She’s quickly improving her English. Not enough to read most novels by herself, but we can hold limited conversations now. Dinner is an English-only meal, which annoyed Lira very much until she decided it constituted a secret language which only a privileged few were capable of speaking. She’s quite good at learning when she sets her mind to it, and she and Rye are settling onto a similar level, which is good because Lira’s most inclined to refuse to do things she’s the worst at. Kaoren really enjoys being able to speak English. He wants to be able to read more of the books I grew up reading, and to better understand my culture, and understanding the language will make a huge difference to that, though he had to shake his head when I started explaining how English was like the Borg, assimilating all these others languages, and that Earth was hundreds of languages washing up against each other. Since I have only the vaguest knowledge of anything but English, Earth’s other languages aren’t a primary focus for him.
I’m just glad that, if I ever get to introduce my family to Mum, that they’ll be able to understand each other.
Kaoren and I have been very desperately in love with each other for the past couple of months, and finding it difficult to get enough time alone with each other, now that he’s returned to duty. He says me being pregnant is making it difficult for him to not be excessively protective and possessive. I can’t say I’m not enjoying that.
A little over six weeks along. I still don’t feel pregnant, though the medics have confirmed it. No morning sickness, no sudden enlargement of breasts, nothing but not having a period, which I’d grown used to anyway. Mara, Ketz and Jeh are all looking thoroughly pregnant now (Mara looks very thoroughly pregnant). A little under three months to go for them.
Zee told me she and Nils are going back to Tare to get married in a tiny ceremony, because Nils wants his only living relative, his extremely fragile great-great-grandmother, to be able to be there. That’s a bit of a secret.
19 - June
June 28
Baby overload
Bad morning sickness every time I wake up. Plus I successfully made Kaoren sick too, when he touched me just before I was about to vomit everywhere. He was very annoyed with himself. Fortunately we can still sleep together, but after our vomit morning he makes sure not to be too close when I wake up.
I’m just ever so slightly showing. No wriggly sensations as yet. Zee has joined in – she and Nils are having a daughter. Nils is impossibly happy, has been ever since Zee finally agreed to marry him. This, unfortunately, increases the Nils Effect – even Ys and Lira go pink when he visits, despite Nils being well above the age range they are starting to be confused about.
Mara has had her babies early. Kyo and Jerl are very identical, and Sera, who will have four brothers, is extra-small and tiny. I’d say she was doomed to be spoiled and overprotected, but given that she’s Mara’s daughter I expect her to be kicking their asses in no time. They all had to stay in hospital for a couple of days, due to being early, but they seem to be healthy despite being so tiny, and Lohn and Mara have been able to bring them home. I took just Sen to visit so as not to be overwhelming, and Sen was very good, staying extra-quiet and treating them like snowflakes – not even letting herself breathe too hard near them. Mara is pretty exhausted – her pregnancy really started to wear on her the last few weeks – and poor Lohn was totally exhausted as well – he worried himself to the bone, and still hasn’t gotten any sleep, I think. Shar has taken over the household during their distraction. He’s very low-key, but somehow the things they need all just happen to be right at hand. And he changes nappies.
He’s still a very close-mouthed boy. I sometimes wonder what Shar thinks about being placed in with the sacrifices, since he is one of two of the absolute highest rank who survived. Very few of the Nuran children at the talent school will ever talk about the families they lost. Partly because they miss them, but also because there is a good deal of quiet speculation as to whether any of their immediate family were part of the conspiracy, since it’s believed to have been almost entirely confined to the noble caste. The question of whether your parents decided to sacrifice not only your world, but also you, as part of a bid for immortality is hardly a thing you want to poke at too deeply.
I don’t think he’s unhappy – he seems to enjoy various sporty things, and training his talents, and reading – but Mara worries about the distance he keeps between himself and most everyone else, and the fact that he doesn’t have any close friends. Though she did say he seems to like bringing Fein over to Arcadia, and she thinks that’s because he likes talking to Kaoren. If Shar was ten years older, he’s the type of person I guess Kaoren would socialise with, and Kaoren has also been helping him with Sights training. Maybe, when the age gap isn’t so big a part of the whole, they’ll end up friends.
Muina is preparing for elections in a few months – it’s taken ages for a method of government to be agreed upon, and it’s basically a watered-down version of the Taren system, with a combination of merit and election for whole heaps of very important positions, including each city’s governor, but also a straight-out popularity contest for world governor – which is a more practical role than you’d expect given that anyone can nominate – and is not even required to pass a basic civics exam. It’s going to be very interesting (and a bit worrying) to see what the policy decisions will be once KOTIS is no longer in primary control. Now that they’ve finally agreed on that, the news has been full of discussion about who is going to nominate for what, and of course Kolar v Tare issues, not to mention what little Nuran representation there’ll be.
They’ve slowed down settlement the last few months, wanting to get the four main cities better established, and the first few of the big farms producing. The big farms are mainly around Zurenath and Liriath. Zurenath was the site of a lot of farms before the disaster, and Liriath is handily flat and fertile and far enough south to not be snowy. In a way it’s kind of awful – vast areas being cleared for farming – but they are at least making a strong effort not to completely destroy habitat, and keeping what Earth would call wildlife corridors in.
They decided that it was really important to do that. Muina’s ecology is a bit all over the place because outside the circles of coverage around the platform towns, Ionoth have been pretty rampant – cleared by the Ddura on a far more sporadic basis. Native species have survived out there – just dealing with a lot more predators and competitors – and there are some adapted Ionoth too, which the Ddura no longer seem to recognise as foreign to the planet. Settling outside the protected areas is still a big risk at the moment.
The tears into the Ena are healing – painfully slowly. Since they no longer gape, there’s no longer nearly so many Ionoth finding their way into real space, but Ena missions are still necessary on Tare and Kolar – and scheduled on Muina for research and to clear the few non-Ddura-protected settlements like Kaszandra. Fourth and First-Second (currently captained by Grif) have been very busy the past month. Maze and Lohn have both taken long leave (and Regan will take leave once his two sons are born). Kaoren’s continued to exhaust himself with Ena missions, and will be up to when our baby’s born, which has annoyed his mother a great deal.
Teor just won’t let herself believe that Kaoren really enjoys being a Setari. Partly, I’d say, just because of his own sheer excellence at it. He likes the challenge, he likes doing well, and he likes being in charge. The exploration tasks are his favourites – he usually talks about those missions with me afterwards, describing what he’s seen and talking about all the worlds which must be out there in fact or fiction to produce those spaces. It’s dangerous, and the longer missions exhaust him, but if he didn’t take it so seriously it would be fun for him.