, too. Heart was clutching his machete timidly, fingering the blade and glancing worriedly from Arama to their grandfather. Their grandfather was getting frustrated at Heart, when suddenly he leaned in to whisper conspiratorially into Arama's ear, "I'm going to play a trick on your brother."

There was a twinkle in his eye as he stood back up. Arama would never forget the twinkle. Her grandpa then began to whoop and holler and dove into the brush. Heart's eyes exploded in fear. From the bush a baby gecko burst forth in a panic, straight at Heart. Instinctually he raised the machete that was almost as big as he was and brought it down on the baby gecko's skull, splitting it. He was about to cry when his grandfather followed the gecko out of the bush, and seeing his grandson's handiwork celebrated uproariously. He carried both his grandchildren home on his shoulders, beaming.

Arama's second memory of her grandfather was not so happy.

When she was eight years old Arama was marked. She was isolated from the tribe, for who she was, for who she could be. Her grandfather marked her as the future of the tribe. As a leader, as a teacher. Arama didn't care for it. She didn't like being marked. She didn't like the way it made her different. Different from the girls she grew up with, like Athena. Different from the boys she grew up with, like Heart. She didn't fit in with the boys of the tribe, even though everyone treated her like a boy, and she didn't fit in with the girls of the tribe, even though she was a girl. She was isolated from everyone. She was a freak who didn't fit anywhere. She began to act out.

When most of the tribe was shunning her Dark Mother took her in, cared for her in a way that the rest of the tribe didn't. Dark Mother was herself scorned, in a different way. She was the tribe's herbalist. She had a habit of staring far and away at nothing in particular, and being slow to answer. Arama discovered this mild autism was a result of her constant handling of drugs. Dark Mother was almost always high.

Arama took over almost all the duties of tribe herbalist, leaving Dark Mother tribe herbalist in name only. Upon being 'marked' Arama was given a mask which, when coupled with gloves, proved to be enough to avoid the stupefying effects of the tribal medicine. Dark Mother started to become more alert and aware for not having to handle healing powder all the time.

Being marked meant Arama was unfit for marriage, the fate of every other girl in the tribe when they reached puberty. As she watched her peers all paired up she grew jealous. She didn't want to be married off, obviously. In fact it disgusted her that these girls were being treated like livestock, paired off for breeding. But it didn't matter that she considered it misogynist, the idea that she was not allowed something enraged her. Just another way she had been treated like a pariah, like garbage by 'her' people.

Her revenge was ill-conceived. She seduced husbands away from their young brides, to prove to herself that she was just as worthy of marriage as any of her peers, and to make a mockery of the entire system. As it turned out, all she succeeded in doing was embarrassing herself and making many young brides miserable. Marriage was for life in the tribe, there was no divorce, there were no second marriages, and it was never the man's fault. If a young husband slept with Arama it wasn't his problem, it was his wife's problem, and she was treated with the scorn all wives who did not satisfy their husbands received. Arama grew disgusted with herself and everyone around her.

When she was fifteen she fled the tribe. In a year the Twisted Hairs were betrayed by the Legion, crushed and absorbed.