Tinker sighed. “Why? Things are working fine this way.”
“No, it’s not, and you’re the only one that doesn’t see that. For instance, Pony is just a baby to the rest of us.”
“He’s at least a hundred.” She knew he was an adult, although just barely, like she had been as an eighteen-year-old human. Unfortunately, now she fell into a nebulous zone of being just barely adult for years and years.
“He just left the doubles this year.” Meaning last year, he could use two numbers to indicate his age. “Only half of Windwolf’s sekasha are in the triples — the rest are older.”
“How old are you?” Tinker was fairly sure Stormsong was one of the younger sekasha. She was starting to be able to look at elves and see their age indicators. It was odd, to have her concept of Windwolf slowly change from “adult” to “her age” as her perception of all elves changed.
“I’m two hundred.” Which made her Pony’s age, because to the elves that hundred year difference barely counted.
“So we’re all same approximately the same age.”
“You wish.” Stormsong took out a pack of Juicy Fruit gum and offered her a stick. “Yeah, physically Pony and I are like a human teenagers, but we’ve still had a hell of lot longer than you to figure out people.”
Tinker took the gum and let the taste explode in her mouth. “What’s your point? Is Pony old or young?”
“That is my point.” Stormsong took a piece for herself and put away the pack. “He’s the youngest of the sekasha, but he’s your First.”
“Are you trying to confuse me?”
“Anything regarding you, Pony is in charge, but he’s the youngest of the sekasha.”
This was starting to make her head hurt. “Are you talking…seniority?”
“Seniority. Seniority.” Stormsong took out a small dictionary, flipped through it, and read off the entry for seniority. “Precedence of position, especially precedence over others of the same rank by reason of a longer span of service.”
“Oh that’s not fair,” Tinker complained. “You get a dictionary. I want one for Elvish.”
“We don’t have such things.” Stormsong put away the dictionary. “They would be too useful.”
Tinker had to put “Elvish Dictionary” on her project list.
“Yes.” Stormsong continued. “Pony needs seniority over those he commands, which he doesn’t have because none of us are yours. What’s more when the bullets start to fly, we need to know which way to jump. Pony doesn’t need to think. But the rest of us — we have pledged our lives to Windwolf — it’s him we should be thinking of — but we know that only Pony is watching over you.”
“I told Windwolf I’d think about this.”
“Humans have a wonderful saying: assume is making an ass out of ‘u’ and me. Windwolf assumes that Pony will guide you in your choice, and Pony assumes that you know all.”
“So you’re doing it.”
“Hell, someone has to.”
“If it’s Pony’s job, shouldn’t I just tell him that I don’t know shit?”
Stormsong gave her a look that Tinker recognized from years of being a child genius.
“Oh gods,” Tinker cried. “Don’t look at me that way!”
“What way?”
“The ‘what a clever little thing’ look. It horrifies me how long I’m going to have to put up with that now that I’m an elf.”
Stormsong laughed, and then lapsed into Low Elvish, sounding properly contrite. “Forgiveness, domi.”
“Oh, speak English.”
“Yes,” Stormsong said in English. “You should talk to Pony, since those you hold need to work well with him. Let me give you pointers he might not think of — he is still new at this. Blind leading the blind and all that shit.”
“You’re not going to take ‘later’ as an answer?”
“Kid, how splattered with shit do you need to get before you realize it’s hitting the fan? We’re fuck deep in oni, Wyverns and Stone Clan. Now is not the time to be worrying about chain of command.”
Stormsong had a way of driving the point home with a sledgehammer. Tinker just wished she wasn’t the one being hammered. “Fine, point away.”
“What all sekasha want is seniority. To be First. Failing that — in the First Hand.” Top five she meant. “Forever at the bottom is a bitch. Pony was wise to seize the chance to be your First once he saw what you were made of. You’ve proved yourself with keeping both Windwolf and Pony safe from the oni — that’s what a good domi does — so all of us are willing to fill your Hand.”
“But…” Tinker swore she could hear a ‘But’ in there somehow.
“It would be best for all—” Stormsong paused and then added, “— in my opinion— that you don’t choose from Windwolf’s First Hand.”
“Why not?”
“Most domana fill their First Hand with sekasha just breaking their doubles. The domana want the glory a hand gives them, and the sekasha see it as a way to be in First Hand. We call it a vanity hand. The thing is that most domana can’t attract a Second Hand because not only the incentive of being First is gone, the sekasha of the Second Hand have to be willing to serve under the First Hand. Likewise the Third Hand knows that they will be junior to the First Hand and the Second. Adding into this is the personality of the domana: does the positive of being beholden to that domana outweigh the negative of not having seniority? Many domana can only hold vanity hands.”
“Okay.” Tinker had assumed that all domana had multiple hands. Apparently not.
“Windwolf’s grandfather — Howling — helped tear us away from the Skin Clan and form the monarchy that keeps the clans from waging endless war. When he was assassinated, his sekasha became Longwind’s — but not as his First or Second, since those were already filled.”
“Ouch.” Tinker wondered how this related.
“Yes, it was a step down for them — but they saw it fitting since they failed Howling,” Stormsong said. “Windwolf wanted his First Hand to advise him on setting up in this new land, setting up new towns and lines of trade, something he didn’t think doubles could help him do. So he approached the sekasha of his grandfather’s Hands and they accepted. It would make them First Hand again, but more importantly, they believed in him. Wolf Who Rules has always lived up to his name.”
“So, the First Hand, they’re all thousands of years old?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” So maybe she wasn’t so good at guessing age — none of the sekasha struck her as older than late twenties in human terms. Tinker finished setting the non-conductive pins that would hold the spell level. “Can you take down your shield? I’m going to set the compressor spell into place.”
Tinker didn’t want to risk brushing the spell tracing up against an active spell. Stormsong spoke the command that deactivated her shields. A slight pricking that Tinker hadn’t really noticed vanished, making her aware by its absence that she had been feeling the active magic.
“Thanks.” Tinker took the filigreed sections of the spell out of their protective packing and fit them into place.
Stormsong watched her for a few minutes before continuing her explanation. “It was his First Hand that let Windwolf to pull a Second and Third Hand made up of triples and quads.”
“So why—” Tinker paused to make sure all the pieces of the spell were stable and level. “Why shouldn’t I take any of Windwolf’s First? Wouldn’t that help me, like it helped him?”