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Rael was born in the night of the 15th Sun of the First Umbral Moon, in a small village deep within the 
Golmore Jungle. It was an uneventful birth, on an uneventful night, and none could tell looking at the 
squalling babe how many lives they would shape in the days to come. Their childhood was largely 
uneventful; like all Ravan there was no way to tell if Rael was to be a man or a woman.

Yet the young kit somehow knew in their heart that their place was to be the village, doing all they 
could to learn the ways of the older Ravan females. Rael found a happiness in mimicking those actions 
that could not be explained, one that persisted even as they grew older. They grew their dark brown hair
out long, eventually pulling it back into a ponytail, and a sharp contrast to their lighter skin. In the right
light, they could almost be mistaken for a tanned Veena.

Yet all childhoods end, and many dreams are soured by the intrusion of cruel reality. For Rael, this 
reality was puberty. The changes began shortly after they turned twelve and tore the idyllic dream of 
their life apart.

The changes were expected, of course. This was the age that the males would soon be separated from 
the females, with the newest batch of young males taken into the forests by their elders to be taught the 
ways of the warder. But for Rael, the changes destroyed them. Their nethers shifted as they kept growing, and 
something unexpected appeared there, something unwanted.

While other girls began to develop and grow into feminine curves, Rael found their own beginning to 
form define muscles. It was wrong and they knew it, somewhere deep inside almost screaming at the 
way their own body had betrayed them. And not one of the older women of the village seemed to 
understand. Despite all Rael’s pleading that this was not who they were, the adults seemed quite happy 
to see the kit growing into the body of a strong, healthy male. Confusion, they said, yet that they did so 
without malice meant little. Rael’s nights grew terrible and short, their pillows soaked by helpless tears 
as the day of the elder males’ return approached.

Until the day did come. Rael did everything they could to hide when the men came to the village for 
the yearly mating, but there were only so many places in such a small place. And it was not as if they 
were the first kit to try to hide from leaving their home behind, Rael’s reasons were just very different.