how to run away from the chiss ascendancy, trans your gender and learn to cut hair as an unaccompanied minor. cil'voes very good zero snags escape
Cil'voe looks up, and a girl looks back at her.
Her blue hair hangs down her back, falling past her waist. It's perfectly straight, except the ends, which curl and fluff now matter how she dries it. She has big red eyes, perpetually flushed cheeks, and she's clutching a worn-out, standard issue CEDF pack as if her life depends on it. She's miserable.
Cil'voe looks away from her reflection and sets the pack down on the counter. It's full of ration bars and water, save for a few pairs of clothes she stuffed on top. She pulls a set of those out first. It's obvious as she unfolds them that they're too big for her, meant for a grown man. She's spent weeks gathering the simple shirts, trousers and jacket, never taking more than what could have conceivably been lost by the laundry droids. She double checks that the door to the refresher is locked, before carefully pulling out the knife she'd hidden in the jacket, setting it carefully on the counter. From there, it's only a moments work to shuck her dress and get changed.
The clothes are loose, shapeless, obscuring her frame and making her look younger than she actually is — and she is already quite young. Not quite an adult by Chiss standards, but well on her way. The shirt hangs off of her, nearly slipping off one shoulder. The pants are no better, and she has to roll them up multiple times at both the waist and hem to stop them from slipping off.
It is at this point that she pulls out the knife.
Finding scissors on a Defense Force ship is quite a lot like trying to find a specific piece of ice buried in the snow. That is to say, practically impossible. Work is done on datapads, there is practically no flimsi on the ship, and hair cuts are handled by droids. A combat knife is the closest she could manage. It's in good condition, as all weapons in the CEDF are required to be. Sharp. She's cut herself on it more than once while trying to hide it. That means it should cut her hair, right? How hard can a haircut be, anyways?
She gathers her hair, holding it tight in one hand near the base of her neck. As soon as she has a good enough grip, she pulls it taut and brings the knife through it. At first, it doesn't seem like anything has happened. Cil'voe has to run her hands through her hair and pull out what was actually cut. A handful of hair falls to the floor, and she decides a different strategy is in order.
Sawing at her hair actually gets results, although it takes a couple tries. The knife pulls at her hair, and her grip isn't as steady as she thought. The bulk of her hair finally comes off, but it's still longer than she wants. She ends up taking it shorter in chunks, leaving it uneven. As she works, she cuts her neck, her ears, and even her temple as she attempts to even out the front. The result leaves her surrounded by and covered in a mess of blue hair.
She regrets changing her clothes first. Deciding it can't get any worse, she ruffles her new hair and runs her hands through it, fluffing it up and sending more loose hair everywhere. It sticks to her clothes, it's scattered on the floor, her hands are absolutely covered... The refresher was pristine when she walked in, now it's littered with chunks of hair and specks of blood.
This is not going according to plan.
Trying to get the hair off of her clothes in a lost cause, but she tries anyways. After that, she runs a corner of her old dress under the faucet and dabs at her face and neck. She cleans off the worst of the blood and makes sure there aren't any hairs in her cuts before haphazardly slapping the few batca patches she snuck out over the top of them.
Cil'voe dusts off her hands, shrugs on her mostly hair-free jacket, and looks in the mirror again.
Now, a boy looks back at her. His dark jacket obscures the bloodstains on the back of his shirt, and he's got hair all over him, the worst of it on the front of his shirt and the bottom of his pants. In one hand, he has a slightly bloody knife. In the other, a fist full of disposable bacta-patch wrappings. His hair sticks up in all directions and it looks like he asked a child to cut it. There's a prominent bacta patch on his cheek, where he managed to cut himself deeper than anywhere else. It's not so deep that it's bleeding through the patch, but the injury is noticeable.
It's another thing to set her apart from the girl, the navigator that she's supposed to be.
That he was supposed to be. He's got to get used to that, but he doesn't think it will be difficult. All that planning to pretend to be a boy has paid off. No one will look at him and see a navigator. He shares features with that girl — the big eyes, the flushed cheeks — but at the same time, he is unrecognizable to himself, which means the caretakers won't catch on, either. He reaches up to place a hand on the mirror, and his reflection reaches back with a sheepish smile.
Here we are, he thinks, and his reflections eyes crinkle at the corners. His hair is curling at the uneven ends. He doesn't think he's ever felt so light.
He leaves the dress behind, wiping the knife clean with a handful of disposable, flimis-towels. He shoves it the dress into the waste receptacle and the knife goes back into his worn-out bag. With luck, no one will use this particular refresher for a little while. He cracks the door just wide enough to peer outside, and he doesn't see anyone. One of the caretakers expects him to meet them at the nearby airlock to his next assignment. Instead, he pulls his jacket tighter around himself and walks briskly in the opposite direction.
They'll search for him, he knows they will. He's so sure that they'll find the bathroom and all the hair and realize exactly what he's done. That he's running away, deserting his post, quitting the CEDF in the only way he knows how. It's freeing and terrifying, knowing that there is no plan past this point. Now he has to find a way off of this space station, and he has to do it fast. Preferably before they discover what he's done and lock the place down.
The brisk walk isn't cutting it anymore. He doesn't care if he looks suspicious, he jogs down to the bay that holds the shipping freighters. There is no indication as to where any of them are going, so he picks the ship that looks the least Chiss in design. A ship that is all hard angles instead of sleek curves. His people don't like outsiders, not even their technology, so he has to assume this ship is headed outside of Chiss space. He has no idea who it belongs to, but it's as good a lead as he's going to get. He loiters, waiting to see if anyone comes out, before suddenly ducking inside and making a dash for the crowded cargo hold.
He wedges himself in a corner, blocked in on one side by large freight containers, and another side by heavy sacks. The sacks soft enough to lean against, and makes himself as comfortable as he can as he waits for the ship to take off. He's just in time, he thinks, as he hears heavy footsteps echo against the ramp outside. Shifting just enough to take a peek, he gets a glimpse of a Chiss dressed in a way he's never seen before — not in uniform. Even Cil'voe is still wearing bits and pieces of uniforms, save the jacket. He ducks back into his hiding place and hopes that this is a good sign.
When the ship finally does shudder beneath him, he's certain he can hear the faint strains of an alarm starting to sound from outside. It fades quickly, just as the ship rocks heavily, once, and then smooths out, entering hyperspace.
The vice that has been gripping his chest this whole time suddenly loosens. He feels like he can breathe.
Sure, he's a stowaway on a stranger's ship with no idea where he's going, but… For once, he's not being watched. There is no caretaker tracking him, no ship to pilot with his powers, no Defense Force to use him. From here on out, whatever happens, it's his choice.
He's never felt so free.