Moonstar by David Gerrold

child, the innocent one who does not act on life so much as allowing it to act instead on her. She moves through her youth as if through a wondrous forest, not thinking if it has an end, not caring where the path might lead, so entranced is she with all the colors of the flowers. She is content with wonder and with learning, and not in a hurry to become a larger person until she has learned to be the size she is today. By contrast, Rurik’s father was a builder—or so it’s told; she was one who conceives of things that don’t exist and moves in impatience to bring them into fact. She might have felt threatened by the lack of factuality within her child. She must have been impatient for a resolution.
    But Choice is made within the heart, and usually not until the body has learned the tasted of Reethe and Dakka both. It is only after blush that a person truly learns to live at ease within herself, for blush is more than merely tasting options; it is the living of a variety of lives and the discovery of which one of those is actually oneself.
    And therein lay the tension between the chosen and the un. Those who were chosen could only finalize their Choice by living it. To be male, one must be a male to someone else’s female. To be female, one must be a female to someone else’s male. Blush occurs at thirteen years—it can start as late as fifteen; it can last for several summers, or it can end within a season; it is the nature of the person’s experience that shapes her days of blush.
    That younglings should know the ways of sex was not consistent with traditions handed down from before the time of the Savior who brought Choice—but with the Savior had come many changes, and traditions are like creatures of the sea upon a barren plain: they must adapt or die. Some disappeared as if made out of fire-paper; others fought like demons to endure—especially those that had to do with adolescence and maturity.
    Those who were of Choice had to learn of sex to make their Choice. That was the way. Those who were not of Choice looked at their peers and, again, they felt envious and insecure at being different—and again they copied in their envy; they copulated with and like the Chosen ones. And this was frightening to their elders—they did not want to know that their children had become sexual beings; persons who could be attracted sexually and attractive sensually as well. This threatened their own senses of self—especially when the children’s avenues of exploration and expression bore no relation to the parents’.
    A parent hopes to grow a miniature of herself, but one who can stand taller and untroubled; such was very much the case with many parents of the old traditions. Such must have been the case with Rurik’s father. She could not stand the things that she was seeing—Rurik was supposed to be her son, but she was turning more effeminate as she reached toward her blush and Rurik’s father must have seen that as rejection of herself. She could not let that happen; her life demanded affirmation.
    In versions of the story performed by mimes or dancers, there are traditional ways of presenting this moment. Whether there are only two singers or two vast choruses, the “soliloquy of pain” is almost always sung. Concerning Rurik’s father, the first chorus sings:
    Guile is a slower force, a sadder shade of pain.
    The pressure turns and you are caught between the water and the rocks .
    Mother-ocean sifts and boils the sands upon the shore .
    Father-glacier slides and grinds across the crumbling mountain .
    The second chorus responds with:
    But the willful seed is stronger .
    I am washed to new horizons by the waves that batter at me .
    Nestled in a tiny crack, a hidden mote of promise—
    Someday I’ll reach beyond this time .
    Someday I’ll burst the boulder .
    I am nourished, never threatened, by the waters of the world .
    I will be what I