"It was like college. A pretty green campus, Chubby-cheeked squirrels with implanted camera eyes. Me the hick kid with a low planet accent and good test scores and a distractingly hot roommate. Only if you didn't beat Instructor Li's mind game second period, you'd have to go to your sharp shooting assessment third period with your eyes swollen shut by pepper spray, and if you got another kid killed you might get a commendation for your boldness."
The instructors never had qualms about hurting them to make a lesson stick. But they were considered children, or at least in a liminal state short of full adulthood, and important, especially on the Primary campus. The future of the Shuos.
"We never had those kinds of volumes," she says, but then again, they didn't have multiple planets to choose from. It sounds bad, but only a different kind of bad from the one she had.
"Annoyingly good. Although I tracked into assassination rather than analysis, which was marginally less competitive. And Zhei Meng was a Gwa plant all along, so they clearly had the pants beat off the rest of us, baby-spy wise."
Jedao was the kind of good student who has learned self-deprecation as a second language, because otherwise being honest about his accomplishments would be widely alienating.
"We were a whole society unto ourselves. A society predicated largely on a mutual love of game design, trickery, and backstabbing, but still. With us...I don't know how you mean recruited, if you really mean impressed, or something else. Everyone in the Heptarchate took the same exams after secondary education, and if your scores and your scying results were compatible, you were....strongly encouraged to join whichever faction best fit your aptitudes. It's the only way to be anything, really, to do anything besides stay exactly where you were born."
Jedao, hick that he was, might have a somewhat exaggerated view of the limitations on more cosmopolitan factionless, but he isn't entirely wrong.
"They weren't severe, on the surface. My mother could have been Nirai - science faction - and turned it down. She still had her own lab, her own farm. A good life and a good family. But she was never eligible to rise above a certain level. All the best institutions, all the prestige, all the budget, best access to data and samples and other scientists, all that went to faction members. More carrot than stick. But what sixteen year old doesn't want to feel like the best of the best, called to be one of the elite ruling the worlds? The nasty coercion showed up in other places, and later, after you were bound to your faction. But I did really choose it."
"I think she was, once she got used to the idea. She was the kind of person who'd send me a gift package for my promotion while the fact that I was, actually, getting promoted was still technically a classified military secret."
She laughs as well. "Mothers do need to keep a certain air of mystery, Jedao, it's our secret weapon."
The laugh simmers down to a smile when he asks her that, and she nods. "Until the day she died. I wasn't allowed to contact her again, after going on assignment, but our handler sometimes got me a tape from her, in secret."
Bittersweet memories, now, as she looks towards the distance and sees the horizon turning darker blue, the sea nearby enough now. "I got to see her one more time, a few months before she died. My husband convinced me to bring our daughter along."
The memory is-- overwhelming, almost. Her mother, frail and weak, twenty years older than the last time Elizabeth had seen her, sitting in a wheelchair. Going to her knees, whispering mamushka for the first time in twenty years. And getting Paige to meet the one remaining member of her actual, real family.
It's enough to have her taking a deep breath to steady herself.
His heart aches for her, for the protracted isolation and the freshness of grief, even as he has to fight off a vivid and unflattering spike of jealousy.
"I'm glad you got that chance," he says, his low and steady, as honest as he can manage.
"I was very lucky to get it," she agrees, quietly. It also speaks of how incredibly highly her bosses think of her-- she's one of the best, if not the best, out there. This was a rare privilege she didn't turn down.
She takes another breath, then shakes her head at herself. "I'm sorry, I'm not usually so emotional."
"Steam gets cloudiest if you never vent it," he points out. "I know - fire and ash I know how few opportunities we have, sometimes, and how we can't let that matter at all. But it's like sleeping on campaign. You grab your chances with both hands, because part of you does need it."
"I have my husband, at home," she admits, but even then: "Sometimes it feels like I'm too afraid to start, because I won't stop. He goes to this group, this, this-- American philosophy about being honest with yourself."
She scoffs and shakes her head. This is the first time she's admitted to anything as clear as not being American, and she's choosing to just leave it there. "The whole thing is ridiculous. Neither of us can ever be honest with anyone but each other."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
"We had an all-hands firefight my first month. I got back in practice."
no subject
"I've just-- been in the field for so long. Training isn't even possible."
no subject
no subject
"What was training like, for you? Military? Barracks, drills--?"
no subject
"It was like college. A pretty green campus, Chubby-cheeked squirrels with implanted camera eyes. Me the hick kid with a low planet accent and good test scores and a distractingly hot roommate. Only if you didn't beat Instructor Li's mind game second period, you'd have to go to your sharp shooting assessment third period with your eyes swollen shut by pepper spray, and if you got another kid killed you might get a commendation for your boldness."
The instructors never had qualms about hurting them to make a lesson stick. But they were considered children, or at least in a liminal state short of full adulthood, and important, especially on the Primary campus. The future of the Shuos.
no subject
"Were you a good student, Jedao?"
no subject
Jedao was the kind of good student who has learned self-deprecation as a second language, because otherwise being honest about his accomplishments would be widely alienating.
no subject
"So there were courses? Majors?"
no subject
A strange mix of idyllic and perverse.
no subject
no subject
Jedao, hick that he was, might have a somewhat exaggerated view of the limitations on more cosmopolitan factionless, but he isn't entirely wrong.
no subject
no subject
"They weren't severe, on the surface. My mother could have been Nirai - science faction - and turned it down. She still had her own lab, her own farm. A good life and a good family. But she was never eligible to rise above a certain level. All the best institutions, all the prestige, all the budget, best access to data and samples and other scientists, all that went to faction members. More carrot than stick. But what sixteen year old doesn't want to feel like the best of the best, called to be one of the elite ruling the worlds? The nasty coercion showed up in other places, and later, after you were bound to your faction. But I did really choose it."
no subject
no subject
Just as wry, deeply fond.
"I think she was, once she got used to the idea. She was the kind of person who'd send me a gift package for my promotion while the fact that I was, actually, getting promoted was still technically a classified military secret."
no subject
The idea makes her laugh-- Jedao climbing the ranks, and his mother cheering him on more loudly than anyone else does, or should.
"I wasn't allowed to even tell my mother about my assignment," she says, sharing a little more, now that he's shared so much. "I still did, though."
no subject
He's laughing, but he's not joking.
"Was she proud of you?" he asks, his cadence a conscious echo.
no subject
The laugh simmers down to a smile when he asks her that, and she nods. "Until the day she died. I wasn't allowed to contact her again, after going on assignment, but our handler sometimes got me a tape from her, in secret."
Bittersweet memories, now, as she looks towards the distance and sees the horizon turning darker blue, the sea nearby enough now. "I got to see her one more time, a few months before she died. My husband convinced me to bring our daughter along."
The memory is-- overwhelming, almost. Her mother, frail and weak, twenty years older than the last time Elizabeth had seen her, sitting in a wheelchair. Going to her knees, whispering mamushka for the first time in twenty years. And getting Paige to meet the one remaining member of her actual, real family.
It's enough to have her taking a deep breath to steady herself.
no subject
"I'm glad you got that chance," he says, his low and steady, as honest as he can manage.
no subject
She takes another breath, then shakes her head at herself. "I'm sorry, I'm not usually so emotional."
no subject
Just because a navigator must be skilled and not let herself be swept away, doesn't mean there's any profit staying still on the bank.
no subject
Her feelings, she knows, are not important. She can't let them become important.
no subject
The soldierly thing to do.
no subject
She scoffs and shakes her head. This is the first time she's admitted to anything as clear as not being American, and she's choosing to just leave it there. "The whole thing is ridiculous. Neither of us can ever be honest with anyone but each other."
no subject
The month after he got his memories back - he shakes his head.
"I didn't know until after how much of a burden it had been. But maybe now isn't the time for you."
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)