Trissy’s Embarrassment

Being the youngest child in a large family can be difficult, especially if your father has always wanted a boy and had been stuck with girls every single time. For that youngest daughter, acceptance is often earned by being the son, or as close to, as the daughter can manage. Among Woodsmen who have traditional gender roles, more than some of the other human families, Trissy faced some ridicule for her forest skills, even her building and carving. When her mother died and her father took his second wife, Trissy was forced back into the traditional roles. After the illness when everyone died, and the cousins expected her to walk away from a sick and dying Jenny, she rebelled.

Trissy never explains how that happened, but using your own imagination you can almost see the screaming fit she threw. I wonder if she didn’t wrap Jenny in a blanket and hide until they were gone, afraid they would force her to leave one way or another, based on the few things she revealed.

In the end, those skills she learned pretending to be her father’s son helped her survive, got her and Jenny safely to Grabon’s Territory, and made her the perfect match and mate for Heron.