And I am very extremely happy to no longer be so important – not even the only touchstone! I’m still not allowed out without a guard, at least until they’re absolutely certain the Cruzatch won’t reappear, and there’ll be laws about my visualisation and projection abilities regardless, but it’s the beginning of a new phase, and I can look forward to just focusing on looking after the kids and being with Kaoren and escaping the cycle of injuries which seems to be the inevitable consequence of playing hero.
And maybe occasionally making dragons. Because!
Kaoren’s asleep in the chair next to my bed again. I haven’t had enough chance to be alone with him. He needs to be able to hold me, I think, and know properly that I’m still with him.
Wednesday, November 5
Looking Ahead
Considerably better today, and cleared to not have to live in medical, so I immediately went for a walk down to the lake’s edge all by myself and sat on a rock feeling very daring. I’m a sad case. It was quite five minutes before anyone noticed (for all I was in full view of the common room) and I sat there sunning myself and looking forward to the days when no-one is assigned to guard me.
Par and Glade were my current watchdogs, and Glade came out very aggrieved and said: "You have no idea the tortures we’ll be subjected to. If you’re going to sneak off, make sure it’s when someone from First is assigned to you."
I grinned at him (as much as my very sore face would allow anyway). "I won’t tell Kaoren if you don’t."
"He’ll know. He always does." Glade gave me an equivocal look. "I think for the moment it’s just easier on all of us to know exactly where you are, and to be sure you’ve someone with you."
He meant that Kaoren has been stressed beyond the point of endurance, and I wrinkled my nose, but nodded. "I know. But I give fair warning that I’m going to be a lot less biddable and obedient about staying where I’m put in future. Just walking out here is the first time I’ve gone anywhere by myself in months. Once we’re sure that the Cruzatch aren’t able to get here anymore, I hope to go back to not having people assigned to guard me at all."
"I’m glad it’s not me you have to win that argument with." He glanced toward Pandora’s heart, probably thinking about Tsur Selkie, who had summoned all the captains for a meeting with Muina’s leaders to talk about colony-building. "Not that the rules haven’t changed in a big way. But Cruzatch aren’t the only thing we’re protecting you from, and given all that you’ve done and could do, I don’t see any end to your guard roster."
"Maybe they’ll guard me secretly, like the Nurans do those at Nurenor," I said, and saw from Glade’s lack of reaction that he thought it very likely, if I kicked up too much of a fuss about people following me around.
That kind of put a damper on my day, but I’m still too pleased and amazed to be alive to get too upset about it. Instead I went up to the seats on the very top of the Setari building – the tree is very leafy and shady up there now and it was a warm day – only to find Nils asleep in the grass, surrounded by little daisies. There’s a bruise on one side of his mouth from impacting with the back of my head and his split lip has only started healing, but somehow this made him look smexier than usual.
I’m pretty sure he woke up straight away, but pretended not to, and I decided to act like I thought he was still asleep. Nils' quick thinking with the drones basically saved the planet, but I’m still uncomfortable with him – mainly because I’m bursting to tell him that he’s being very unkind to Zee, or tell Zee just how hurt Nils is – and I don’t think either of them would forgive me for raising the subject.
After finding a position on the bench that didn’t pinch my ribs, I opened a channel to Mara (who had the kids for the morning and was teaching them more basic combat moves) and asked if I could borrow Ys for a while. Ys duly came up, her expression particularly fierce. It made my heart turn over, because I knew it meant she was feeling uncertain. I’d never summoned any of them before. Glade and Par had retired a little down slope, and Nils continued pretending to be asleep as I pointed to the seat opposite.
"You’re supposed to be in medical," Ys said. She much prefers attack to defence.
"I escaped while they were looking the other way," I said cheerfully. "I have a particular job for you. I found this program which we can use to help try and work out what our house will be like. It’s a bit fiddly and annoying, and I keep getting a headache trying to use it. See if you have better luck, and if you think you can work it properly, we’ll have a family meeting and start figuring out what we’d like to have where. Let me know if it’s too hard for you, and I’ll ask Kaoren instead."
Nils lifted his head and gave me an amused look, but Ys was properly insulted by the suggestion that anything might fall in the too hard basket for her, and promptly lost herself in my thinly disguised present for her.
"You’re building a house?" Nils asked, propping himself on one hand.
"We want to try get permission to build on one of the islands. Barracks living some good points, but this give us more privacy, and I can have garden to neglect, and we won’t have to be escorted about as much for fear of passers-by." I shrugged. "It’s just more what I’m used to."
"And given your capacity to acquire children, the barracks won’t be large enough," he added over the interface. "Are you planning on many more?"
"Not for a while. Four’s more than I was thinking of, already. We won’t worry about that until after we’re married anyway."
My face had gone hot, and Nils laughed at me. "So easy," he said aloud, making Ys give him a deeply suspicious look. Fortunately Lohn showed up, and told us about a ceremony of thanksgiving that the provisional council had decided they wanted, to celebrate the colony’s survival, and to honour the Setari for their work in fighting the Cruzatch.
That news was a sign that the captains had been released from the meeting, and Kaoren and Grif dropped down a couple of minutes later. Kaoren just rested against me silently, without saying anything at all. He’s finding it incredibly difficult to be away from me at the moment, so I’m glad I’ve been cleared to sleep in our quarters. Mara arrived with the rest of the kids, so I had Sen for my other side, and smiled to see that Sen and Lira are both wearing their hair in two beribboned braids and are looking disconcertingly like sisters. Ys seems to have donated all her girlier clothes to Lira.
Lira is very upright and distant with most everyone, and is being very formally polite to me, as if she’s a guest with relative strangers, but she immediately sat down beside Ys and the pair of them kept whispering comments to each other.
When Maze arrived he gave me one of his super smiles while he brought all the Setari – Taren, Kolaren and Nuran – into a single channel. He spoke aloud, though, specifically so Lira could hear what was going on, I think.
"The drone which managed to return from the rift shows that while the power flares are dying back, the landscape there is continuing to shift," he said. "It is likely that the Pillars have either been destroyed, or have shut down. This does not mean it’s impossible to reach Tare and Kolar, but that an extremely time-consuming process will need to be undertaken to map the currents of deep-space. The route is not necessarily closed, or even altered, but it will be a matter of delicate timing to navigate. Once we establish the timing, there is likely to only be a narrow window for travel, so multiple daily journeys will be a thing of the past unless we can re-establish the Pillars. That’s a matter for the long-term future."