Sixteen Feet of Steel Chapter 8

Chapter 8

*Before…

He finishes his tea and he looks at me. “It is and scary to know just how much we’ve lost and how huge the world really is.”

I nod and take our cups. “Trust me I know the feeling of the world and all you know seeming so small Alaan. I’m still getting over the shock of it.”

I head back inside the alchemy tent to get back to work.

And I’m wiping tears from my face with the back of my hand.

*And Now…

I feel silly feeling so upset.

I mean I do and I don’t because my word has been so completely turned upside down and inside out and everything and yet learning about all of the stuff Alaan had just told me and seeing sort of just how small and tiny my part in everything just is.

I shouldn’t be crying I should be fascinated and trying to take it in but instead I’m still wiping tears off of my face and trying to get over that something huge did happen to me and it wasn’t a small thing, it wasn’t not really and yet it sort of feels like after the stuff that he said that it is small and trivial…I sort of feel erased?

He’s cleaning up the things for tea and he’s giving me my space which I want and I don’t. I have no idea if this is a clingy girl thing or if it’s just a me feeling so young and lost thing but part of me wishes that he didn’t and that he.

But do I?

Do I want him to be here being the man and stuff and holding me?

The thought of being held is pretty enticing and it’s really at war with my own self-image and being held by a man.

It’s not that I am getting jarred with the image of this new me every time that I see myself and shocked by it or anything but it’s just that when I get busy and into doing things there’s time my mind is doing more processing that my mind and body and I forget that I’m a girl now.

And now there’s times that I literally cannot but feel my new self because there’s such a difference between the way men feel and women feel and I’m not able to keep things in like I could easily do as Christian.

I mean I am trying to get a hold of those inner reins but it’s just not happening because the stuff going on if pretty strong or I’m weaker.

(Sniffle.) Wait why did I think that?

I mean I know why I thought that just now and it’s the way that I was raised. I mean there’s always talk about the fairer sex and how women are so delicate and that they’re weaker than men are but with everything that I’ve seen.

They do endless chores and they work really hard and just because it’s not the same work it doesn’t mean that it’s less hard or worth less.

And then there’s Lady Blackhand, Jessa, Nicole…doing things that are amazing for anyone not counting their sex and the so called theories about it.

(Sniffle.) I rub at my eyes…and I can feel this sort of grim, ironic smile on my face. I mean really it took getting offended at the way that I was thinking and feeling to get me through this emotional rough patch.

They’re not weaker and can’t deal with their emotions to sock them away like a hoard of bad coppers. Hells no, they’re harder to deal with because they’re so strong.

I feel actually better for feeling and thinking this out.

I take a breath and wipe the last tears away and I straighten my clothes, they don’t need it but at the same time it’s a familiar enough of a gesture that it helps settle me even more.

I take another breath and I go and get some more slides ready from the samples and start to get all the documentation for then and I start without Alaan, I know what we’re using and I know the varying measures and the counts and such and I go through slide after slide and copy the notes down as I am doing things.

I get into what I am doing and there is this sort of very scholarly meets sorceress thing to this I feel like I’m delving into lore and mysteries and that somehow I’m doing a lot more towards being called a Wisdom than just making teas and heating water.

There’s nothing wrong with either by the way those are things that any place with any kind of healing needs to have and to be able to do so in a timely way is a great skill as well.

I guess I was sort of feeling like there’s a lot more riding on these smaller shoulders than just doing that.

She died for that.

I’m starting the second batch of slides or second batch for me when I notice Alaan take the records book and the quill and he’s looking over my notes and he gives me this nod and a look at the equipment that says go ahead or continue and I do.

It’s a few minutes before I speak. “I’m sorry that I got upset with you, it really wasn’t what you said.”

“Well that’s actually a relief, I wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to make things worse so…”

“So you gave me space because like a typical man when a woman is upset and you don’t know why the first thought is retreat.”

I’m trying for teasing humor I’m not mad at him.

“I…uhm…exactly…”

I give him a bit of a smile. “It’s alright, I’m not so good at when to comfort or console people myself.”

He nods. “Not all are but it’s one of the more attractive things about you Chrissy.”

I look at him surprised at the attractive bit. “Oh?”

“You’re very straight forward, plain spoken and that’s a very good thing.”

I…well I think that I wasn’t really thinking about how I acted and such. I mean my sisters wouldn’t have acted like me I don’t think. Mother maybe but that’s a whole other generation. But Jessa and Nicole aren’t coy.

I swallow a bit of dry surprised mouth. “Home they’d call me brazen or worse.”

Alaan smiles and comes over. “Some places in these realms might do the same but I’m not a courtier really it’s why I’m out here…or one of the many reasons. I certainly don’t mind a woman that speaks her mind.”

“That’s quite different but nice to hear.”

“Good, I like that you liked hearing it.”

“Sir Alaan…” I do another swallow… there is something going on inside my woman chemistry for certain. It doesn’t hurt I think the regular part of my likes the man as well. “We…we should get back to work.”

Okay it was very satisfying to see him do the blink and swallow something back too. Both as a woman and as just not being alone in the whole attraction and restraint thing.

A few moments of deep breaths and we’re back to it though we do trade places and as much as I am pretty sure of what I’m doing I do just feel more comfortable with Alaan being the one doing the research while I take the notes.

Then another sort of break while we go and help with the nursing duties and taking care of the sick and giving the others a break and me heating more and more water and Alaan opens his stash of good tea for us and the patients too.

That helps too I think, doing that and having such a thing…keeping peoples spirits up is a good thing.

Cedric surprises us in the evening with a boar that Hawk had shot and sent over to us. Now I’ve had many a boar feast with my father in the hunting lodge and some in various noble functions but this was.

The fur was taken off of it with a lye bath and then it was washed and scraped until they thinned it’s skin to being raw with a wire brush and he had peeled the skin back to the spine and applied this mixture of dried herbs and apple jelly and then they stuffed the body with root vegetables like carrots and turnips and parsnips and yellow beet roots and more apples and then filled the rest with barley and more herbs and onions and the like and then sewed the beast shut and covered the skin with a salt rub and they cooked it all day while we were working over a low bed of coals with corn in the husks and squash just set upon the grating.

If I ever get to where I am in life such a thing will grace my tables too. That cooked down fat with the jelly and those juices in the meat and getting soaked up by the barley and the skin…It was thinned just so it was like having young suckling pig done in the fanciest of tables.

Again taking plates around to the homestuck and this giving the women in the main hall a break was a good thing.

A good thing for the men too…they made a real project out of this and without being able to leave the village and doing their usual work and feeling helpless with the sickness it was a good thing to take their minds off of what is going on.

I got a few looks though at my appetite, it was a big beast and enough for all and I had two good plates and licked my fingers off the whole time.

That’s something that I was still working on, the eating with my fingers thing. I know manners are important but there are just times that eating like the common folk just makes so much sense.

You done munch on crispy skinned boar/pork with a fork.

Nicole and “I by default.” contribute as well by sharing our stash of salt and pepper.

I get that it’s a treat but I still am trying to get that it’s a treat. Both were common and just ask to pass at my father’s table.

We take a break after the meal too actually and I watch and doze by the fire we have for our camp by our wagon and tents as Alaan is instructing Megan and Nicole in drill with the sword and then the two go at it with practice blades.

I don’t usually sleep well since the transformation happened but with a warm fire and comfy canvas folding chair and a blanket and a very full belly I doze through things mostly only waking when the crack of hickory on hickory gets really close or loud.

I wake when I feel a nudge and Alaan is passing me a practice blade myself. I blink and look at it and him.

“I hear you know some blade work.”

“I barely know the sword, just some things I’ve picked up so far.”

“Well there’s no reason to not take some training time in.”

I take it and it’s got a fair heft to it and I get up out of the chair and he has a blade passed to him by Megan and we spar… the facing off and the salute and then the touch of blades and then I’m doing as I would at home and going through my forms as I attack him and he counters.

Forms are sequences of moves they are things that have been chosen to work from experience and put together in a string of what works best but as with my training you go through the forms that you know at the start of each session and your master will respond and then afterward you get instruction.

It doesn’t take long before I’m done going through all that I know and start to repeat it…I’m good at like three basic ones and was learning a forth when all this happened.

We stop and he looks at me eyebrow raised. “You’ve had formal training.”

“I’ve had some.”

“You know a few forms and you know the ritual manners and what to do with a trainer that’s more than most.”

“Well I wasn’t always a sorceress.”

“So it seems ready for more?”

I nod. “Honestly yes, I wasn’t that sure before but this, this is helping.”

And it is too, there’s something very much of myself in doing this the old me and taking it into this newly changed version of me and there is always something therapeutic about bashing about with someone even if it’s very purposeful bashing.
We start up again and he’s calling out switches in the forms for me to try and to use as we’re going at it and he’s fighting back now, which is making it harder of course but it’s something that I need, and I mean really need since I’m under no illusion that there are likely still people out there that wish me harm.

I need to get better and I need to get my defensive skills a lot sharper.

Though the damned skirts are not helping me with my footwork at all. And the few stumbles I make get Megan and Nicole who are both watching now grinning as I stumble some or break stride.

I spare them a look. “Now I see why you wear trousers.”

Megan laughs. “Time an a place fer ever tin Chrissy.”

Nicole… “They teach a sword play in dresses at the fortress Chrissy, you might like that.”

Me… “I’ll admit it’d be useful to know, you never know when someone’s going to come at you in the middle of the night.”

Alaan… “Agreed.” And he picks up his pace with his offense until I’m really having trouble and that’s not too hard to do and in about nine moves my sword in flying away from me and Megan deftly catches it.

And then she comes over to me and she offers it over her arm to me and Alaan nods to her and she takes his place and we go at it and she’s even harder with me than he was…he’s a knight and a teacher but she’s a squire and she might also have a lot of this woman proving herself thing with other women thing going on.

And she’s pretty serious or she has this serious facer on and I’m getting I think my first dose of this and it’s sort of scarier than I thought because she’s so intense and I I’m having a hard time getting to where I can really swing on her.

I mean she’s a girl.

And it’s been a thing that has been drummed into me all of my life and that’s… ~You never strike a girl Chris. ~

It’s really throwing me off and the fact that I think that it dawned on Nicole finally saved me from more bruises.

She steps in with her practice blade and blocks Megan’s next blow. “I think the Wisdom is a bit too worn out for this.”

Megan looks at her and then me. “Aye or it could be her growing up out there in The Middle Kingdoms.” She looks past Nicole to me. “Ye never have sparred with another girl have ye?”

I shake my head. “No, no I haven’t and it’s definitely throwing me.”

“Doona let it, women are just as dangerous as the men folk are we’re jus a bit more up front t’is all here ‘bouts.”

I nod. “I’ll have to work on that.”

She grins and I pass her the practice blade. “Aye an I’ll be doin that while we’re still here from dial t’dial.”

“Dial to…dial…?”

Alaan looks at me. “From time to time.”

“Oh…”

He claps me on the shoulder and leaves with her and they head to the main hall and I look at Nicole. “Sorry I just couldn’t.”

“You’re going to have to learn and you’re going to have to get used to a whole difference in manners and attitudes towards you and not just from the men.”

“You mean like Jessa?”

She looks at me. “No…I mean women don’t act like they do to men around other women or with other women. There’s no cutting of slack because you’re a girl when you’re with girls. You might get the whole not from around here benefit for a little while but that won’t last. Especially if they see you as a threat.”

“A threat to what?”

“Attention, a man’s favor, being capable…. You’re in the same boat as you were before around the lads only you’re going to be judged on your looks and manners and all the frippery that comes with court sometimes or in a courtly land even. Women have to fight for power and respect in all sorts of ways from who they marry to what they do for a job and the competition is there just as much and we still have to prove ourselves in all sort of way with men too.”

“I thought here was different?”

Nicole nods and she sits and takes out her pipe. It’s a smooth slender ceramic affair and stuff and she goes through the whole thing with it and soon I smell some apple brandied tabbac. “It is different here than a lot of other realms, we’ve a lot of culture from our dwarven neighbors and then there’s Lady Tatiana but we’re just one place…and there are even others here that cling to some of the old thinking and such. In another kingdom do you think that some lord would ever let me touch a Squire’sknight let alone be one?”

“No…I’m pretty sure not.”

She takes a draw and exhales and she passes it to me and I take a draw and hold it a little before letting it out and getting a head rush from it. I’m not an often smoker it’s more of a social thing and such so it usually will hit me with that first puff.

“You need to learn to face these things now Chrissy because it’s what you got to look forward too and once we’re…”

I pass the pipe back and nod. “Once I’m there you might not be around to watch over me.”

She nods but it’s a sober one. “Exactly.”

We share that pipe before we head into the main hall again and I take some tea around one final time and some wash water and herbs and s basin and wash some of them and then I get to heating water for those of us that are getting baths and some of the clothes washing.

Sigh…there is always washing.

I get hugged in thanks though by one of the women of the town. “Thank you Wisdom.”

“No, no it’s okay Rose.”

“It’s a lot of work and we notice, we see it when you look tired and when you’re moving like my Nan.”

“I don’t move like your Nan.”

She gives me another squeeze. “No she moves faster sometimes.”

I grin a little and honestly I don’t feel that bad it’s just maybe I look like I need the break? I’m a little scared of it but at the same time it is nice to get the water and the tubs all heated and then get to go and take a bath.

I could never get used to the idea that some people reverted to not-washing but I had seen it both here and in places at home and even with some of the people we knew in the nobility.

But bathing has had the same appeal to me as I’ve heard my sisters and some women say it as and such like there was this emphasis on bath like one would say sweets.

But clean is always good.

There’s more than one tub so there’s that and there’s talking and sighs and such and I watch closely and to see some more of what to do and try not to get caught up in the differences that I now have.

It might sound funny and I’ve never mentioned this to Nicole but there was this impression of a hole where there is a well hole, I had thought that it wasn’t y’know watertight…

Well that’s sort of the thoughts of one that has never really known that much about a woman’s bits. And it’s very much more there in my head of how I’m sitting, that my bottom is actually naturally designed to keep my lady slipper off the flat surface.

That’s a local term I hear the women call their woman’s place and I think I like it, it’s nowhere near as crude as some of the things that I’ve heard.

It’s also still a thing for me to get used to the sight of naked women. It’s also just sort of a think to take in culturally that there are all kinds of body types and shapes and pretty is fine but it’s rare and it’s passing and most women are not the type that are the svelte goddesses that one see’s in art and talked of in stories and poems.

I’ll admit I was sort of biased too with my eye to women being sort of bent toward watching women and seeing them through a man’s eye that the bodies no longer in clothes…they sort of become less a thing…the extra weight, the bits here and there that aren’t perfect become less and less who these women are the more that I talk with them and that it’s much more eyes and faces and smiles.

And the more you are familiar with people the more attractive everything is about them I’m finding. No not more attractive just less give a damn about the stuff that doesn’t really make her up as a person.

There’s a woman thing too here going on like a communal thing too with a bit of rose hip and cherry tea that is sweetened a little and still flowery and tart and they pass around a small crock with a soft soap that is flower scented and such and it’s better and a lot less harsh than the lye based utility soap that they have here. There’s even these soft scrubs made of yarn that are sort of shaggy and they soap up wonderfully and it feels really good to get that clean and to just stop for a while and be social.

I actually try and be social by telling them about the places I’ve been too since being here and the news that we’ve taken with the post.

A lot of the talk of course is of the wedding and who knows who and what the couple looks like from one of the women who knows the family involved and that leads to the clothes and such.

It sounds like such a stereotype but clothes and who matches and to how people will look there at the wedding and it being mentioned for post alone means it’s a to-do event and getting seen well dressed and looking fit and fine shows you off, it say things about you and your family and village and things to other families and potential matches.

Apparently there is a tradition of finding someone one’s self at a wedding and the celebrations afterwards.

And then there’s talk of the parties, and food of course and the dancing and I’m sort of used to these things being things…though most noble meals aren’t with dancing and parties it was much more like music if you had it and guests which were more about realm business than anything else and then we men would retire to fathers study to smoke and have drinks and talk some more business mixed with some added amounts of storytelling.

I’m not sure what the women did after but I’m suspecting something like this or close to it minus the bath of course.

But it’s nice, it’s nice to talk and learn and ask opinions and ask why someone would favor something over another with clothes and such and when I’m asked I usually will close my eyes and recall things with my magic sometimes as the idea comes to me about the things I’ve seen from home.

There is so much you have seen that you remember and yet don’t. That pretty blonde woman from Turner’s Dale with the basket of flowers to sell. I remember her loosely because she was pretty and fetching…I remember she had a yellow dress on. And that’s it. With my powers that memory becomes clear and frozen in my mind’s eye and I can take my time to see everything that she was wearing and that the dress was a dusky yellow but someone had embroidered brown eyed daisies along the edges.

And I can do that with everything, even conversations and such. I’m bewildered by the power that this actually has huge implications. I wonder how she used it? It could take me all my life to even use this with the potential that it has.

But right now it’s making me seem like I fit in and at the same time my questions are passed off as both me being from The Middle Kingdoms and the daughter of Lady Blackhand seems to allow me some passing amount of strange.

The best part, the absolute best part of this woman thing and this communal thing is that we are washing each other’s backs. I’ve had servants and they don’t help the lads bathe when you wash your back you have a brush for the hard to reach places and my sisters…well I have no idea if they did this but everyone sort of helps another and yes I’m blushing at doing it for others at first but to have someone wash you back feels amazing, almost as good as feeling someone wash your hair and comb and brush it.

Apparently I had a few tangles that Rose used a comb while helping me wash my hair. And it’s the same for me helping her and I watch the others when it comes to braiding it take it in and learn that.

We get done and I heat water for the others and then I end up doing a final check on the patients and some more willow bark teas for some and I clean off again and I head to the tent with Nicole and I and head to bed.

My dreams are the same at first, home and what happened and then it sort of shifts into remembering things from home, people and places and women and they’re things but the things that they say and do and talk about.

My eldest sister Angeline… haughty with people so much and serious too very much the lady in all the book sense of the word she never had much time for me always shooing me off but I’m remembering her much my mother’s second and she was good at table conversation.

My Older sister Gracia… a real noble girl and sweet and playful but mean and spiteful and demanding some times, we really didn’t get along with how she just seemed to want better, deserved better and was so very spoiled.

Remembering her like this though she was but she was also popular with an entourage of the rich merchants daughters and the daughters of visiting nobles coming to stay and she was even worse with me remembering her like this…I think it’s my powers going through my dreams.

It’s not like she was a bad person or a horrible person it’s just that she was spoiled, that’s the way it goes sometimes she never really had any of Angeline’s responsibilities and…and…some of it was allowed?

I flash mentally in on a few dinners with guests and such and see looks between mother and father or my brothers and a few others in my father’s close court as Gracia was chattering away at what I thought was babble but it was gossip. Like who was doing this and why who was where because their parents were doing this and lord so and so was doing this but those were only the bitty details around her and her friends.

That just boggled my brains that they were using her ways to their advantage.

Then there’s….Elizabetha my little sister and the baby of the family who was a mix of the other two. She wanted to have “friends” like Gracia did and she was quiet and thoughtful like Angeline was but not as sober.

But there are lot of cues from all three of them and mother and my memories from the other women in the keep.

And then there’s memories of my training home and my brothers and sparing with then and father and then there’s tonight and today and all of those things blurring with everything that has gone on.

I wake up and it’s early again and I get up and try not to wake Nicole who stretches and sits up.

“Morning.” She says.

“Morning, you can go back to sleep.”

“No, things to do today I’ve been making a list since yesterday.”

“A list?”

She nods and she stretches and gets to her feet shuffling herself around and adjusting things since she always sleeps in her gear or partial gear and she resettles it and she tightens her boost and gets the rest of her kit ready for the day.

“There’s all those little things that get put off because there’s always so much other stuff to be doing like the woods and the fields and such so I’m going to keep some of the people busy by all of us together getting together to do these things.”

“Oh…good idea.”

“I’m going to be fair about it too all the jobs are going to be a lottery and we’ll draw lots to see the order in which some of these things get done.”

I nod. “Nice, very diplomatic.”

She draws herself up proudly. “I’m a Squire I’m trained for these things.”

I look at her as we leave the tent. “I’ve been meaning to ask, you’re Lady Tatiana’s squire so how aren’t you with her?”

“I’m one of her squires she has more than one and she has faith in us and she does that so the people will have faith in us and not to see us in the Fortress feasting and being layabouts.”

“That is not how it’s done home, but maybe it should be. There’d be a lot better flow between the people and their rulers if more did that.”

She grins. “Aye that’s the truth, the thing is she’s a very hands on and hands off ruler.”

“Hands off ruler?”

“We vote, and have councils for things and we elect people to represent parts of the city and such and towns have mayors that can come as reps and the guilds and we do the protecting and serving the people and she arbitrates the disputes when she has to in court with people to make their case and such.”

“So she does but doesn’t rule…that’s almost blasphemous.”

She grins and so do I but there’s a part of me not kidding, this is stuff from ages past and it’s something that a lot of places will simply no accept, not even some of the not so bad places.

I can see there’s something in her though, something that knows she’s defending something important.

I head off to the water. “I’m going to take my swim, I see you later.”

Nicole nods and I head to the water ready with one of the blankets and dry clothes and I head down to the water and it’s not so misty this morning and the otters are there waiting for me whiskers all a ruffled and waddling back and forth and they start chuffing at me impatiently.

I laugh. “Yes, yes master and mistress otter breakfast will be coming along shortly. What are the pair of you going to do when I move on from here?”

I get a look from them like I’m dense from them both and it makes me laugh. It was so spot on or something.

It’s the usual cold chilly morning swim but a little nicer since the sun is out good and strong today which is actually the first day that it’s been this nice since landing here. I mean it’s mostly fog in the mornings and cloudy with some sun a lot of the time but this is the first all blue sky morning that I’ve seen and it’s nice.

I swim and do my laps in first or do them until I feel like I need a break and the otters both follow me as I do and they race ahead of me and around me and when I am hanging onto the raft there’s one on either side of me looking at me almost in my face with this almost…well? Look in their eyes; it’s that semi-frustrated almost begging dog look.

“Okay, okay time for your breakfast.” I take a breath and I head down following the anchor and I start making my little bit of light in the arc to attract the fish….and a frog that seems very bewildered at whatever is in his lake.

I’ve been doing this a lot but it’s needed with so many people that do feed others by doing things like fishing knocked down from the fever and it’s the only reason why I’m doing this. I’m not sure if using magic to hunt is a thing anyone should do.

But smoking and putting down some of the catches should help with their stores for winter as they’re losing time in the seasons.

I do my thing and just to get ahead I fill the basket I brought and I go for three more this morning it’ll give some of the others things to do and really I’ve seen nets so I can’t be taking more fish than they are.

I finally get those filled and the otters taking their chosen fish and I get dressed and dried off then head to where some people are doing the smoking and such and I get smiles and nods. “Wisdom.” It’s said like lady and I smile and ask if I can help them. “Nay lady, we’re good just keep tending to our loves be enough.”

I nod and head off and I bring some fish to the kitchen and let them do justice to the fish and I wash up with the cleansing solutions and check on my patients. I’m getting to know names too without using magic and then I head to see Alaan while breakfast is cooking.

He’s there with Megan and they’re in brewing and mixing mode while doing more tests with the blood and the place stinks but not, it’s a very medicinal and anti-septic smell but one I’m getting used to.

“Can I spot anyone?”

He says without looking up from the magnifier. “No but you can take the notes while Megan mixes, we’re getting close, it’s fighting some of the fever but we need to get the right combinations and measures down.”

“Really! That’s excellent!”

He looks at me and we all share a very excited set of smiles and we get to work. It’s still work and it’s still methodical it’s still hard work doing all the figuring and brewing the right things. I mean one ingredient needs to be made and remade and done in so many different strengths and combinations it’s staggering really and having twenty odd things all together…but having progress, and more and more little by little as certain combinations are doing far more than others.

We break only for meals and for nursing and to give people lists of thing for Hawk and Taylor to gather for us. And lots and lots of tea, and breaking the sanctity of tea as well by letting it boil and steep and get strong enough to walk on to keep us going and awake.

You lose time like that, hours….lots of hours fly past and we start breaking into shifts with someone sleeping while we work and then switching off.

It was past supper and well into night with lanterns lit when Nicole stops by with more tea and this thing she made. It’s a flat bit of bread dough with the edges rolled up and an egg custard baked into it like the bread was the dish and a dollop of baked jam to finish it.

I ate four with the gusto of when you’re craving sweets and you don’t know that you’re craving sweets.
She looks at me. “You’re working all night?”

“Looks like it, we’re really getting somewhere with this.”

“Good but don’t push it. You don’t need getting sick either medicine or not.”

Alaan says around a mouthful of his own. “She won’t Chrissy is immune.”

I look at him having decided to reach for another custard bread. “What?”

We’re all looking at him.

He looks at us. “Your magic, the virus and things like it won’t survive your natural electrical field it was the same with your mother.”

I…

“It was!? You could’ve told me!” Yes I yelled this was something that I should have known, should have been told.

“No, you’d have tried to take on too many things.”

“I would no….” Nicole puts her hand over my mouth. “Yes you would have, you push yourself too hard as it is all the sleep you don’t get and the hot water for an army and nursing and cooking and all these other things. I know you have a sense of duty and I know that you have good reasons to not sleep but Sir Alaan is right you’d have pushed yourself too far.”

I… dammit…

But still….

I round on him and poke him in the chest with a finger. “You might have thought that you had a very good reason to not tell me this, but that’s not for you to say. You told me that you’d help me with the things that you knew about her. It’s not your place to say Alaan what I do with tat knowledge.”

“It was my medical opinion that you’d push yourself Christiana.”

His voice rises too.

“You’re not my knight master Alaan and I’m a reasonable woman wit a brain you could have just told me, we could have talked it out.”

“You’re barely out of girlhood, don’t start wearing slippers too big for your feet.”

“I’m damned well old enough to be wed and bred and how dare you sire it up to a woman about what a woman is!” I poke him a few more times in his chest and he looks at me and at Nicole and Megan and it’s definitely a three on one woman thing.

He throws his hands up. “Blood and ashes!” He stomps past us all stopping only to get his coat and sword belt and looks at us. “Women!” he glared at me as he said it like…like a dig and I give him the finger.

I’m shaking a little and Nicole is frowning. “I know he meant well but I think, I think you’re right it’s your decisions.”

Megan… “Aye…he’s a good man but he’s still got some of that whole making decisions without asking and over others heads thing.”

I look at her. “But you still Squire to him.”

“Aye he’s a good man, good enough not t’take advantage of me an good enuff t’do take advantage of me. That’s rare enuff now getting to getting men tithing past thousands of years of it’s jus so because they’re men that’s a hard thing t’get passed because it be invisible, hard t’see when it’s always such.”

I look at her. “Sapphire thinking?”

“Aye in part, but it’s also called feminism, it’s an ancient philosophy an such bout equality through the woman’s point of view.”

“Sounds so strange that it exists.”

“Aye it’s pretty much a lost thing in human culture an such but she has the books an such with ancient writings in it and she says equality must come from different points of view comin together. Lady Tatiana teaches it along with other things to us. It’s one of the reasons why I’m with Sir Alaan.”

Nicole nods. “Still teaching even when they’re knighted.”

I look out where he left and I take a breath. “I just don’t know where that came from with me, it’s not like I was raised with a lot of men centered over me things going on.”

Nicole looks at me. “Actually you were, we all were even Sir Alaan. It’s just that you got a dose of the invisible stuff to most people. He assumed he knew better and your heart and head rebelled against that so you just did…well…said the stuff you did.”

“It was just so…manner of factly like I didn’t have a say. It made me mad.”

Nicole nods. “It’s a pretty big thing and knowing is like changing it, it goes right to who’s jobs are what, who plays with what, does what…but it goes both ways.”

I look at her and Megan nods. “It does thet’s why we study more than just that. It’s a bad thing thet women folk are done fer in such a way but jus as many lads have no choices either. Like y’need see girls ‘n women conscripted, or punished with the hard labors in prisons and such forth…that’s why we look t’do, challenge ourselves t’be better it’s what the code be all about.”

I nod. “That’s not chivalry as I know it.”

Nicole… “It’s not chivalry, it’s the code it’s much more than chivalry used to be.”

I nod and look at them. “So what should I do?”

Nicole… “Go talk to him, it was a fight and one with cause but you can make peace with each other.”

“So…I go apologize?”

Megan… “Nay, talk…going with he said that first jus leads t’more attitudes both ways it’s not a contest of whose arse is smartin more over what was said.”

I set the custard bread down and square my clothes and nod and head out after him. It takes a few minutes to find him and he’s down near the lake in a less cleared spot swinging his sword at the bull rushes.

“I never really done something like that before Alaan.”

He jumps a little and misses a step and one foot goes in the water and he hops out shaking it off. “No, you’re right…I shouldn’t kept something that big from you. It was…patronizing to think I needed to protect you from yourself.”

“Yup.”

He looks at me and I smile and hook my hands behind my back. His face get’s that rueful smile going. “You’re really not going to cut me any slack are you?”

“Do you want me to?”

He smiles but shakes his head. “No, No I want you to call me out on my bullshit.”

I smile back. “I’ll try just…just remember I’m a person before a woman and I know my limits better than you do.”

He nods. I will try, and I’m sorry.”

“Good, and I’m sorry I poked you.”

He grins. “I enjoyed that part actually.”

“You did?”

“Yes…a lot….it was sort of fun…” He’s looking at me and even in the dark I can see him blushing.

Saying these things, him meaning the things that he said and just the fact that I am like this…and said all of that stuff and let loose a big ball of fear and stuff from inside of me. I was really sort of holding this whole expectation of being a woman to myself and the expectation included how others see and would, have been treating me.

And fears from home…what if this is forever? It’s all there churning away and building and it just came out in this sort of rush tonight.

But him being this kind of man, y’know trying when really in this sort of world he’d likely never have to.

The things he says.

The blush….dammit I’m definitely, definitely feeling this ache of attraction going on.

I offer my hand and he sheathes his sword and takes it and we smile at each other before I start just walking with him.

I’m not sure but I think he sighed in a bit of tension leaving good way.