<strong><em>Grendel remembers...</em></strong><br/><br/>The Sword Worlds had been a good place for the couple, not quite Imperial and not quite Zhodani.  They had then joined a polyamorous cluster.  Carriepr's telepathy had made the joining easier for Elli.  A beautiful beach on Garn was where they had all<em>joined</em>, bodies and minds.<br/><br/>It was why, a decade-and-a-half later, they had taken Chraenta to share with her the beach and its memories.  But the adolescent was standoffish and getting more so everyday.  Elli tried to guess why.  It wasn't the nudity of the beachgoers, years of living among telepaths and clairvoyants had destroyed that taboo for Elli and never established it in the first place for Chraenta.<br/><strong><br/>"What's troubling you, child?"</strong><br/><strong>"The boys and the girls, I don't fit in."</strong>Chraenta pointed to her slight and ambiguous genitalia.<br/>Elli sighed.  This was an old argument.  Carriepr sent comfort, in<em>words </em>it was<strong>"We made you adaptable, free to choose your mental and psychic self."<br/></strong><strong>"You made me a <em>freak!!"</em></strong>Chraenta ran off, soon far enough to block one of her mother's sensing.<br/>Carriepr hugged her first of spouses,<strong>"Don't worry, Ellie, she will grow into her uniqueness."<br/></strong>But Elli Ripli said,<strong>"I hope so."</strong>So far, parenting seemed to be endless and unfathomable choices, each ready to damage your child with no warning and recourse.  Psychic powers didn't seem to help.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><strong>"I hope so."</strong></span>But she couldn't hide her doubts from her first of wives...<br/>