Ancestors

It's been busy since Auntie Yana joined the ancestors. Haven't really been wanting to write. All those words between pilots about practical immortality seem pointless when people die back home.

We're lucky. Haven't lost a fighter for a while. Nearly lost Halani when she lost the baby, but didn't. Safety standards are improving at Paiho, too. So it's age and illness and our elders walking into twilight. Auntie Karita last year and now Auntie Yana.

I say it's okay, and it is, but each time one of them dies it's a tie to home broken. I don't feel them at the burial grounds the way I did when I was a child there. I feel the erendati as forces of nature, especially when I dance or fly, but without the ancestors to keep them in balance I guess I fear I'll spin out of control and not find my way back.

Except I will find home, for a time at least. Maybe not with the ancestors to guide me, but with this child.

Mother came home for the burial. I hadn't seen her in a long while. She looks as well as ever, and I still feel like a gawky child beside her. Her latest protector is a Gallente cultural attache. He reminds me of Marc, from when I studied dance in the city and went to live with her. The clanfolk look at us and murmur about the women of our line having a thing for Gallente men. I guess I know better than they do that Mother's tastes have been cosmopolitan and well calculated, but I'll agree that her Gallente men have at least been pleasant to look upon.

We're not close, but maybe we want to be? There's something about this new child, who'll do the ancestor rites for her in her time. She can't understand why anyone would want to go through a pregnancy -- once was more than enough for her -- but she seems fascinated at the prospect of the child. I imagine the fascination will pass, or will flare at odd moments with expensive gifts. I felt suddenly jealous at the idea that she might decide to play with my child and I'd be away flying and ...

Others will feed this child, and change it, and play with it. Others will spend the long nights walking with it when it will not settle, and will reward its first babblings and first steps. That's what it means to bear a clan child. I know this.

I don't think I knew what it meant.

That's tomorrow's trouble, though. Today's is to go see Auntie Ellie for the scan we delayed for Auntie Yana's farewell. Maybe this time the child will take after its grandmother and not keep its legs crossed.