It's funny how things can change on you, and how the changing makes other things change, and how those things changing results in an entirely different thing. Maybe I'm not explaining it right. Let me try a different way. Let me change it up.
When I was a young boy, before I knew anything of the ways of the world, I was told countless times that I would one day be the king of my people. My father had been the king before he died, and his father before him. It was always this way, as far back as the Changing People could remember. Funny, that we should be called that, right? We're a people that change; we change our surroundings, change our relations, change our forms. All of this shifting around, changing our circumstances, but we don't honor those changes the some of us might want some make.
They called me a freak, y'know. Some of them. They said I was unnatural. Not all of them, of course. These people are still family, and that counts for a lot to both them and me. I still remember Ol' Mam, who'd always call me "little prince," and John Belgass, who taught me to wield a blade in my left hand. I remember my uncle, Dirty Charlie, who explained what the Change was when I had seen it with my own eyes a little too early in my life. And my ma, who was the first to suspect and the first to know my secret truth; I remember her tears, because she couldn't yet comprehend what I was becoming; what I had always been.
When I was a man, though a young one, my father died in a hunt. It was a scary time for everyone, and I remember mourning the loss while fretting for the future. Even at that point, I understood what would happen in days or even mere hours, and all at the worst possible time. It was inevitable, and it would bring a firestorm down on the whole community. It would all be my fault. I recall wanting to leave, expecting to be cast out, thinking it would all be for the best. Knowing I could never really go through with the leaving.
Y'see, I saw the chance to change my stars and I took it. I saw an opportunity to become what I'd always been inside, and I chose not to turn my back on it. I'm not a man. I am, and have always been, many things; I'm a wolf, a monster, a leader, a woman. And that last one was the hardest thing for my changing people to understand and accept. But I was exposed; there was no turning back.
The old ones held a meeting a few days after my secret truth became known. They discussed my fate over smoke and fire, coffee and tea. They knew me; most of them agreed readily to this. I was of the people, with strong blood; most of them nodded in approval. They needed a strong leader; my lineage and hunt record spoke for themselves. Most of all, they insisted on having a King, as it had always been. Though my gender is not what they would have expected, nor perhaps what they would like, I am their King. As it has always been. As it will always be. And when I die, my child shall rise to take my place and he (or she, or they) shall be King as well. Change is what you make it. I changed, and in doing so, other things changed around me. And the changing led to even more. It's funny that way.