Ironically, sexuality was probably the easiest thing about my identity to figure out. Síorghlas was always bringing home some buck or colt or tercel since he was 13. Mom had her stories about Gretta, Dad still has the pendant he got from Caorthann in his youth, so the message was clear; as long as I love them, then gender and species didn’t matter to my family. So imagine my surprise to learn there were others who it did matter to. It was a rough awakening in the form of a black eye in the cafeteria for telling a colt I thought he was cute.
That was around the end of year 7. Probably goes without saying I wasn’t nearly so daring for a long time. It also probably goes without saying that word got around the school that the half breed was weird in other ways too. Equestria claimed to be the land of friendship and harmony and all that nonsense that it never really lived up to, even before the Sundown. All that really did was take away the mask, and social tolerance of the other was one of the early things to go. I learned that the hard way.
So with my school life ruined, I figured that was the end of things and I was going to die old and alone and all those other melodramatic thoughts a teenager is so prone to. It was around then that Dad started really taking me under his wing with music. Bringing me along to his gigs if they were early enough in the evening, and even getting me to play with him sometimes. Built my confidence back up. I’m always thankful to him for that.
Now he always denies this but looking back I’m sure he, if not planned it, hoped for this. This was about two years later. One of his friends had a buck about my age, Drisleach, and had started bringing him to the music nights. Honestly, I thought he hated me at first. I mean sure I thought everyone did for a couple years, but I kept catching him staring at me and he never seemed to stick around after the music ended. And I certainly wasn’t going to make the same mistake again no matter how nice I thought his antlers were, so I let myself continue to believe he couldn’t stand me. Then after a couple weeks he finally talked to me.
He was on the short side, but so were a lot of folks in those days. It's a miracle that Síorghlas and I are so tall. I remember his voice though. Shaky but rich as he told me that he thought my wings were neat, and asked if I wanted to hang out. I admit I was surprised, and maybe a little wary. The last time I took interest in a guy I got punched after all but… well he was cute, and regardless of my fears, hope is a hard thing to kill. I didn’t tell him that thought, just thanked him and said I would like to.
After that he opened up a lot. Both at the music nights where he had a lovely singing voice, and just between us whenever we met up, but I think we were both too shy or scared to take it beyond friends. It wasn’t until a month later when things, well, took off. He showed me a tin of moth dust that he'd managed to sneak, and told me his parents were going to be out for a while if I wanted to try it with him.
Moth is fun, it’s fun on its own but even more so when you’re with someone. It tends to kinda, run with whatever you’re feeling. The hallucinations can be neat too, but the big thing is the emotional enhancement. More importantly, it brought things other than our nervousness to the front. It started with Drisleach saying how soft my wings looked and asking if he could touch them. Now, wings are personal, really personal. Those of us with wings are really selective of who we let touch them. Family, lovers, really close friends, that kind of personal. But with moth you don’t really stop to think through things like that, so I let him. I may have even pulled him in with a wing. He looked like he was sitting in the softest cloud in the world there, and the only thing I could think was “kiss him”.
So I did.
And he kissed me back.
Moth does funny things to your sense of time, so when I say it felt like the kiss lasted forever I mean it literally felt like forever. Of course it couldn’t have actually been forever because by some point I had my talons all over him, and he wasn’t any less eager with his hooves. And from there well, I’m pretty sure everyone can guess where it went from there.
As much as I had suspected, and as much as he probably suspected, neither of us had actually come out to the other before this. And I suppose after this neither of us really needed to tell the other. Our actions spoke pretty clearly that we liked each other. I learned a lot about myself, and Drisleach, that day. I still feel a little sorry for him having to explain the beak marks to his family but it turns out my, “mating habits”, are a little more on the gryphish side.
If you’re wondering why I’m thinking about all this again, last night I found a recording of one of those music nights where we sang together. I still miss him. We broke up after a year but had remained friends, and then CINS came looking for his dad. I don’t know where they ran to.
Funnily enough it was another moth fueled night some 10 years later that finally put the gender question into focus. I was, well, dealing with a lot after Kirea and coming back to Griffonstone. Tailwind had read a few articles about some pre-Sundown Sylvanian research on the use of moth dust in treating PTSD and thought it would help. By then Guide Star and Blackthorn had brought me into their relationship and were kinda overseeing my recovery. Cut to the three of us snuggled up together and stoned out of our minds when Blackthorn suddenly calls me his doe. That sure bounced around in my head for a while, or maybe just a minute, you know what moth is like with time.
So by morning I had a new name and a lead on a doctor who could get me hormones without too much fuss. I confess most of that was done on the Grifreich side of the border, turns out they’re a lot better with the topic than Equestria.
And now Guide Star and Blackthorn are gone too, along with a good quarter of the Peregrine Lane MAS. And once again Tailwind is suggesting moth, because it really did help last time. Trouble is I don’t really have anyone left to do it with and it really doesn’t work nearly as well without someone to guide it. But it’s not like I can tell an actual therapist about any of this. “Yeah I was a volunteer in Capra and fought against the EEF.” That’s a good way to go to prison if ever there was one.
Still have the music though, might write a song for them. For Die Greifisch Bataillon.