I ended up leaving Tchwang in my late teens, Lark's spirit said.

Where did you go?

Trenton.

Light parted like fog in the wind. A street emerged from the clouds, embedded in an all-too-familiar cityscape.

Elpeck.

I stood in the middle of a four-way intersection. A Revenel Company Hotel rose up behind the street wall, crowned in glass—like everything else—to let light into the ceiling eye over its grand central atrium. For a moment, I wondered why Lark had brought me here, but then, as I lowered my gaze, I realized I'd been looking at the wrong thing.

Lark's memories trained toward the two-story building on the corner in front of me. The building was an old-new affair; a single, flat-roofed portico of ashen gray blocks of stone that followed the street corner's curve. Depictions of the Hallowed Beast were carved into the columns' capitals. Above them, a balustrade ran along the front edge of the roof, like a tiara.

The sign above the ornamented doorway arch read: Stamferd College of Music.

Ahh… Stamferd. I'd applied for their undergraduate program, but got rejected.

Let me just put it this way: had Jonan been a musician, his resumé would have said that he'd gone to Stamferd. It was old, prestigious and exclusive, exactly the sort of thing you could name-drop at a job interview to wow folks. Its campus was a collection of buildings and suites scattered around the city.

Both my attention and Lark's soul were drawn to a figure entering the building through its front door. A moment later, I was inside with him.

"Is that you?" I asked.

Who else would it be?

I hardly recognized him. Lark—or I should say, Zongman—wore a suave black suit with a matching tie, and a PortaCon in his hands. His leather shoes—polished to a shine—clacked on the green stone floor as he went up the steps, down the hall, and into a pair of double doors down a short stretch of hallway past a quick left turn.

The interior's green-gray hues gave way to rich, wine tones as Lark entered the small, sumptuous auditorium. Students were gathered in the plush red seats in the audience space. In the gap between the stage and the front row of seat, a balding, bespectacled professor sat on a stool. The lush, violet-red curtains behind him were drawn back, exposing the varnished wood stage for all to see. Its stage was empty, save for a single student standing in the middle, nervously looking up at the spotlight.

"You went to Stamferd?" I said. "That's… that's an incredible accomplishment! How'd you pull it off?"

A ghostly arm materialized in the air and pointed at the professor on the stool. "Professor Sandman insisted it was because of my talent," Lark said, "though I'm pretty sure it was the scholarship that did the trick. I mean, you saw kid me. I was sad, poor, and occidental. The folks on the news ran a story about my acceptance when it happened."

Images of the headlines drifted past my mind.

Well, that made me feel bad.

The professor looked at the old analogue clock up on the back wall, and then slapped his hands on his thighs. "And… there we go," he said, "I hope you all had a good weekend. Today's agenda is just the exam." He reached back and picked up a PortaCon up from the stage floor. "As promised, I've randomized the student roster to determine the order of your performances. After each performance, you'll all be given fifteen minutes to write up a short essay in which you evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your classmates' performance. You don't need to judge your own performances, but I will give extra credit if you do and I like what you wrote. Don't forget, we're assigning equal weight to both the written and performance components of the exam. Also, I'll be sending the responses to the corresponding performers after finals are over, anonymously, of course. So, please, be polite." He looked over the crowd of a dozen or so students. "Any questions?"

The students looked at one another, but no one said anything.

"Alright," Professor Sandman said. "Let's begin." He glanced at his console. "First up, Natalie Lind."

"What song did you prepare?" I asked.

Lark's voice echoed around me. "The Lotus Song, from Samada's Kanjizai, transcribed for solo baritone."

"That's… that's a beautiful choice," I said. "Though it's normally a duet."

"Yeah, I know," Lark said, crestfallen.

I bit my lip.

Natalie got up from her seat. Like Zongman and all the other students, she was dressed to a T. The hem of her red dress' skirt billowed almost voluptuously as she walked up onto the stage. Strands of her dark brown hair seemed to glow lambent and golden beneath the spotlight.

"Let me guess," I said, "she's going to knock it out of the park, and then you're gonna get called to go after her?"

"I never got to sing," Lark said, somberly.

But Natalie started to speak before I could inquire further, and I didn't want to intrude any further by pausing the memory mid-playthrough.

"Hello, everyone," she said. "I'll be performing the Song to the Moon, from Gallstrom's Biluše."

She flashed the biggest smile.

Scattered applause ripple through the students, along with some laughter. One person even whistled.

"You go girl!"

Sandman looked up at Natalie approvingly, and then at his students. "What did I tell you? Somebody always does it."

The students chuckled.

Happily enough, I actually got the joke. When it came to opera, with a few exceptions, most Trentoners' knowledge of it came from parodies or homages to the operatic canon from old cartoons. The Song to the Moon was one of the exceptions. It wasn't just opera-famous, it was famous-famous. Even a paragon of ignorance like my mother-in-law knew about it.

In a masterclass setting like Lark's course at Stamferd, this level of popularity meant that performing the Song to the Moon was a double-edged sword. On the plus side, when a piece was thoroughly embedded in popular consciousness, you'd have no shortage of recordings to turn to to help you refine your performance and feel out the different ways the music could be interpreted. Also, it was a heck of a lot easier to learn to play a piece when you knew what it was supposed to sound like beforehand. On the other hand, because pieces like the Song to the Moon were so famous, your listeners would be loaded with preconceptions they'd compare your performance to, consciously or not. As my father liked to say, it's hard to criticize a performance of a piece that nobody's ever heard of.

But obscure pieces weren't without their pros and cons. The less familiar the audience was, the more readily they could focus on the technical issues of the performance. Yet, at the same time, you could run the risk of choosing something odd enough that the listener couldn't tell what things were supposed to be.

"Natalie must have been pretty brave or pretty confident," I said.

She was both.

"Then why do I feel a sense of… dread?"

That's not yours, Lark replied.

Uh-oh.

The dread was coming from Zongman, down below. He was trying to convince himself that he was whipping himself into a frenzy for no good reason. And why?

It was like my past was coming back to haunt me.

Fudge. Lark was right. The song. The red dress. It all—

—And then, the recording of the aria's orchestral accompaniment began to play.

The music began with arpeggiated chords rising gracefully on a harp solo. The sound arched downward and settled into a pool of softly rocking strings. Woodwinds played over the sound like drops of moonlight, and then the rocking strings returned, this time on the tonic chord.

And then the voice entered.

Zongman had opened a blank document on his console to type up his responses and comments, but his blood ran cold the instant Natalie sang the first note.

He froze.

Natalie wasn't just good. She was amazing. It was like watching a swan take flight.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The aria's opening verse was calm and contemplative, a perfect fit for the scene of the opera where it occurred: the young princess Biluše, sitting alone in the woods, looking up at the plaintive moon, begging it to hear her prayer. The woodwinds chimed in for three notes after the second phrase, like a wayward wish. Then the violins climbed in a gentle chromatic rise, and the melody soared. Natalie carried the melody over the ascending harps, up through the treetops of the forest glade that the music brought to mind. The plucked strings twinkled in the background like stars.

It was glorious, yet also devastating. Zongman couldn't type. His arm trembled. He was on the verge of tears.

Adult Lark emerged beside me, coalescing from mist. His/her hands jammed in her/his pockets.

I commented on the feelings I was getting from Zongman down below.

"You felt inadequate…"

The music student was convinced that his attempt on the Lotus Song would be laughed out of the room.

Lark shook his/her head. It wasn't a no. It was a desire for something to stop.

Lark was keeping emotional distance from me, and I could sense that in the emotions in the memory, which weren't as potent as they could have been. It was like they were being held at arms' length.

I looked Lark in the eyes. "Please, you don't need to be afraid. You can share it with me."

And Lark—

"—Angel's breath…" I muttered.

I couldn't believe what I was feeling—well, what Lark was feeling.

Lark started to speak. The words were a running commentary on Zongman's feelings about Natalie.

"Hearing Natalie sing," Lark said, "I realized that I wanted to be her. She was singing what I wanted to be singing, and I didn't have the balls to do it… or to face myself. Transposing the Lotus Song was just a fucking coping mechanism. There was no way in hell that I was going to sing it. People would think I was nuts."

"But… it didn't stop there, did it?"

"Nope," Lark said.

He—no… she wept.

She.

She.

"I envied Natalie," Lark said. "I envied her talent. I envied her success. I envied her confidence."

"You envied what she showed the world," I said. "You don't know what was going on inside her head. You can't."

"Doesn't matter," Lark said. "What she showed was more than enough. As Natalie finished the song and our fifteen minutes of writing time began, I sat there like I was in a fuckin' trance. All my life, I'd been chasing after success, because that's just how I was raised. But I never felt like I belonged. Worse, I felt… wrong. Uneasy. Like… there was something inside me that wouldn't settle, and for the longest time, I didn't know what it was. But then Natalie sang and… everything just clicked. All the things I'd done as a kid—dress-up, fantasy—all the things that I'd convinced myself were just me being weird… suddenly, I saw them in a new light. What shocked me the most, I think, was how goddamn angry I was with myself."

"Angry? How?" I asked.

"Looking back, I realized I probably knew from the very beginning, but I let myself get convinced otherwise. The thought that maybe I'm not the me that everyone kept telling me I was kept creepin' back into my head every once in a while, and every time it did, I told myself that it couldn't have been the answer, not because it didn't feel like the answer, but because I just couldn't imagine a world where I could pick that as my answer. Basically, I'd been too much of a pussy to keep myself from being miserable."

"That must have been very frustrating," I said. I sighed. "So, what did you do with this revelation?" I asked.

"My first thought was to just drop out," Lark answered. "You had to pass the final exam in order to pass the course, and there was no chance in Hell that I'd ever graduate if I didn't pass this course. I spent the first couple minutes circling around that idea. Even if I wanted to, there was no way I could perform the piece I'd prepared. If I tried, it would be an even bigger disaster than it would have been before my shitty, broken soul decided to dump a load of revelation into my lap."

"Bit by bit, over that hour and a half, I peeled my feelings off one by one. It was fucking judgement da, and when I stripped down to the naked-bird-ugly thing at the bottom, it said I should have been born a woman. It had been sayin' that for as long as I could remember, but only now was I finally listening to it. I mean, like really listening."

"It was magnetic," Lark continued. "It wouldn't go away. Every time I thought about it, another idea would stick to it. Another idea. Another memory. Another weird, awkward moment, suddenly illuminated. It was an answer I didn't want to a question I never wanted to ask."

"Lark…" I said.

I had to stop… her.

Not him. Her.

I had to pull myself away from Lark's spirit. The feelings were just too intense. It was like I was transforming all over again. Lark's words held me in a trance; her emotions and experiences flowed over me. I felt like a misbegotten sop of a being dressed up in a suit of skin and bones that wasn't even mine.

I shook my head.

"Doc," Lark asked, "are you okay?"

I grabbed a handful of my hair at the top of my head and held it for a couple seconds before letting out a big breath and letting go.

"I will be," I said.

I don't know how to describe what I experienced of Lark's experience, other than to say that it was not unlike that day when the shelf of my faith had broken. It wasn't exactly the same—I don't think anything could quite match Lark's experience—but it was pretty close. The biggest difference was that while I had lost faith in a concept, Lark had lost faith in herself. It turned out she'd never truly believed in the thing that she and everyone else had called her self. That bit of faith had always been someplace else, and it was only now that she had the courage to acknowledge it.

We all have our mental image of ourselves, although "image" isn't really the right word for it. It's not a picture, but a composite, amalgamated from feelings, memories, ideals, desires, values, features, skills, and so much more.

Obviously, our bodies inform what and who we are. They're as integral to our existence as the languages we speak. Our experience of reality is filtered through our bodies' physicality, giving us our frame of reference. And yet, we are more than just our bodies; a person is more than just a lump of flesh, and you don't need to believe in the existence of souls—nor any other form of mind-body dualism—to believe that. An individual is a collection of thoughts and actions spread across an envelope of space and time. This story that I am telling you is as much a part of me as I am a part of it. In sharing my story, it has become a part of you, where it will remain, long after you leave this place—provided that you remember it.

Lark had suffered a truly grievous loss. The person she'd been struggling to be had collapsed, deflating, like a balloon. The he who she'd thought she'd been unraveled in her hands, and it had left her with less than nothing, because, at least when you have nothing, you still have yourself.

Before Zongman knew it, the hour-and-a-half-long class session was nearly done. Zongman only realized this once Professor Sandman spoke and shocked him—now her—out of her daze.

"Zongman Lark."

Zongman rose, stammered, tried to speak, tried to step forward, and then—in confusion—stormed out the door.

Before Zongman knew it, the hour-and-a-half-long class session was nearly done. Zongman only realized this once Professor Sandman spoke and shocked him—now her—out of her daze.

"Zongman Lark."

Zongman rose, stammered, tried to speak, tried to step forward, and then—in confusion—stormed out the door.

The scene froze. I flew Lark and myself up through the ceiling, until we hovered dozens of feet over the building's roof. Swaths of emptiness quivered in the corners of the view that, in the memory, Lark hadn't seen.

"Why'd you leave?" I asked.

"A better question," Lark said, "why would I stay?"

"Because you would be doing what you loved?"

"Dr. Derric said the same thing," Lark replied, "and just like you, he had no clue what he was talking about."

"I'm a neuropsychiatrist," I said. "Psychiatry is literally part of my job."

Lark chuckled and shook her head. "Alright, Mr. Neuropsychiatrist. Tell me: why does depression make everything suck so hard?"

"Happiness isn't about having good vibes constantly coming your way. It's about finding joy in the little moments and linking them up to the dreams in your heart. Depression interferes with that process at a neurophysiological level. You get stuck in certain deeply-worn patterns of thought. Down in those depths, your dreams lose their shine, and the day-by-day moments seem to crumble to ash. I should know," I said, "I suffer from depression, myself, and have for as long as I can remember. It's why I've been composing a clarinet sonata all these years; that's how I deal with my grief. Focusing it there, in something productive, gives me a better chance of keeping my depression from dragging me down on a day to day basis. Yes, it's not a surefire fix, but it's better than nothing."

"You could also take pills, you know," Lark said.

"I do take pills," I replied. "Er, well… I did."

Plague apocalypse plus wyrm transformation equals a high probability of forgetting to take your antidepressants.

"Well, Doc, take your own answer and riddle it over," Lark said. "As much as I loved being at Stamferd, I couldn't be there all the way. I was holding part of myself back, and once I realized that, there was no chance in hell that I could bury it and forget it was there. That's what I'd been doing up until then, and that strategy sucked ass, if I do say so myself. Getting out was all I could do, whether it was by coming out of the closet, or getting the fuck out of music school. I did the latter."

"But… why?"

I really, really didn't want to force myself into Lark's psyche. My curiosity wasn't worth earning her resentment for all eternity.

"Simple," Lark said, "I wouldn't be successful. I wanted to come out of the closet and present myself as I really am—a woman—but if I did, my career would be up shit creek. I've been training to be a classical musician. The audiences for that are traditionalists of the old, white, and pasty variety. I'd get no work. One look at my bubble tags, and they'd fly like the wind. So, given the choice between making myself a guaranteed flop and keeping my lips sealed about my deepest feelings, I chose a third option: fuck you, destiny, I'm gonna do stand-up. So I dropped out of college and started working on a stand-up comedy routine."

I paused my lips in concern.

"I hope I don't need to tell you that subordinating your self-actualization to pursuit of financial success will come back to bite you someday, especially if you suffer from depression," I said.

Lark scowled at me.

"And the classical music community isn't all bad," I said. "I mean, look at me, I'm basically an atheist, and despite that, I still found a place in it"

"You might be right," Lark said, "but… I don't care." She looked away. "I don't want to have to deal with the bullshit."

"Like…?" I asked.

Turning back to face me high over the building, Lark replied in a mocking tone, making liberal use of fingered air-quotes. "'It's a lifestyle', 'It's disordered thinking', 'you're spreading social contagion', 'you chose to be this way', 'you're making a mockery of women,'—all that shit," she said. "Forgive me if I don't want to perform for people who think I deserve eternal conscious torment in the afterlife because of my 'abominable errors'. I didn't ask to be made this way, and I sure as hell wouldn't have chosen it." She glared at me. "Yeah, I might hate myself, but I don't hate myself that much!" She sighed. "Oh, and while I'm at it—and, forgive me if I'm being racist—but," she pointed at me derisively, "you people care waaaaay too fucking much about other people's opinions."

"A guy could live the life of a saint, filling the world with beauty and goodness wherever he goes, and yet because of what he does with his body or who he chooses to have sex with, you people would say, no, fuck him for all eternity. Meanwhile, a fellow from way back who spent his days slitting people's throats over a mere difference of opinion, not only does he end up in Paradise, he becomes somebody ordinary folks will pray to for guidance."

I nodded. "I agree, it's messed up. Ken Toriyama, the man who discovered antibiotics, probably ended up single-handedly saving more lives than any other human being in history, and yet, because he wasn't Lassedile, the faith would say that yet he, too, is in Hell."

Lark stared at me. "That's really fucked up."

I sighed. "Yeah, it is."

"And why? What idiot came up with that idea?"

I sighed harder. "People say it's the price of free will." I waved my hand dismissively at that cop-out of an argument. "The thinking goes, the Godhead considers free will so valuable that They permit evil and suffering to exist because, well… that's just what happens when people have the ability to make their own decisions."

Lark stared at me like I was insane. "Is that really what you people believe?" she asked. "Because that's fucking ridiculous."

"Yes, on both counts," I said.

I patted my hands on my thighs. "But… we're getting off topic." I pointed at her. "This isn't about theodicy, this is about you."

"Theodiwhatsy?"

"The philosophical and religious problem of explaining how and why evil and suffering can exist alongside an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving god."

"Alright," Lark said, "what do you want from me?"

"I'm not going to force you to come out of the closet. But, for your own benefit, I'd like to know why you're so insistent on denying yourself."

"People deny themselves all the time," Lark replied. "Some folks do it professionally: monks, celebrities, politicians…"

"I hope you're aware that using humor to avoid confronting emotional trauma is cliché has heck," I said, with a roll of my eyes.

"I have to be a success, Dr. Howle," Lark said, lips quivering. "That fucking matters to me. I wish it didn't, but it does."

"But… why?"

Lark just stared at me.

"I hope you don't take this the wrong way," I said, "but… Lark, you're dead. Like, dead dead. Success is no longer your concern. Let yourself be yourself." I raised my hands defensively. "I won't judge, I swear. Heck," I added, "if you want… I could give you a female body."

I averted my eyes slightly, due to the awkwardness of what I'd just asked.

Lark scowled at me.

"How dare you!"

"W-What?" I stammered.

"You wouldn't understand!" She lashed out with her arm. "You can't!"

"But I literally just did!" I said. "I felt what you felt! And you felt that, too!"

"Some wounds are better left closed, Dr. Howle," she said, as she turned away and vanished. Holes blossomed over the skyline like fire-edged ulcers. Pits opened up on the streets below, swallowing up pedestrians and cars, until the white void came to dominate all.

I spun around in the void, looking left and right. "Lark? Lark?"

But she was gone.

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