During the Dark Ages, the world was an uncertain place, especially for anyone who isn't human. In a time of strangeness and obscurity, there's only one safe place: a forest guarded by the creatures who dwell within it.
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An illness had decimated the population of your village. Your sister had died yesterday, and your mother three days before. You were hoping you'd be one of the few that managed to be immune, but just today you'd begun to experience the tell-tale symptoms and you knew you were next.
Folks in town said it was a punishment. Many years ago, before you were born, a witch had been run out of the town for consorting with demons, and this, as the elders said, was their terrible retribution being visited upon you all for transgressing against them. The crumbling, burned-out ruins of the cabin the witch once resided in still stood at the very edge of town, covered in aged moss and vines. The townsfolk were too scared to touch it, even to remove it.
It didn't make much sense to you, though. Why would they wreak havoc nearly thirty years later? It wasn't even the anniversary; they'd been expelled in early spring, and it was nearly midwinter now. It was far more likely that this was just some sort of fever that the wind had carried in to the village, but the town was superstitious, so reasoning with them wouldn't do much good.
You knew this all too well. Your own birth had caused an uproar. You had no control over how you were born, but it didn't stop the people of the town from seeing you as an abomination. Your own father had left because of it. You had been ashamed of yourself from the moment you were old enough to understand that you were different.
Your mother and sister were always supportive, but even they were unsure how to treat you. When you were young, they dressed you as a boy, but as you hit puberty and your breasts began to develop, they abruptly switched to dressing you as a girl. The sudden change was strange to you, and you didn't understand why you couldn't dress however you wanted. Your mother told you, as kindly as she could in hushed tones, that that simply wasn't done. A person was either a boy or a girl, not both.
But, you tried to argue, that's exactly what you were.
As you grew up, you had to admit, you did feel more like a girl most of the time, but other times you weren't so sure. It varied from day to day.
It didn't matter now, you guessed. You were dying anyway. Perhaps, you thought, perhaps if you could go find this witch and her demon and convince them to stop this terrible disease from killing your village, the townsfolk could forgive your odious form. Perhaps they would accept you. Perhaps the men and women of the town would stop looking at you like you were something made of manure and pond scum. Perhaps you could be a real person in their eyes.
The day after you had laid your family to rest, you set out alone into the woods with nothing but the clothes on your back. If you failed, you'd die anyway. No sense in weighing yourself down with worldly things.
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