This was a series originally written for my Long-Running TTRPG Campaign. The Datura are a genderless fox-people who live a communal life in the sands, each defined by their role in society. Youths are raised in creches, and told stories to help them learn more about their world. This is one such story meant to illustrate the purpose of the different roles, as well as the ritual of finding ones name.
(Enclosure)
Back to bed, Child. We'll continue in the morning.
With their legs finding the strength to walk, the young Datura carried their feet across the desert, step by step, into their naming day.
Who can say, in their trek across the land, when they met themselves? The young Datura certainly can not know, for it is not their place to decide. Their mind toils over riddles and roles, and all the while their soul searches.
Did they notice the dance of their hands? When they rest against Bark, did they see themselves hanging from the branch?
The young Datura certainly did not, their hands tending to the dust beneath themselves. When did they tuck the nuts into their satchel? When was it after? Who did they speak to? When did it occur? Does it matter?
They could not tell you. Ask them today, and they will tell you their name, as it is now, as it always was. And it was always was, is, and always will be have-been.
Datura do not find their name like one finds a missing sock. Datura discover their name, the way one discovers their favorite meal. Exactly that way, in fact.
The young Datura simply didn’t, not once in their many days, take close notice of the proud, dense tree outside of the creche, and didn’t notice their hands palming the bitter nuts from the ground the day before their labors. Had they noticed - or, if the Elder Ironwood had decided to point it out when they had noticed - they could have saved their feet many miles of walking. But their task was to walk, and for this day, they followed their own path.
Wherever they might go next, it is only closer to themselves.