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Tobia was born confused. At least…he felt different. As a colt, he had often hid behind his mother’s legs, shy and unobtrusive, watching the herd mill around him and jealous of their apparent ease, their apparent comfort in their own skin. He was jealous, because even as a colt, he could feel something drum beneath his skin, something itching to come out.
Tobia tamped down his fear. As he grew older, he had learned to be a mimic, a seamless liar among friends as he feigned all the proper reactions that were expected of him as a stallion, to puff his chest out and hold his head high, to leer at mares and keep himself unkempt and unruly. He had known, maybe always known, that he held no interest in mares, but he grinned at them, fluttered around them like the lovesick stallion everyone thought him to be.
He was a young adult by the time he met his first pair of lovemates, a smitten set of stallions who looked oh-so happy and Tobia’s world shattered. He wasn’t alone. Burgeoned by this idea, that his attraction wasn’t a perversity, that he wasn’t alone in his difference, he took small steps. He started by brushing his tail, keeping the once unruly cluster of fur into a beautiful sleek point of pride. His mane came next, the short cropped mane grew long, brushing against the ground and littered with careful, small braids and tucked with delicate chains of daisies. By the time he let his eyelashes grow long and lush, thickened with black paint, Tobia had thought that maybe, maybe he was never meant to be a he after all.
Tobia grew, stretching herself into her new skin and with age, her confidence grew. Careful wreathes of flowers and jewels were draped over herself, carefully wrapped around her legs and chest to give the illusion of smallness. The tingle of silver bangles on her anklets rang like music with her every step, and in her freedom, she learned to love to dance. Sometimes, her old habits returned to her, causing her to duck her head in the face of new herds and new strangers. She was broader and larger than most stallions, her face hard and angular where most mares were soft, gentle, and rounded. No amount of paint could hide the hard angles of her jaw or the thick, stocky built of her shoulders. She learned to stare onward, learned to straighten her back and dare them to say something in return.
But…
Still, she could feel the drum of something under her skin, could feel the itch coming out that while she was happier than she had ever been before, there was something still missing.
Tobia thought for a while, staring at her reflection in the calm waters of the lake. She took her carefully brushed mane that reached the grass, littered with its gems. She took in the silks she wrapped around her shoulders, shimmering with threads of silver, and the platinum bracelets wrapped around her ankles. Tobia looked and still did not see who she was.
Tobia cut off their hair the next day, turning the once gloriously long mane into a messy, uneven chop—not unsimilar to the cut they had as a foal. Beads and flowers were shaken out, and the braids that were once meticulously tied off with blue silk ribbons were haphazardly bunched together. The next day, they shimmied out of their silks and reveled at the feeling of their broad shoulders meeting the naked eyes of the sun. The next day, after lining their eyes and leaving their lashes still thick and full, they left off the rest of their paint and felt a little more at home.
Sometimes, Tobia would painstaking brush out their tail and other times, they would let the fur tangle in the leaves and the mud. Sometimes they would slide the silver bangles back onto their legs and sometimes they would dance in silence. Sometimes flowers and precious gems made their way into their mane, and sometimes Tobia would take a knife and chop it even shorter. Sometimes Tobia would throw a rough leather saddle on their back, well-traveled and worn, and sometimes, they would drag out their blue silks and silver bells. Sometimes one way, sometimes another—Tobia found the choices equally beautiful.
They may have once been a stallion, once been a mare, but now they are something in-between. He, she—it doesn’t matter in the end. Tobia is someone worth being and they will never,ever apologize for that.
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