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The stern female’s expression hardens. “You’re questioning orders?”
There is a warning in her tone, and my Brooks shifts, the muscles in her back and shoulders tightening with discomfort. I wish to soothe a hand over her, to encourage her to relax, but equally I do not wish to break her out of her remembering. It seems it is important to her that she understands what took place between her and this female.
“I just…” She swallows again, stands straighter, and my heartspace aches to see her courage. “I’m not sure it makes the best use of my skills, ma’am.”
The stern female frowns. “You don’t think it makes the best use of your skills?”
Many times as younglings, my brother and I had words we just uttered repeated back to us in this tone, so I know the stern female does not look for clarification, but gives my Brooks a chance to change her thinking. Pride fills me when my linasha does not retreat, does not back down, but firms her resolve, standing even taller.
“Not the ones I trained in, ma’am.”
There is a long moment where neither female moves, neither bends. And then the stern female cants her head to one side, an acknowledgement of the truth that my Brooks speaks.
“It’s a departure from your usual missions, I will give you that,” she says. “But it’s one we’ve all had to take, soldier. It’s in this mission that you’ll do your greatest work.”
For the first time in this conversation, my Brooks bristles, a sharp energy radiating from her. It is as much a sign of danger as the other female’s frown, but my Brooks does not have the power here. Despite her formidable strength and courage, she is as a youngling before an elder. Even this small disobedience could lead to trouble for her. Were she raskarran, speaking to a raskarran elder, I might expect her to receive some angry words, an unpleasant chore. But the stern female is part of Mercenia, and it fills me with fear to think what punishments she might exact on my linasha.
“Speak your mind, Brooks.”
A dangerous invitation, but my Brooks only squares her shoulders. Speaks.
“I’ve worked hard, ma’am. Trained hard. Top in many of my classes, high achieving in all of them. What was all that dedication, all that work for if Mercenia never really wanted me to serve on the battlefield, but on my back?”
The words rush out of her, heartfelt and imploring. As soon as the last one leaves her lips, her posture changes, and I know she is no longer remembering, but processing.
“On my back,” she repeats.
I watch outrage flood into her expression, fury bright and sharp as a blade.
“I remember,” she breathes. “The bastards wanted to knock me up.”
“Knock you?” I say. “They wished to hit you? To knock you to the floor?”
How could this be considered a duty?
My Brooks shakes her head at me.
“No, dummy, they wanted to get me pregnant.”
* * *
I awake with a start on my bed in the Mercenia hut, Delfom’s hand tight on my shoulder where he has just shaken me.
“How’s your head?”
The injury to my head feels like such a long time ago. It takes a moment for me to recall why he would be asking.
“I am fine, brother, fit and well,” I assure him, even as I probe my temple, searching for any points of soreness.
I find none, so I am not made a liar. The djenti berry tonic and the sleep I have had both have done their work to mend me.
If only heartspaces were so easily cured of their ills, for it seems to me that all the hurts of my head have now moved to my chest as I remember my linasha’s words.
They wanted to get me pregnant.
Her elders wished for her to carry a youngling she did not desire. Talked to her of it as if it were some duty she owed to them. The greatest work she could do, as if the only value she has is in her ability to bear young, her courage and cleverness counting for nothing.
Does her lack of desire for younglings come from the circumstances in which she was expected to bear them, or was the expectation only made worse by an already existing lack of desire? Either way, I can see why my linasha risked taking her displeasure to her elder, risked punishment for airing her distaste for the situation.
