Dr. Emerson continued observing us after dinner, while some people came to clean the small pool in the other room and remove the body. Once the cleaners were finally finished she left with them, taking the cart and the now empty buckets that had held our dinner with her. Even though she seemed nice it was a relief when they were all gone and the lights in the room went out for the night.

With her watching us we couldn’t really talk about anything serious since we had to stay focused on the act. About the only thing that we could do was give Kieshala our names mentally and attempt to grasp her impromptu lesson on the porpoise language. We had about a million questions that we wanted to ask Kieshala though and, now that we were alone, we returned to the water where she promised to teach us about the Naethari and answer any questions that she could.

The first thing that she addressed though was one of the elephants in the room. She had seen our wary glances toward her as the body of the male Naethari was unceremoniously removed so that the solitary smaller pool in the other room could be cleaned. We all had very good eyes and it was not a pretty sight.

We could even see well with the lights in the room off as she told us with a carefully neutral expression, ~ I was defending myself. I tried to speak with him at first, as I did with you upon waking, but he was savage and wished only to mate with me. Even had I allowed it, it would not have produced a child under any circumstances. I did not wish for my first time to be like that. Naethari bond for life and more than the simple act of physical coupling is required to forge the bond between true mates. ~

She had tried to keep any emotion out of her face and words but Kara saw right through it. ~ I can’t imagine how much you’ve been through before we got here. You… had a mate at home, didn’t you? ~

~ No, not yet, but there was someone that I was hoping… ~ Kieshala replied sadly, seemingly unable to finish the thought before taking a moment to steel herself. ~ He was a childhood friend and I had hoped that we would bond but we had a fight over something that seems so silly now. I wanted some space so I used my aetral to get some. I am a Spellweaver and I had found a place where the veil between worlds was thin, where our world touched upon another. I created an opening and passed through to have some privacy to get my thoughts in order. I fell asleep on a beach and when I awoke the humans were attempting to cage me. ~

I felt bad for her but we needed questions answered and she had just brought up another one so I asked, ~ Spellweaver? Does that mean that you can use magic? If so, why haven’t you already escaped? ~

She shook her head and took a moment to think before answering. ~ We can all use magic, just in different ways, ways that reflect who we are inside. You are a Soulsinger, when you sing you can entrance the hearts and minds of other living creatures, so long as your will is strong and your intent clear. Jenny is a Healer; I should think that self-explanatory. And from the weave of magic within her, I believe that Kara is an Empath; all Naethari can use our natural senses to detect particularly strong emotions but Empaths go far beyond that, they can see the emotions of a living being and project their own when necessary. As a Spellweaver, I can gather the ambient mana around me to do anything that I can properly imagine, but for that, I need mana to gather. ~

~ There’s no mana here? ~ Kara asked in concern.

~No, at least not in this location. ~ Kieshala replied solemnly. ~ Mana is created by the primal magic of a world, which is tied to nature. The influence of the Lantir is keenly felt in this world. The humans here care not for nature; they poison the water, the land, and the very air that they breathe. They take every resource that they can and they give nothing in return. This world is dying and they care not that they are the ones killing it. I would expect that only the most remote areas on this world produce any mana now, and even those would be weakening due to the slow death this world is suffering. It is likely why, despite having a spark of magic before being changed into one of my kind, you never realized that magic existed. ~

~ Do we need to gather mana to use our aetral? ~ Jenny asked timidly. ~ I used mine without realizing I could do it and it sounds like Jon could probably do the mind-control thing to get us out of here. ~

~ No child, my aetral is what allows me to do that but the aetral themselves are powered by the weave of magic within us and the food that we eat. It will take many moon cycles, perhaps entire rotations, before any of you are ready to control your new gifts consciously at that level. Born Naethari come into their aetral after their first metamorphosis and have most of their childhood to develop them. You will all need training, and using your aetral so much will be physically draining, ~ the sunset-hued Naethari explained.

~ Well, I guess that we’re sticking with plan A then, ~ I said with a bubbling sigh. I had gotten my hopes up for a moment. There was another burning question that I needed an answer to though, so I tried to ignore the furious beating of my heart and the flaring of my gills as I asked, ~ Why… did I become a female Naethari? ~

For a moment Kieshala looked at me in confusion before asking, ~ Were you not female before? ~

~ No, I was born… male. ~ I blushed and couldn’t face Kieshala as I spoke and had trouble getting the word out. Why did saying that cause me such pain? What was wrong with me that this body felt so right? Even the fins and tail were starting to lose some of the weirdness I had felt when I first awoke and looking at my hair or my feminine body still brought those little surges of happiness that I couldn’t comprehend.

When I was finally able to make myself look at her, Kieshala looked horror-stricken. Of course, she was. I was some guy pretending to be a girl and one of her people, how could she not be? So I was somewhat surprised when she awkwardly put her manacled arms around me in the closest thing to a hug that she could provide. ~ Oh, you poor girl, having to live your life in a body that did not match your soul, it must have been torture. ~

The way that she called me a girl, the easy acceptance that it was who I was regardless of what I had been born as had my heart racing and my brain running around in circles. Was I a girl? Did I deserve to be called that? Why did it feel so damn good when I was? What was this whole thing about my soul?

I was sobbing now and I wasn’t even sure where the heart-wrenching feeling of grief that was causing it came from. As Jenny and Kara joined in the hug, Kieshala said, ~ I am sorry, but my exposure to humans before coming here was somewhat limited. Naethari are not born male or female as you humans are; we are born genderless. We do not develop gender-specific traits until our second metamorphosis. Like our aetral, our adult bodies are reflections of our souls. Your body is female because your soul is, and that is how you will be most comfortable. Every aspect of your new appearance reflects a part of you; your true gender, favorite colors, and your ideal appearance. ~

I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t stop sobbing in their arms, but in a way, it felt good. I felt free for the first time in my life. I was a girl, and I was being accepted for that, and that validation made everything that was Jon crumble like a poorly built house of cards. It explained my self-hatred and depression, and my jealousy of Maddie despite how close we were. Now I knew why I had felt so wrong all of my life and why I couldn’t engage in anything, it was all being filtered through the mask of Jon, the expectation that because I had been born male I must be male. Now I knew what ‘right’ felt like.

I was almost cried out by the time I finally managed to process things and accept that I wasn’t really Jon, I never had been. That brought up an interesting question though; if I wasn’t Jon, then who was I? ~ I need a new name, ~ I said, almost afraid that the others would refuse the idea, even as supportive as they were being.

~ Had you and Kara been born Naethari you would have both chosen your adult names by now, ~ Kieshala told us gently. ~ Naethari leave our childhood names behind during our second metamorphosis, choosing something that we feel suits the person that we have become or are in the process of becoming. ~

~I kind of already did something like that. My birth name was Caroline, but I never really felt like a ‘Caroline’ so last year… rotation I asked everyone to start calling me Kara instead. It felt more ‘me’, ~ Kara said.

~ Good, I will continue to call you that then, ~ Kieshala said with a nod of approval as she broke the hug and turned her golden gaze upon me. ~ We do need a name for our Soulsinger though. ~

~ I… don’t know, ~ I replied nervously. I couldn’t just choose a new name at the drop of a hat and I couldn't really think of anything that would suit the new me, whoever she was.

~ If I might make a suggestion, how about ‘Naiya’? ~ Kieshala asked before explaining further. ~ It is a type of songbird that lives on the islands near my home. Your coloring reminds me of them, they are quite striking and have a beautiful song. ~

I barely heard her explanation because the moment that she said the name it was like I was hit by a lightning bolt. It was pretty and exotic and it felt so right. It felt so much more ‘me’ than the names Jonathon or Jon ever had in all my years of living as a human. I found myself nodding eagerly, too breathless to speak physically and my thoughts too focused on the rightness of that name to spare the processing power to say anything mentally.

Kieshala smiled and nodded in return. ~ Very well then, it is a pleasure to meet you, Naiya Soulsinger. ~

I was vaguely aware of Jenny and Kara repeating her words and each instance brought a euphoria that threatened to make my heart burst from sheer joy. Sure, we had all spoken to one another before but now it felt like they were actually talking to me. I was Naiya, I was a girl, and for the first time in my life, I felt truly happy. Happiness without self-doubt, self-loathing, or negative emotions that I couldn’t figure out threatening to overwhelm it.

I was still trying to come off the cloud that I was riding as Kieshala gave the three of us a primer on the Naethari people. Some of it was stuff that she had referred to in passing earlier but she felt it important that she tell us what important details she could think of. Since she seemed serious, I tried to calm myself down and listen.

The Naethari live on a world that they call Totha and were created in ancient times by the Natrir and bound to the primal magic of the sea. The Natrir is apparently a triple deity of the sea. They have a male aspect, a female aspect, and a third androgynous aspect that is neither male nor female and yet both. There was a second species called the Lantir, who were created similarly by other gods and bound to the land as the Naethari were to the sea.

The Lantir were clever and industrious and in time they built a great city that they called Atlantis. They were never happy with what they had though. They always wanted more. More resources than they needed, more food than they could eat, and always more power. They abused their power, abused the island they lived upon, and lost sight of those who created them and why. They became arrogant, turned their backs on the gods that created them, and eventually thought themselves greater than those gods.

And so the gods punished the Lantir. They were stripped of their power, made mortal, and their island nation was taken by the sea. Those few who survived to tell the tale were banished from Totha and sent to another world. Apparently, they were sent to Earth. From what Kieshala was able to tell us, there was intermittent contact between our worlds throughout history as Naethari explored and some seafaring humans lived on some of the islands near her home after befriending her ancestors. They had been there for hundreds of years now but still lived a simple life from what their islands and the sea provided them.

After the history, our teacher briefly touched on some social points. Mostly just a few of the social dos and don’ts, like only hissing and baring your fangs if you were ready to back it up with a formal challenge. At least these were never to the death and usually settled matters. Another interesting point was that Naethari don’t have family names. They usually use their aetral as a sort of title and the name of the clan that they were born into. Kieshala said that for us that would be the Moonreef clan, so I would be introduced as Naiya Soulsinger of Clan Moonreef.

Next, she went into Naethari biology. Naethari are born completely sexless, having no sexual organs and appearing androgynous until their second metamorphosis. That explained Jenny’s appearance and Kara and her sibling were both a bit weirded out about the whole thing. Children are encouraged to explore and find themselves from an early age. Somewhere around one and a half to three rotations (years) old they experience the first metamorphosis.

The first metamorphosis is when they start developing language skills and their brains start to physically adapt to telepathic communication. They get a high fever for a week or two and once they’re over it, their instincts take over and it’s damn near impossible to get them to shut up because they want to learn about everything. It is usually after the first metamorphosis that they start to discover their magical gifts as well.

The second metamorphosis is basically what the Naethari call puberty. It takes just as long and happens around the same age range as with humans. Children will start developing into their adult forms as their outer body changes and their sexual organs start to form and then grow.

The sex organs are hidden within slits between the scales at the groin that will only open during times of heightened desire. Apparently, there is no other reason for those slits to open because Naethari don’t have to go to the bathroom and females don’t get periods. That was another good thing about our transformations, I guess. To be honest, I would have felt weird about swimming in the same water that I had done any of that in.

As I discovered, the second metamorphosis is always gender-affirming and Naethari develop the type of bodies that they will be most comfortable with. It’s when they start to discover who they are and choose the name they will take into adulthood. It is also at the end of this time when Naethari stop physically aging. Kieshala was over thirty rotations old and she claimed that we could live for millennia so long as something doesn’t violently kill us. She warned us though that the ocean is a dangerous place.

During the second metamorphosis, males become more muscular and masculine in appearance. Their hair color and most of their scales remain dark and their jutak (large brightly colored dorsal sails) grow from their spines from between their shoulder blades to their tailbones. Their eye and fin color will change to match the jutak and some of their scales as well, forming eye-catching patterns in their otherwise dark tails. Their twin tailfins grow slightly but remain plain and utilitarian in appearance.

Females will become softer, more feminine-looking, and shapely, and they start growing breasts much as human women do during puberty. They also start growing their shalkai (the quartet of large ruffled fins growing from their hips) and their scales, hair, eyes, and fins become brightly colored. Their tailfins also change; they become larger than a male’s, a third grows to create the clover shape, and they take on a more ruffled appearance.

Some Naethari going through their second metamorphosis will remain androgynous in appearance and develop hermaphroditic sexual organs. In these cases, their coloring and fin development can vary depending on their personalities and personal gender expression. These Naethari are called toma.

Naethari mate for life and although they develop all of the sexual characteristics of their preferred gender during the second metamorphosis, they are effectively infertile until they have bonded with their chosen mate. This bonding is called the third metamorphosis and it is when their reproductive systems adapt to their chosen mate. After that, the bonded pair will become fertile but only genetically compatible with one another.

Within days of the bonding, the couple will feel their first kima’tah (mating heat). For five to seven days they will feel a warmth inside them, increased sexual desire, and develop a faint rash on their bellies. Whether or not they attempt or succeed in mating, once the kima’tah has passed couples will need to wait for roughly five rotations for their next opportunity. They could still make love but there would be no chance of producing offspring until their next kima’tah.

Following the third metamorphosis, the bonded pair’s bodies will change slightly to reflect their bond. The patches of scales on their forearms that conceal the pouch that their vuhac are concealed within will change to reflect the color of their mate’s scales. The vuhac are apparently sharp spines with webbing between them and toxic barbs at the tips which are hidden in our forearms and are useful as an extra set of fins or for defense. Well, that explained the metal bracers and the sensation of being confined.

By that time the three of us who were once human were beginning to feel sleepy. It had been a long and eventful day and it looked like the next day was going to be stressful with Pierce coming to act like he owned us. The worst part was that we all knew that we were going to have to play the part if we wanted to survive and get through this. Despite that, I had a smile on my face after I said my goodnights and everyone had responded with, ~ Good night, Naiya. ~

“That’s me,” I thought to myself giddily as I started to doze off, snuggling up with Kara and Jenny for mutual comfort.