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Lio almost doesn't catch the pronoun. It's just one little word, three letters in a sea of weirdness that hasn't abated since he and his kid escaped from the burrow. A lifetime of thinking of mutes as hypothetical -- Hugo aside -- and now he's in a smoky kitchen, head full of herb smell, being prophesied at by a hairier version of the Weird Sisters from Macbeth. There's so much strangeness that he's drowning in it, and very few things stand out, until later.
"If she stays up here, the jaguar will be her dominant side."
It's not until he's out of the woods and all the boar slobber is out of his clothing that he stops to wonder. They're blind, after all, he figures. Maybe their species is parthenogenic or something, maybe it's some kind of language issue.
Probably nothing.
---
Kipo is four, and refusing a haircut.
"NO!"
"Kid, it's getting really long, and it tangles a lot."
"NO!"
"It won't hurt, I promise! You'll feel better!"
"NO NO NO! I want it like Miss Laurel!"
Laurel is one of the children's creche operators, one who Kipo imprinted on strongly, a tall woman with long, bushy red hair in a braid.
"Okay. Let's make a deal." Lio crouches, scissors in hand, eye level with Kipo. "I need to trim it a little bit, because it's all tangled. But if you want, I'll leave it long, and braid it for you, okay?"
Kipo's eyes go wide, and all protesting stops. Lio doesn't dwell on it; he's just happy he was able to make a compromise.
---
Kipo is seven, with a question that stops Lio's heart.
"Dad? Is my body going to change?"
Oh God. Not now, Lio thinks. Images in his mind -- pink paws, angry mobs. A home turned against them. Stability gone too soon.
"Oh, sweetie. Did something happen?"
Kipo breathes deeply, and speaks through a carefully brave face. "Troy told me--"
Lio didn't think he'd be having the puberty talk this early, but it’s fine. He's just happy it's something this mundane,and not the much more complicated talk in the years ahead. And if Kipo looks distraught by the end of it... well, puberty is just scary, right? Lio must be projecting.
---
Kipo is ten, at the beginning of a new school year, and Lio gets a call.
"Lio? This is Sienna." That's one of Asher and Dahlia's moms, one of the other teachers at the burrow's small school. Kipo and her kids are thick as thieves. She's on rotation as the physical education teacher at the moment; Lio thinks of that one as the short straw, but Sienna seems to enjoy it.
Lio grips the receiver, feeling the blood drain from his knuckles. "What happened? Is Kipo hurt?"
"Kipo's fine. But you should probably come to the gym office."
The school gym is just a corner of the same gym that the entire burrow uses, for the sake of saving space, but there's a small office for the PE teacher, with a few chairs out front, and Kipo in one of them. Kipo's hair isn't braided much any more, but it's still long, usually pulled back into a tail that reminds Lio so much of Song it hurts. Right now, though, it's down, limp, curtained around Kipo's face, lending an extra gravity to the small, slumped form on the hard plastic chair.
Sienna is there in the other chair, one hand on Kipo's back. She looks up when Lio approaches. "Hey, Kipo, are you ok telling your dad what happened?"
Kipo's shake of the head is nearly imperceptible. Sienna looks up. "Kipo had a panic attack when we split the class for the changing rooms."
"I..." Kipo says.
"It's okay if you don't want to talk about it," Lio says.
"DadI'magirl." Kipo closes her eyes and deflates, like the words that tore themselves out of her in a rush took her breath with them.
Everything falls together in Lio’s mind. As first thoughts when your daughter comes out to you as trans go, the goats were right is a very bizarre one. But few things in his life have ever gone completely according to plan.
Sienna doesn't look surprised by this at all -- but then again, she just went through this with Asher a couple months before, and they're one of Kipo's best friends.
"Okay," he says, kneeling and pulling her into his arms. "You're the best daughter a dad could ask for."
Kipo sobs into his shirt, but that's a good thing. Kipo cries more when she's happy than when she's sad; she gets that from her mom.
It's not the only thing she got from her mom. He wants so badly to be able to say it, to match Kipo’s honesty and courage, but the words stick in his throat.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Dad.” Kipo’s voice is small but all-encompassing. “No more secrets, I promise.”
The second that Lio pauses feels like a decade. “I love you, Kipo.”
He can’t give her the whole truth. Not yet. But he can give her this truth, at least.