To escape your assigned gender and magic poisoned kingdom is quite easy.

Keith is a trans guy.

Keith had exchanged his dress for leggings and a old smock, the exchange being rather awkward as that was the only item of clothing Keith had owned.

He had chosen the name Keith after a character in a book his mother used to read, of a Knight in a far kingdom called Olkarion. He had traded the old name with the Fae who lived with her lover, for the sound of the name Keith drawing his ears and two gold coins.

The coins were a gift, and Keith knew better then deny a gift from the olden Fae.

When his neighbors called out to him in his old name, he did not hear. When he tried to say his old name, it fell down his throat like lead and burned like ice. He had no need for a name that his dead mother gave him.

He had no need to stay in the Galra Kingdom.

He had only but an iron dagger to his name, and a plague-speared land with a burnt cottage.

Perhaps Taujeer would do for now.

Traveling alone through forests with Fae and thieves was never a good idea, but Keith had no choice.

Two coins was not enough to hire a guide, nor buy a horse or cart. So he bought several loafs of bread and hoped for the best.

It was midsummer, so the nights were warm. Keith knew better then to light a fire and sleep on the ground, for one will freeze without a blanket from the ground. So he climbed a tree and fell asleep with the stars overhead, smiling to himself.

Keith had found a blueberry bush the night before, and his morning meal was mashed blueberries smeared over a chunk of bread.

He could feel the eyes of the rogue fae that had followed him since he stepped into the forest, and as he left he set a chunk of his own bread on the ground, protected from the dirt from a oak leaf. He had only caught sight of it once, a small owl with eyes too intense to be of Earth.

He kept his knife close by his left side as he trailed onward, the burrs of grass sticking into his bare feet and making him wince.

don't ever trust the fae, Keith. And perhaps trading those coins was a mistake.