~ Acceptance ~

by

Rhobin Courtwright

When Tyna left with Kedriq for a meeting, Kissre decided to take a nap and escape the squad who had stayed behind to wait. The lingering effects of her journey, and the lateness of the last few nights had taken their toll. She was exhausted. It was mid-afternoon when she rose. Fudge rose from the floor beside the bed, whined and licked.

"All right, all right, I’ll get up and take you for a run." She hustled down the back staircase and out through the kitchen with Fudge jump-trotting beside her in purposeful strides. With a pleasant greeting to the servants she passed, she rushed out the door and ran Fudge to the paddocks. Allowing him freedom to conduct his business, she roamed the adjacent grounds. Fudge chased after her, romped, jumped and ran about her in huge circles. She laughed at his antics.

Commotion at the front finally drew her back to the house. Tyna had just returned. She saw Kissre and motioned her forward, her face less welcoming for Fudge.

"Come on, I’ve bought you something." She grinned at Kissre. "The streets are full of people coming in for the Spring Revel."

"Find Bother, Fudge," Kissre commanded and watched him leave. She followed Tyna up the steps and into her sitting room. Tyna appeared happy and full of energy. Kissre perched in an overstuffed chair and waited. It didn’t take long.

"I’ve been searching frantically for this." She handed Kissre a small box. Taking the box, Kissre opened it and looked at the contents. She recognized the amber pendant with its trapped insect as Naomi’s with repulsed loathing. Tyna didn’t notice. "I bought you some clothes to go with it," she said, opening another parcel and pulling out a traditional Cygnese outfit in deep gold. "Here, try it on."

"I’m sorry, but I can’t accept this, Ty." Kissre said, cutting through Tyna’s gaiety. She placed the lid back on the box and put it on a side table.

"Of course you can. Mother would have wanted you to have it."

"No, Ty, Naomi wouldn’t. You do. I cannot accept it. I don’t want it."

Tyna stilled, her full lips compressed, and a crease marred her forehead between her lowered brows. "Because you don’t like it or because it was Mother’s?"

"It makes no difference." Silence. Whatever her face held inflamed Tyna.

"How can you?" Tyna’s voice rose in agitation. "How can you not even acknowledge your relationship? Not mourn her? Not even talk of her? How can you be so unfeeling? What is wrong with you? She was your Mother, too!"

"Tyna, no. I don’t want to talk about this." Kissre said in as level a voice as she could manage as she rose to her feet.

Tyna’s voice rose. "But I want to! I want to know what caused you to hate her so! Hate me! What have I ever done to you?"

"I don’t hate you, but I am leaving this room. Right now," Tyna moved as Kissre took a step, stood blocking her exit. Short of knocking her sister down, Kissre found herself trapped. Gritting her teeth, she looked into an expression hauntingly reminiscent of Naomi. Afraid, she backed away.

"You don’t hate me? Then why do you come here looking like this," her hand waved to Kissre’s hair, face and attire. "Not even trying to wear something to make you appear less... less..."

"Coarse?" Heat surged through Kissre.

"Yes! Coarse, unfeminine," Tyna said with vehemence and dropped the Cygnese clothes she held. They fell to the floor in a disordered heap.

"Un-Talented?"

Tyna stopped, her face jolted at the never heard tone. "I never said that."

"You didn’t have to."

"You could at least try to blend." Tyna said, lowering her voice, but her disgust evident.

"I am a mercenary and dress and act like what I am. What your Mother made me."

Tyna swore and turned away, then twirled back. "She didn’t make you anything! You did! You behave like an uncivilized slut, free of responsibility, free to do whatever you want, whenever you want, because no one can read you. Then you bait Adepts because of what they are. And everyone knows Dovel fantasizes..." Tyna stopped, her mouth still open.

"No, Tyna, don’t stop," Kissre said, feeling her heart wrench, then swell and split.

"You’re right, Kissre. No more of this." Tyna’s eyes fell to her desk.

Kissre continued Tyna’s topic. "You wanted me to know he fantasizes the null sister becomes the other, the untouchable, Talented one?"

Tyna turned away.

Kissre continued. "But you’re wrong in one instance, Tyna. I don’t bait Adepts because they are, but because they see nulls as less." Kissre kept her sight concentrated on Tyna, her low voice a threat. Tyna looked at her in incipient denial. "And you know it’s true, too, don’t you, Ty? Because Naomi taught you to think like herself."

"No, I don’t, not anymore. Kissre, stop." Tyna looked aside, and bit her lower lip, just like when she was little and trying not to cry. "You were right. We shouldn’t do this. Please stop."

Watching panic crumple Tyna’s face in misery, Kissre sensed her enemy’s weakness, sensed she held the upper hand. Years of swallowed insult and contempt began boiling over her control. She returned her sister’s earlier demeaning smile.

"Maybe it’s time you learned the rest of the truth."

Alarm entered Tyna’s face and Kissre’s smile twisted in elation. At Tyna’s sudden movement, she rushed the door ahead of her prey, and turned the lock. The bolts clicked into place just in time. An instant later the door reverberated with pounding fists. Beyond the iron hinged and banded oak planks, muffled voices shouted to Tyna. Kissre inspected the door and smiled. It was a well-made, heavy door.

"Enough, Kissre, say no more. You’re right. We can only hurt each other," Tyna said. She backed away, her look not so scorning now.

Kissre ignored her, stalked her retreat. "Maybe it is time you grew up, learned what life is like for those who aren’t cosseted, spoiled Talent brats. Yes, I am a coarse barbaric slut, but I didn’t make me so."

Tyna backed a step.

"Guess who paid for your safety, paid for your food and your upkeep, paid all those years before Naomi bought the Caravan? Guess where she got the money to buy a caravan? What? Didn’t you know how profitable soldiering could be? I didn’t drink, gamble or whore away every pay pack."

Tyna dodged behind her desk. Kissre leaned over it, but went no further. Battle-trained reflexes held her, but unbearable heat consumed her. The kill was close at hand. She sensed it, reveled in it--to hell with consequences.

"Can’t guess?"

Tyna looked at her in defiant but ineffective bravado.

"Let me tell you." She allowed a knife’s edge of silence. "Naomi sold her oldest daughter, the null one, to protect her Talented daughter. She sacrificed the common one to save the valuable one." The tightness in her chest exploded, bleeding the torment within.

"No, that’s not true!" Tyna screamed, shocked, disbelieving, provoked. "She said you were apprenticed. She paid for it."

"Yes, she did. She apprenticed her sixteen-year-old daughter to a mercenary, a man more than twice her age, plausibly to learn the trade. Except the payment went the other way. Lucky for me, he did teach me the soldiers’ trade... eventually. Do you know, Tyna, do you have any idea, what a young girl’s first job as a mercenary’s apprentice is? Don’t shake your head. Don’t try and deny it."

Her words emerged low, slow and soft.

"The thing is, Tyna, Naomi knew. Your beloved mother sold your sister into prostitution to save your precious self. I understand. She was newly widowed, desperate, didn’t know what else to do. But as the resulting slut, I mind very much."

Tyna’s streaming tears didn’t faze Kissre. They released a savage delight that danced with the cadence of the drumming on the door and the chorus of voices on its other side. Tyna turned away.

"She made me feel it was my duty to protect you. For eight years my wages went to Naomi. Do you remember my last visit with you, on your eighteenth birthday? That’s when Naomi told me. After I gifted you with that cloak that you laughed at as unfashionable. After taking my offering, she told me to keep my future wages. She didn’t need them anymore. So think about that the next time your null sister embarrasses you."

Tyna cringed.

She sneered at Tyna’s back. "Think about that the next time you turn your back."

Barking erupted beyond the door. The background hammering ceased. The change jerked Kissre taut. A gaping dark precipice lay dizzily before her. Her mind tilted and swirled in the familiar after-battle instant when the simultaneous realization of her survival and the cost collided. She stepped back. Tyna remained turned away, her harsh sobbing audible. Kissre felt ill. Never before had she unleashed her anger like this.

Tyna turned, looked at her with loathing. Tears shimmered in clear cascades across her cheeks, but the aching sound was suppressed behind trembling lips. Kissre closed her eyes remembering her sister’s pregnant state, opened them to recognize Tyna’s hate and rejection.

She evaded the look by turning her head and taking a deep breath. "I think I’ve outworn my welcome." Catching her fingers threading through her hair, she lowered them and looked at the back of her hands. A blue serpent snarled back at her. "I apologize, Ty... Captain Pierce. It will be better if we don’t see each other. I’ll leave. Rest assured, I won’t inflict my presence on you again." She turned and walked quietly to the door, unlocked and opened it.