Cocerelles & Posies

Editor's note: this story contains scenes of incest or incest content.

*****

#12

It is too early in the morning on a Monday when Josie decides she is ready for me to make good on my offer. I try all that weekend before to set a time, but the oldest child in our family is also the most particular one when it comes to making decisions.

"Do it in this please," she says, handing me a ceramic container in which I am to transfer my seed.

As I look at the little tub in my hand, I ask if she worries about sanitation, wanting clarification on her feelings about the mechanics of the exchange.

"Forgive me, Margot," she says flashing eyes whose thick and steep brows instill in her a look of perpetual hunger. "I believe I've developed a slight aversion to having one's seed shot on me. It was three long years of encouraging that sort of behavior in my attempts to become a cockerelle."

"Have you seen Maddie's?" I ask her. "She's so excited about the change, she's dyed her dove-white hair a kind of teal that gives it the look of an old grandmother's plume."

"I do not doubt the potency of the gift you bring me," she says. "Faith is what the gods use to measure our willingness to achieve those things we most desire. Is that not still true?"

"Apparently so, according to Becka's report on the psychology of the golden collar."

"Well, I've been spackled more than enough in that disastrous bid I made learning no amount of plaster can take the place of something that requires concrete. Now that I know the correct recipe for my salvation, the glamor of the old concoction appears unsavory in the construction of my ambitions."

"No ceremony then to send you off?" I ask.

"Forgiving is a hard thing," she replies.

I dare not mention the name Grandmother Tamera after hearing this. Josie's seed mania was abandoned a few weeks before grandmother sailed away five years ago. This respite does not stop Sis from diving into the topic.

"I yearn for the day when our seed giver returns to us and apologies for the schism her untruth created in our family."

"That day will be soon," I agree, trying to sell her my words with as much sympathy as I can articulate. "Time will make it forgotten in all of us. I myself don't ponder it at all these days. It is through dragging these things behind us through the years to come that our pains will finally be erased."

"Do you believe that?" she asks me, her smile suggesting these wrongs have in fact not yet been quenched.

Then she appears to come around on the matter. "Well, I do."

It is the same roller coast as ever with her.

"I do too. That's why I said it."

Her hand taps softly on her chest. "I sense my love of smoldering is causing me to draw out these last moments I remain a posy against my better wishes."

"I only learned about the choker days ago, Josie. If it had been in my possession sooner, I would have planted roots on all of you the moment you asked."

"You did suspect though where I really wanted my station in life years ago, didn't you?"

I giggle hearing this. "I would have to be blind of all senses not to." I am lying, of course. Life with Josie has become something like walking on eggshells since grandmother left, and I'm not in the least bit interested in stirring sister's pot.

I drop my skirt to get things on track. We both look down at what is left of my status as a cockerelle wrapped with its golden neckband.

"I too have always suspected your fascination with the station posies hold in our society," she says. "Is it true that you are set on taking on all those less than glamorous responsibilities placed upon the weaker sex?"

"I suppose I always have been," I reply. "I feel no tears at seeing this piece of my life going away if that's what you're asking. I have decided to pursue with the utmost sincerity the reception of all of those things which make the weaker sex better than the other."

I say the last part thinking it will ensure against any doubts she might have. Then I worry I might have opened a can of worms if she takes it the wrong way. She doesn't.

Josie becomes something of a ringmaster, making certain I do as I am told and empty the last bit of my root into her bowl. She takes it from me the moment I finish.

Like magic the golden charm slips from its dissolving hook and lands on the floor with a clink.

I offer to pick it up, but sis waves me off.

"I'll see to the fate of this old thing," she says, putting it in her pocket.

Our eyes go to the spot of my transmutation to watch its final moments play out before us. The miraculous change is felt like rushing water as the machines of reality remodel me inside and out down to my very molecules. Sensations announce their arrival as muscles and nerves are repositioned for my body's new purpose.

I am amazed.

"I didn't expect the final transition to happen all at once like that. It felt good," I say to Josie who I find cradling her seed container as if it sustains some kind of priceless medicine. Her attention escapes the room with her as she marches off carefully to some hidden place to enjoy the treasure of her triumph alone.

#13

I stand there, my bottom lip puffed out realizing with some shock that my new identity has been bequeathed without any fanfare at all. I thought it would require some time after the application of seed to Josie's person. However, it seems my intention was all that it took to finish the last quarter of my race which awarded me with my new posy.

So many seconds later Josie comes back in asking me if she can be the new owner of my cockerelle pendant.

Yes, the idea delights me.

"This is the pomp and circumstance I was missing to mark the day," I tell her taking my cockerelle choker off and ceremoniously handing it to her down on my knees. "They are each unique," I add through a toothy grin. I'm probably a little too reverential in how I present it to her.

Josie takes it in one hand and holds it up above her head. Her neck lifts her field of view upward to gaze upon it with every indication she sees it as the spoils of her hard-fought war. She puts it on with all the ceremony a hero would deserve for conquering some icon of infamous notoriety which had plagued her world for many years.

"Margot, your ornament has a covetous history to it, doesn't it?" she reminds me. "I seem to recall episodes of outright jealousy from cockerelles who wished they had been the one who popped out of a womb with their root at the exact moment this bit of birthright cryptography came out of the personal identification dispenser at the hospital."

My face glows with pride as I retell once again how I was blessed with the most rare and unique one of them all.

"One chance in a centillion. Or as the mathematicians put it, never," I say.

The gemstone that got all the world's attention when I came into existence was called Eager Sacrifice. The founders of our civilization who developed the system we used to advertise our cockerelle nature thought the machines would never fabricate such a piece from their complex algorithms.

"I accept your surrender," she says, blessing the spot between my eyebrows with an extended arm. "Now I must go and claim what is mine."

She helps me up from my knees and is off to some other part of her rooms.

In the meantime, my face melts into an expression of overwhelming gratitude believing this is all her way of delivering the memory I desired in my heart of hearts to mark our momentous occasion for the rest of our days.

She returns wearing a pair of pants that once belonged to Grandmother.

I act impressed and bow my head, trying to keep myself from succumbing to the air of silliness I feel is beginning to invade our exchange.

Then she says, "No take backs."

A puff of wind escapes my nose signifying amusement as I look up.

"Take backs? Never!" I shake my fist in the air to drive my statement home.

"You can make good on it too." Her expression remains serious, tempting me to ask about the details of her concern. She lets me know that even after she acquires her root that there is a stipulation through which I could request the return of our exchanged inheritance.

"The legitimacy of the transaction will never be fully appreciated by the rest of society otherwise," she tells me.

"Are you saying the beautiful gift I just gave you carries the same legal machinations as a lease agreement?"

"Its insurance wired in by the celestials who crafted our realm. Swapping permanently is all but forbidden in their eyes if you read through the fine print of the ancient histories. It's why these trades never actually remain true when you hear about them. They always back out."

"Is it cockerelles wishing to go back to being posies who cause the reversal?"

"No," she says, "it's always the other way around. Hence the rarity that the procedure actually sticks for long. But one can make the trade permanent if the original holder of the root agrees."

The rules are perfectly clear, and there is even a procedure for doing what was once considered grossly illegal at the very top of heaven's hierarchy.

"Essentially, it removes your power to take back your root in way of the physical laws that govern our universe. It implements an irreversible cutting of the strings between us. Of course, no one ever does it. In fact, no one shares their root as you have with us giving all four quarters away. I shiver to think what might come upon to us if the gods figured out what we have done?"

This drains all the humor from our interaction.

"Gives you chills?"

"It's already a sort of whammy on our family, though our modern culture would never punish such a thing. You see, giving your root away is a humiliation in the opinions those at the top of the pecking order here in the mortal realm. That we didn't have to beg you is unbelievable."

My bulging eye's register my shock, prompting Josie to make a face which says she's only teasing.

"I'm just relaying my research," she offers. "Lots of facts, I gathered, though there never seems enough detail to bring you to a concrete conclusion about history. I learned to trust my-eyes-only on all matters of the high sciences. It's hard enough to weed out the fiction created by our forebearers in the form of myths and legends and folk lore and fairy tales and other such things. Yes, I am well aware that our governments have always been places of the most fantastic lies meant to herd their people one way or the other."

"True," I admit with the conviction of one who wishes to sound as though they are in the know. "If you had to guess, as you did before the revelation of the golden choker, switching like we are now does appear a thing of fairy tales. I mean, when you look at the people we actually know and consider the things which actually happened around us in our little corner of Heartseed. Going posy-to-cockerelle sounds like a thing of myths if we went by our own personal and direct experiences."

Josie smiles at me with pride in her eyes.

"Just like your pendant, you're another odd statistic now," she tells me fingering my old symbol that hangs around her neck. "When you finally announce your decision to the world, our friend's heads will more than turn."

"Is that so?"

"Some of the old ones believed the gods punished severely in the afterlife those who went down this road we are traveling now. I feel it must be mentioned before you move any further with your commitments. You see, the incestuous nature of the transfer adds much weight to the taboo we have committed as a family. Luckily, modern thinking protects us from belief in the existence of these judgmental deities that the old ones feared so much."

Thoughts of publicizing the precise details of our family's transformation suddenly cry out for careful consideration.

Josie's finger goes to her lips. Then a smile forms as she attempts to hide her mouth's expression with a curling of her fingers.

"Did you worry just now one of us might make the breaking of these ancient rules public knowledge? I thought for certain Becka would have mentioned the importance of keeping it under our hats."

I feel a queer pain in the pit of my stomach.

Josie unfurls a little more.

"I see your eyes gazing at the trophy on my neck," she says, touching the rare crystal which now belongs to her. "I swear on my heart I had no intention of tying its previous owner to this secret sin. The posies in our family all took an oath in writing which we share copies of and with signatures to boot rolled up inside under an officially-placed wax seal."

She hands me the copy I was to be given to keep.

"Penned signatures on each copy, and we kept your name off these pages as a way to protect you, Sis," she says. "Without your signature scribbled on them, Grandmother saw a way to further support your plea of ignorance should the scandal ever come to light. In here we make mention of an anonymous cousin who sacrificed their root for our cause."

"You jester," I say after her mask of seriousness falls away with a genuine laugh so I cannot mistake this was all contrived by her in good fun. "You make it sound as though you've all been planning this for years. What's really inside this document?"

"Was your sire who gave me this propensity to tease. Truly, the scroll is a thing of insurance for the sake of your honor should any questions be raised in the future. However, it was not so solemn as I make it sound. But do hide it in your sacred wardrobe for me, will you?" she asks, ringing her arms around my neck and kissing me many times in a way meant to ensure down to my marrow that it was all a burlesque performance.

Despite the kidding around, Josie requires I think seriously on my decision for at least a few weeks rather than go plunging in headfirst.

"No reason to imitate my bullheadedness from the past," she says raising an eyebrow to punctuate her seriousness in the matter.

#14

The gates of freedom fly open as the reality of my flowering sinks in, yet they come rebounding back almost as abruptly when I begin to consider the implications I face as a cockerelle turned posy. As Josie warned we, it is a rarity that is exceeded only by the anomaly of my cockerelle pendant in the sexual news of our society. I take my concern to Becka's quarters where I find her working away on one of her many new projects.

"It has begun pressing on my mind that we should take precautions to get our story straight before coming out to our peers lest they consider me too reckless and shun me," I say. "It is my celebration, and I do not wish anyone to see me any other way."

"Cold feet? It's only been a few days, and already you've turned this into a conspiracy in your head."

"It's not that, Sis. It's just that I don't want people thinking I acted too rashly or that I am not proud of my decision."

"Nonsense," she says, touching my shoulder. "I believe everyone will conclude that they've seen this coming a long way off. It's not like you were the woodiest of cockerelles. All that jogging was for your figure, not competitiveness. Your desire to wear skirts and your penchant for things delicate and lovely have not gone unnoticed by anyone. If asked to name a cockerelle who wished they'd been born a posy, all of our neighbors would put your name on the questionnaire."

I laugh with her, though I still hold some reservations which she detects right away.

"What is it then?" she asks. "Are you afraid of someone finding out you've given your root to your sisters and mother? I thought Josie gave you a document to silence those fears. We all signed it for your protection. States that we received our gifts from an anonymous cousin. Keeps your name out of the picture."

"That I have, though it remains sealed."

"As it should. It is the idea of what is written within that's meant to protect your honor in your mind. Shouting it from the rooftops would seem counterproductive, wouldn't it? Why announce your lack of involvement? It makes it sound as though you are trying to hide something. Better to let them ask.

"And if someone comes demanding the facts, you have that piece of sealed parchment to smack their nose with. Who's going to request you break a wax seal put there with an official stamp on it? This is the way we protect your secret and give you peace of mind."

"And what of my own transformation?" I ask.

"Whatever story you want to tell is the story that will be told. I'm not going to blabber on about it until I hear your version. We all agreed to do the same. Does anyone ask why someone has altered their appearance in this world? Isn't it common enough thanks to the power of charms we inherited from our ancestors? You just need a quick explanation to silence the curiosity one might have about the nature of the transaction which brought you to where you are. I'm thinking of our four posy nieces across the sea which no one will ever take the time to research. It's not like you've gone around flaunting your root in public since they last visited a year ago."

"And what if they come to visit again?" I ask.

"Don't name them in your story, silly. Anonymity will work for your tale just as it has worked in the explanations we have given to our friends and neighbors concerning our own transformations. I haven't had one interrogation since making my transformation public."

Becka points to the pendant that she now wears proudly over her throat. Hers is platinum with an ivory cockerelle as its centerpiece encircled with rings of onyx and jade.

"How did you manage such a design?" I ask her.

"Maddie helped with it. I've been working on mine for years. Not saying that I anticipated your decision. It is merely a thing of envy that many posies secretly suffer from if you delve into the psychology on the matter. To me, you are my hero, and I hope you see it that way on my neck and not as boasting."

"Never. It is beautiful," I say. "Though I do find it unnerving that you have not mentioned this truth about yourself to me before. I would have assured you at a younger age perhaps that your dream would be fulfilled by me."

"That is not how Grandmother wished it to be carried out. Her philosophy is that unfulfilled desire is what compels us to act with passion in life. You may have looked back at your decision and thought it was done prematurely before you had reached an age when you could make such a decision confidently as you have now with all of the information presented before you as it has been done. Making the choice as an adult gives you the ability to fully embrace and appreciate your choice without risk of regret."

"Such thoughtfulness has gone into all of this," I remark, feeling a scratch of emotion in my throat. "My love and respect for Grandmother Tamera has been increased, thank you. Such lovely words."

"Now about this business of Josie's," she says. "She wasn't lying, and it's no big deal that you could technically take it back whenever you liked in my mind. I can't speak for the rest of the family. To me, at its worst, it's like being given a fudge Sunday without the cherry on top is all."

"I feel it is a lot more than having a cherry kept from you," I say. "This was a choice we all made. If I'm the only one with the power to take it back, it's hardly noble of me to cling to it."

Becka is preoccupied with her latest scientific experiment and skips a few beats in our conversation before she recognizes the full measure of intensity I've expressed in my statement.

"You sounded just then as though you've given the order to burn the ships. Is this a matter of affection or trust for you?"

Her smile does not soften the look of sincerity on my face. She tries an even bigger smile as if it might fare better at overpowering my doubts.

I do not give in.