Early in the morning, the mist on the pond hides both the upper falls entering the pond and the lower falls departing for the lagoon below. The sun will come further up and reveal all, but for the moment it is possible to imagine that all is peaceful.
Hannah, alone with her thoughts, comes around a bend to the water side. Sitting crosslegged on a flat rock beside the water is Folly's mother, Brij. She hasn't been here any other morning Hannah has walked here.
She smiles at Hannah, but doesn't break her silence.
Hannah smiles. "Good Morning. You've found one of the best spots in Xanadu to escape to. How are you?"
Brij stretches, moving with the lithe grace of a woman who is both an athlete and a dancer. "Oh, you know. Unhinged. But I think that it's generally OK to get a little unhinged when you find out that, no you're really not a regular person. How do the rest of you all cope when you find out that you're immortal superheroes?"
Hannah chuckles and finds a nearby rock. "I was never allowed the luxury of believing I was regular, exactly. Perhaps that helped me. I just consider it an opportunity. Things I'd thought I was already too old for are possible now. Still, it's a transition."
She shrugs. "I've taken the way I believed the world works, and have been trying to make all this new information fit into that. I haven't quite reconciled it all... yet. I cope with throwing myself into work, just like I always have. How do you usually cope when life gets uncomfortable?"
Brij's laugh is short and sharp, almost like a bark. "I pick something new and become dominant at it. I was a child-athlete, a best-of-all-time gymnast. I got bored and became a celebrity, and I got bored and got a doctorate, and I got bored and became a writer. I'm 46 and I've buried a husband and I've had lovers who are 20 times older than I am, which is weird, because my civilization was using iron weapons to kill each other 2000 years ago,
"The only thing that ever challenged me was Folly, because we were the only two at the same level of the game. Now I'm here, and it's like I'm a child again, except this time nobody wants me to be the world's best gymnast."
She puts her hands on the rock and unfolds herself into a handstand, effortlessly. "I can still do this, but nobody is going to give me medals for it." She smiles. "Sorry you asked yet?"
Hannah laughs. "Not at all. You sound like you're very competent at remaking yourself. Consider that this doesn't have to be a competition. What do you want to do? Or what can you do to help? They need so much help here, really. Not the family, but everyone else. There is a city to shape. There is a forest to protect. You could be a sea captain if you wanted. Anything. Teach children... this..." Hannah gestures at the handstand.
Brij folds herself back down into lotus position. "This is just concentration and control of your body. I can import a dozen coaches from Texorami who can teach this and who love to teach. It sounds like what most of them did when they were kids was go conquer a bunch of places and get that out of their system.
"So, yeah, Pirate Queen might suit me. Or not. Maybe they all went out into shadow because they grew up in Amber and wanted to get the dust off their feet as soon as they could, out where no one would ever find their mistakes.
"For me that's Texorami, though. I don't want to go back, right now. And I've been told about Huon's brother, so nobody's willing to let me on the Pattern, even if they did tell me about it.
"So, here I am, looking for trouble, but not seeing any I like, yet."
She looks more closely at Hannah. "When are you due?"
Hannah shrugs. "Months and months yet. Enough time to put everything off but close enough that it has begun to sink in. So, as you see, I found my trouble." She pats her stomach fondly. "World conquering isn't really something I'm interested in. Are you interested in learning emergency field medicine? How's your stomach?"
Brij ignores the question about her stomach, which is an answer in and of itself. "Well, emergency field medicine would definitely come in handy if I do become a Pirate Queen. I don't want anyone sawing off my leg just because we're someplace without a hospital. I didn't pay attention to much that might've been medicine related in school, though. I think germs are about 6 inches high, like they were in the cartoons in the Health class books. What do you have in mind?"
"I'm on a kick getting people trained in emergency medicine. New city, buildings are built too fast with too little supervision, things collapse. Anything could happen, really. Having someone strong to help me in those situations, or even better, help other people - that sounds good to me. I'd be willing to train you, if you wanted to learn. Even the amputation part." Hannah raises her eyebrows in question.
Brij nods and climbs down from her rock. She picks up a towel and slings it behind her neck and nods. "I wouldn't be sorry to learn. I'm ready to start when you are. You treat Gerard, right? The one who got hurt in a cave collapse or something?"
Hannah nods. "We can start today." She stands up herself. "Let's go up to the infirmary and I'll show you all the tools and talk about what they do. And we'll build you a bag you can just pick up and take with you if something happens."
Brij nods, and will follow Hannah to the infirmary. She doesn't seem at all self conscious about her tights and leotard outfit, even though it is definitely not the style in Xanadu. In the East, it would've been positively indecent, although the former gymnast is completely covered up, except for her bare feet.
"Good. Bleysy told me that almost all of them have some medical training, so I suppose I'm still following along, the younger kid sister and all. Still, I have a thing or two that they don't. Like the ability to have a birthday cake that won't set the castle on fire."
Hannah stops loading items into a bag and takes a good look at Brij. "Why are you calling him Bleysy?"
Brij smiles. "I just do. It's a sign of affection, I suppose. Reminds me and him that he shouldn't be such a stuffed shirt. Someday you can ask him to rattle off his list of titles or tell you how he's clearly the rightful heir to Oberon and if you can get through that, calling him Bleysy sort of humanizes him again. Same as with Huey.
"And I get away with it because I'm small and cute."
Hannah nods. "Is that the way you want people to think of you? As small and cute?"
Hannah tilts her head. "I'm not trying to be harsh. It makes you seem even younger than you likely are. You're about to be a grandmother, yes?"
Brij waves away her concern. "Folly's grandmother died of age-related illnesses. Given the potential for being young and being old, I'd rather be young. Besides, even if this 'One True Earth' was the feminist paradise of gender equality that it isn't, all the power is tied up in people who to whom I'll be young for centuries more."
This makes Hannah smile. "At least we get a vote. Oh, wait..."
She looks at Hannah. "You're young. Folly is a baby. Bleys is about where they start counting as adults. Maybe Caine is on the cusp. The King? The King who was alive five hundred years ago? He's young too. Nothing we do can make us not seem young on that scale."
Hannah shrugs. "There's age, and then there's maturity. I guess I don't worry too much about what they think of me, as long as they don't think I'm a snack. I was too busy being old and wise when I really was a child. They don't make me feel young - they make me feel... lucky. Stable. Their raising was nothing I'd wish on anyone, and they're still learning how to be a proper family. If that's even possible. So if being young means not wanting to put my siblings' eyes out or fight over who gets the pretty hat, then I'll take young too. Cute, I'll do without. Seems more trouble than it's worth."
Brij laughs. "I've been small and cute all my life. I was just getting to the stage where people should've been saying 'wow, she looks great for her age', and they weren't. Bleys says that's the shadows lying for me, which is a metaphor; there's no directing consciousness. People naturally see what we project. It's an autonomous function, like remembering to breathe. What I can do that not even all of his siblings bothered to learn, is I can, if I'm careful and concentrate and work on it-- I can see through the lies the shadows make for you.
"When you're here, it's nothing. It's little things, like looking less concerned than you really are. Or noticing one of us when we're in a crowd and don't want to be noticed. All the guys have big guyish 'doing things' tricks that they do. I see things." She pauses a second, and screws up her mouth. "That came out wrong, but you know what I mean."
Hannah nods. "Yes. Like who is pregnant but may not be shouting it to the world yet." She smiles.
Brij laughs, a quick sharp noise. "See, to me, you can't help but show it. Do you know how many years it took me to learn to only be this blunt in private? I'm not an easy woman to befriend, so be careful if that's your aim."
"Oh, I'm used to hearing truths I may not want to face. I don't know if we'll be friends yet. That's just a thing that happens or doesn't." Hannah shrugs, aware she's talking to a white woman who must be used to people 'trying' to be her friend.
She follows Hannah back to the castle, still talking. "I know all about age and maturity being unlinked. Syd-- Random dated my daughter for years. He's like four hundred and eighty four years older than her, give or take. People thought he was in his early twenties when he started hanging with her and that he was being sorta creepy. I got a certain about of crap for that, but when I saw him, I saw a kid, like Folly. He's not so much of a kid now. He grew up a lot in Texorami and after. But at the time I knew they were suited to each other and that he and I weren't. It wasn't until I talked to Bleys and Fiona that I figured out why I saw things differently than anyone else in Texorami."
Hannah explains what she's packed into the bag, and how it's used. It's all quite low-tech and field ready. It doesn't include a bone saw. She does pull one out of storage and show Brij. She then asks a series of questions to try to determine what Brij does and doesn't know about anatomy, organ systems and yes, germs. At least she knows what germs are!
Brij has a basic understanding of biology, at the level of core systems. She may not know the role of the lymph nodes, but key life-sustaining processes are understood; circulation, respiration, digestion, and such. He knowledge of muscles, joints, and bones is unsurprising, since she has a background as an athlete. She's actually quite ready to be a medic.
Hannah is quite happy with Brij's education. "So are you someone who learns by doing, or by reading, or both? We'll go about this however you like. Early mornings, late nights... how-ever."
"I get to pick? I like my mornings to myself, so if late nights is an option, that's my choice. Learning style? Books for theory, my hands for manual skills.
"Seems like we ought to set up in town, not up here, if we want to make things happen."
Hannah smiles widely. "That is exactly what I've been thinking. Running clinics to help the city, and practice, and running other clinics to train up some sort of response team. How are you at teaching?"
Brij makes a face. "Good, if the student is attentive and smart. Which is to say that I can teach an interested and talented student." She pauses. "I'm not very good at teaching the slow or distracted." She picks up an unfamiliar medical tool. "What does this one do? Nevermind, I'm distracted. What do we need to do next to get clinics running in Xanadu by the sea?"
"I suspect there are some going already - it's something I was working on getting started before Gerard and I went out to Shadow. But I'd love to go down with you, find the part of town most in need of one, and just get it set up. We can talk to the mayor if things get complicated. Did you know Ash when he was in Texorami?"
Brij laughs. "Yes. We were both accused of murder together when people started disappearing. He was the one I talked to the most about the band when I was writing my book.
"I never slept with him, despite what the press said. He was strange. He used to be an anarchist musician and then he became an anarchist monarchist, which I never got. But he said it was because of a bunch of stuff he and Syd talked about."
Hannah nods. "People can change when they find out the universe - at least part of it - has a structure they weren't expecting. Did Ash make that transition before he came here? That's interesting.
"We can go down and get started if you like. I just need to make a quick drop of some books from my room to the library first."
Brij walks down the narrow and twisty path with ease, as if she doesn't even have to look where she's going. If she were a horse, she'd be described as "sure-footed." It's unclear if she would laugh or be annoyed at such a comparison.
"Let's." She turns back towards Hannah, still walking. "Do you know what the biggest difference between Xanadu and Texorami is? In Texorami, we'd just about gotten done with legions of human servants, except for the rich and decadent. And even there, you sometimes wondered if it was a jobs program for the children of the other servants." She smiles. "I don't know if i should be surprised that Syd kept them or not. Not sure if you can run that big a house without them, not and do anything else. Still, it's weird to be a member of the decadent royalty."
"I can't claim it's too much different for me. The technology... that's different, and I'm interested to see if all the machines in the castle will be used by the citizens in the city. So many are immigrants from a lower technology place, it may take awhile for them to adjust to everything, just like it will take the very high technology people flowing in..." Hannah trails off and stops.
"Let's go see if we can get a prisoner out on work release. There is a medic in the dungeons - or at least he was last I heard. Such a waste, really."
Random is not avaiable and while Hannah and Brij find the guarded chamber where the prisoner is easily, the guard is hesitant to release him without authorization.
Hannah is understanding about this, but looks disappointed nevertheless.
While discussing the matter with him, Soren walks up. "I heard you all from the Studio. Good morning, Lady Brij, Lady Hannah." He looks at the guard and the two royals.
Hannah smiles at Soren. "Good morning. How have you been? Do you perchance have the authority to release Kyril to me for work duty?"
Brij smiles as well, but it seems forced.
Soren looks between the two of them. "I do. I might even exercise it, under certain circumstances. Kyril's down here for a reason."
Brij looks impatient. "What circumstances, Daniels?"
Soren smiles back. "First, his oath to refrain from contacting Solange and to report it if she contacts him. Second, his parole will be granted to you, personally. Third, he will adopt a use-name in the City, and not go by Kyril. That last is for his own protection. Can you live with that, Lady Hannah? I'll ask that you and Lady Brij also refrain from contacting Solange, for his safety."
Hannah winces at the idea of personally taking his parole, but she gets over it. "Well, I was hoping to use letting him talk to her as the crook, but perhaps I can use 'passing her a message' as such. Is that even allowed? I'd want to have a discussion with him before I take responsibility. I didn't realize y'all were so worried about his... contact with her."
Soren shrugs, "I don't see any reason to cross Prince Gerard, and those were his orders. It's not like any of us have been in contact with his daughter anyway. But Kyril has been pretty cooperative. He'd rather get out than sit in his cell and sulk."
Brij blows her bangs out of her eyes, looking all of 15. "So he's under arrest as a hostage? Shouldn't that rate a nicer cell?"
Soren laughs. "I asked the same question. Apparently he helped his girlfriend break some rule that Gerard had just laid down. So, pretty direct disobedience of the Regent, or so I hear." He smiles. "He hasn't been able to win his freedom at poker, so maybe he can buy it by being useful. I'd rather he were a pampered political prisoner. I need the space he's in."
Hannah nods. "And I need medics. The Prince Regent was rightfully mad about the incident. I'm not sure Kyril could have stopped Solange, but nor do I know if he even tried. Still, it has been some time - if there was a lesson to be learned, hopefully he got it. If not, staying in there longer won't help. I'll take his parole."
Soren nods to the guard, who opens a door and steps aside. Inside is a well-appointed small suite of rooms. Kyril is sitting at a desk, writing. "Yes, what is it? Oh, guests."
He gets up, looking from Soren to Brij and Hannah.
"Hey, Kyril," say Soren. "Someone may have found a use for you."
The doctor looks skeptical.
Hannah smiles wryly. "I need medics - and medics who can train medics. We're going to build clinics as needed, and build skills. Especially field skills. But for the great privilege of being put to work, I'll need you to swear to me you'll make no attempt to contact Solange, and you'll report if she attempts to or succeeds in contacting you. That means, even if she manages, you mustn't leave to her.
"Also, you must tell Brij good jokes. She's easily bored."
Kyril nods. "Solly's really nice. However I've been in this well-apportioned but dark cell long enough. I'll take that deal." He turns to Brij. "Nice to meet you. The funniest story I know is about a hotshot young surgeon whose girlfriend turned out to be a space alien, and he got thrown into jail in her ancestral castle because she sassed her dad. Call my Ky."
Brij takes his hand. "Charmed, Ky. It's a very familiar story to me as well, but in mine both the girl and the boy were 'space aliens', and the girl didn't know it. You may have met my 'space alien' daughter around here someplace. Welcome to the team."
Brij turns to Hannah. "Let's get Ky out to where he can see the sun."
Hannah thanks Soren and leads the way back out and down, chattering a bit about what she's already tried to do in the city (much interrupted by other concerns) and what she'd like to see with the clinics. "My end goal is to have a small army of field medics ready to grab a pack and make a run to wherever trouble happens. Easy enough," Hannah laughs.
"Ky, how educated are you with the level of technology here?"
"A laudible goal. After Solly left me in Lauderdale and the war came, I was drafted into the army. At least it was early enough that they took surgeons as surgeons, but I was the recipient of the work of an army of field medics."
He sighs. "Didn't like it, mostly because the war was stupid. But I can do it. And you're going to have to re-educate me on the whole technology thing. I keep talking to Soren about things he can do with electricity and he keeps telling me that stuff I know will work won't work. I don't get it."
Brij snorts. "You're good with Immortal All-Powerful Space Alien Royal Drummers, but the lack of a garbage disposal weirds you out?" She shakes her head and turns to Hannah. "You were right, he is funny."
Hannah just grins. "I'm from a place were electrical iceboxes were as like to explode as not, so I'm just impressed at how everyone assumes the one in the palace won't. Makes me nervous. I tend to teach assuming nothing will be working right. Assume the electricity will be out. Assume tech-driven lines of communication with be down. Hell, assume magical lines of communication will be down. Assume public panic. What can we do with a fire and some basic tools and how do we defend ourselves while doing it? And how quick can we do it, and for how many people? Then if we have the technology, it's bonus, but we're prepared for the worst.
"I know that sounds mad, but I don't know what the King is capable of - and I assume it's a state secret anyway. Or, conversely, what his enemies are capable of. The first thing I'd try to do if I was a fighting force is take out the enemy's communication structure. That means all crisis's are local to one's person - you have to deal with the problems where you are without help, or move to where you think the problems are. But even just a magical accident might take down magical communication for all I know about it. But I'm rambling.
"The short answer is, I haven't figured all the tech out myself, but do have a better grasp of what medical technology works here. Then there is the medical tech I haven't tested. Like electromagnetic radiation imaging. Haven't tried it, and I don't know if anyone else has either - and I don't know how the protections I've seen elsewhere would work here.
"Do you have a surgical specialty?"
"The board thinks it was Pediatric Trauma, but that was before the war. Either we all lost our specialties or else everyone took mine. Sorta useful for what you want, but sorta not. I'm not really ready to cover the entire trauma team needs of an entire city, or set up a training program that does."
The two women and their parolee reach the door the castle and step outside. Kyril blinks, hard, and turns his face to the sun. "I feel heliotropic..."
"Doctor Sunflower," says Brij.
Ky nods, accepting the sobriquet.
"We should have gotten you a hat," Hannah smiles. "Just let us know if it's too much.
"So... you're good with delicate surgeries then? By hand, not machine-assisted?"
"I'll be fine. This is puny northern-style sunlight. Bright, but not like on the beach at Lauderville. Depends on what you mean by machine, Lady Hannah. A Rib-Spreader is a machine, so is a Ven Systems Model 3000 Laproscope. Computerized robotic surgeons were the stuff of fiction, before the war. I was good with delicate surgeries. The Southern Pacifica College of Surgeons would probably want me to re-qualify and confirm my continuing education credits before putting me back in a civilian hospital. It's been longer than I like since I used those skills.
"But, they're not here. Lack of machines will limit what we can do, but having someone on the spot who knows how to stop bleeding is frequently the most important step."
Kyril turns down the stairs leading to the broad switchback path leading down the cliffside. He looks down at the growing city below and whistles. "If they don't have basic sanitation under control, it'l be nasty when the rainy season comes. And I can see why you don't want the medics to be so far from the city. I'd forgotten how long this walk was."
"It's faster if we run," says Brij, "and more fun. I hear the King has been known to cliff-dive, but he's more immortal than I am." Brij does look like she could run down the cliff without doing more than breaking a sweat. Kyril probably can't.
Hannah laughs. "Yes, it seems a hobby around here for people to figure out how to get down to the city faster. For myself, I like a little stroll. If you want to head down, Brij, we'll catch up. It'll give me time to ask the doc my questions." Hannah is happy to give Brij the address she's headed for.
"Nah, I'd rather stick with you. I may learn something from your questions."
Hannah explains what the plans were for sewage mediation when she left town. She's pleased someone thinks like she does.
"So, Gerard tried to explain something to me, which I don't get. Apparently, there's a magic to the King's Will which means that some things just don't happen. It applies to things like not having working laser swords and steamships, but also to not having raging cholera epidemics. It works on a macro scale, I'm told; an individual may get a horrible disease, but the city won't be depopulated by one.
"It's why we can have a cross between a pseudo-medieval society without having the mortality of one. Call me skeptical, though."
Brij laughs. "Yeah, Bleys and his sister said the same thing, differently. The city reflects the king's idea of a city. Sid grew up in a medieval rockpile and moved to Texorami, so Xanadu seems really familiar to me, like I belong here-- it's because I do, or in the city he modeled much of it on."
She smiles. "It's flattering, in a way, but there are probably also a lot of musicians and bartenders here who just wandered in and feel the same way."
Hannah nods. "Well, as a theoretical construct, it's believable. The land and king are one. In reality, it just gives me more questions. Does it work all the time? What if he's distracted? What if his tastes change? What if he gets sick? Is it locked in or is it dynamic? It must be dynamic to some extent, as one presumes when the city is full enough the arrivals will slow down. Or will they? Will there have to be a huge Navy just to keep the place from overflowing? Or does some other population control mechanism kick in if there are too many people - like illness? Riots? A desire to leave?" Hannah shrugs. "There is a lot of 'it'll figure itself out and be fine' in the family, but I'm just not that kind of girl."
Brij turns around and looks at Kyril and Hannah. "That's what they call being practical. They think Corwin's gunpowder was an accident, and that it was in the process of self-correcting when Amber stopped. But yeah, I have no idea why Amber got as big as it did and no bigger."
Ky nods. "I asked about that, during a poker game. I didn't get any better of an explanation."
[Hannah] quizzes Ky in an effort to figure out how good a teacher he's going to be, and how much work she might be able to make his responsibility.
He's smart as a whip, and judges her level of expertise and adjusts his responses well. It's hard to tell if he'd be a good teacher for novices. He's a good tactical organizer, but he may not be ideal to take the entire project without a project plan.
Hannah's first job, then, is to observe some teaching. Once they get down to the clinic she makes introductions and asks after what's been walking through the door.
The clinic staff had some leftover work from a recent dockside riot, but was seeing work-related injuries. When ships arrive, it's shipboard problems, after that, it's construction injuries. And pregnancies, but most people in Xanadu don't see a doctor for routine pregnancies.
That's about what she expected. City life. "Lady Brij is here to learn what she can about bone-mending and stab wounds and amputations. And how those can best be avoided. Doctor Ky is in from a high-tech shadow and probably has some things to teach us."
She turns to Ky. "I'd love it if you took an inventory of what's here and make two lists. First - what you'd add right now we're likely to have here locally, and second, a wish list of tools you think might work with our technology."
Kyril asks for a clipboard and a pad and pen. The clinic workers provide him with one and he beings to take inventory. He wanders around, taking notes and generally being only-a-little in the way.
"Lady Brij, let's dig in." Hannah will start giving Brij the full tour of the place, walking through things that are quick to learn as they come up.
She nods. "Brij to my friends. I figure if we're going to be arms-deep in gore, we might as well be friends. Ky reminds me of every doctor I ever met in Texorami. I don't think he's seen a woman any more recently than he's seen sunlight, and to similar bad effect."
Brij catches on quickly, and seems to have a gift for triage. There aren't that many patients, but she's got a real eye for which newcomer needs immediate attention. She seems perfectly able to carry on a normal conversation while working on the needed tasks.
"If you're going to be here and up there, is this place supplied with whatever you'll need in a few months? Or will you disappear, cat-like, into the attic and emerge with kittens when you're ready?"
Hannah laughs. "I hadn't even thought about it. I'd planned on giving birth in a field while picking corn and only missing a row - you know, the old fashioned way," she jokes. "I suspect what I need is here. Rags, boiled water and clean knives - and something to hit. I should be fine, wherever I end up."
Hannah actually thinks about it then, before she can stop herself. "I'd prefer a birthing hut, honestly... and my mothers. Can't have them, which makes everything else matter less. I'll get through it, and hopefully no one will mind when I go working with a baby tied on. Did you work after Folly was born?"
Brij nods. "I'd stopped being a professional athlete by then, so yeah, but it wasn't the same type of work. We were living off my celebrity by that point. Pelle was still taking students, but it wasn't the same. Folly was a trust-fund kid, if you use that term around here. She had some of the greatest living musicians as her teachers from the time she figured out she was musically talented and interested in it." Brij smiles. "She did pretty good, considering all the advantages she started with. Gave me hell for a decade or so, though."
Brij pauses. "For what it's worth, I'm happy to help you if you want it. You may have the medical training, but all the breathing classes in the city don't really prepare you for it." She smiles. "Don't worry, though, when the time comes, it's hard not to do the right things."
Hannah grins a bit wryly and reaches to give Brij's hand a squeeze. "Three months ago I would have told you I know all about it. Now that I'm actually facing having to do it... I would very much appreciate having you there to encourage me. I warn you though, Omaha women give birth in silence, even when they don't. Most of the women I've met outside of the tribe find that... awkward.
"All of which reminds me, I need to make a trump call sometime today."
Brij nods. "Check, awkward. As opposed to gracefully giving birth while shouting, got it. As long as you can tell me or pantomine what you need, I'm easy. What's an Omaha woman?"
[Hannah] looks over at Kyril to measure his progress.
Kyril is either done or got distracted. He's helping set a broken leg for a stoic sailor. He's got bretty good brute strength.
This makes Hannah smile. She looks back to Brij. "Omaha is how you say "the people" in the language of my tribe, but refers specifically to the tribe. So I suppose it really translates as "our people" but it also means "those going against the current." Basically, it means we don't just do what we're told, these are my people. We respect our traditions, and sometimes, we cheat a little to live in our own spiritual outline and survive in the larger world too. So our women give birth in silence, even when they don't. And this place, Xanadu, can fit within our worldview, even though it shouldn't be possible. The math is wrong." This makes her smile even more. "Or we never had the entire equation. Or... there is something I still don't know, which is the most likely answer."
Hannah shrugs. "So, I'm an Omaha woman. And everything else I am too. When I followed the Unicorn here, I was taking part in a old tradition of my people to follow a vision to a new place. Maybe we'll be something else soon. Perhaps we'll be the people who live in the center. But for now, it's too new.
"Do they have natives where you come from Brij, or were y'all the natives?"
Brij chuckles. "There's a lot to unpack in that question, and I wasn't much into history in Texorami. It wasn't what they wanted a child-athelete or a celebrity to be an expert in. As far as I recall, what happened was every time someone got the edge on killing and enslaving their neighbors, they promptly did so. Counts are in charge of counties because they're descended from the third biggest bastards around, after Dukes and Kings.
"Winterness, where I was born, is a town far to the north--mostly frozen and isolated and grindingly poor, unless you own the timber, which only one family does. The King and the serious money are all on the eastern seaboard, except for Texorami and the other sweltering riverside cities along the south coast. If I looked it up in a library I don't have here, I could tell you why the country is called Greater Texorami, but Texorami city isn't the capital. I used to know that. Anyway. each place used to be a tribe, with a King. Some of 'em even have some nice ruins, but really there's not much to recognize of the old differences. Just enough genetic variation that Folly and I are exotic looking and small in the rest of Greater Texorami, Other parts of the country seem closer to their old roots, maybe because civilization moved from the south to the east then around.
"And I really don't know the history of any of the other continents. That's the kind of thing Ash or Soren might know. Soren's probably made a benefit album for the advancement of native rights or something. Or maybe ask Folly. So, in answer to your question, yes, a little of both?"
"It sounds like a fascinating place. Random warned me that you can't really go home again, and he was right, but I'm the type that often has to learn the hard way. Do you miss it?" Hannah wonders.
Brij shakes her head. "It only ever seemed half real, not like Paris or Xanadu. And I'd basically conquered it. Here, at least, I have things to do, and people won't go all weird when I still look like I'm 22 at age 100.
"I miss some of the spices. And some of the drinks. But I've started teaching the bartenders."
Hannah nods. "And now you'll conquer becoming a medic, and who knows what next. And I get to conquer birth. My understanding is you never conquer motherhood." She grins a little nervously. Hannah looks around at everyone in the clinic, relaxing. "I'm interested to see how it changes me, and how it doesn't.
"We should probably round up Dr. Ky and head back up the road."
Brij nods. "It strips away things that aren't important--like a fire in some ways, if you keep it from consuming you, it keeps you warm."
Kyril turns up. "I heard my name, are we leaving? I've got my list."
Last modified: 11 September 2013