Doubt

I met a man of faith in the house of all pleasures.

I've known some pleasure there, although mostly the companionable kind. Holding my knees, my toes tucked under Lucian's thigh as he told me stories of the Great Northern War. Teasing Ravenslock about his eyebrow's wayward apostrophe and his forays into booster sales.

But faith? Faith in the house of the freecaptains?

Ashar's voice; insistent; cruel; quoting Fractionite rhetoric: "'Freedom is a jagged bitch, a barbed-wire dream of agony and yearning, a wide-bore firearm clutched in shaking hands and pointed close at the face of God, a siren scream to pierce the heart and banish ease and complacency forever.' Did Jonny ever tell you that? That's what he was, you know."

And yet I found a man of faith among the Fraction.

Ricardo speaks of his faith. It's solid to him, sure, undoubted; there in hard times and in good. His soul is what makes him him.

He woke a clone, to see what it would be like; to ask questions. Found it was another person, as perfect and ensouled as he, himself. Now his two faces walk the worlds; make their choices.

He is not untroubled, but he is... comforted.

I cannot speak to him of doubt. I can only envy him his certainty and try to warm my hands at it.

Home

Sometimes a golden age can last decades, even centuries. Sometimes a few weeks must suffice.

I've been so confused this last month. We had such a perfect time at Pied en l'Air; just us and the dogs and our work. I was choreographing Lena Ferat's Plein Air, trying to catch the sense of walking under a sky, remembering Paiho and the lake and feet on the ground of home. Jonny... Jonny was reading and talking to people and deciding to stand for the presidency. We worked side by side; trained the dogs; flew together. He agreed, at last, to introduce me to his mother.

I thought maybe this could be a life for us.

I was happy. It was... home.

I will remember that.

Then the note on the pillow, hand-written, like my first note to him. Mata, I must go. Things are brewing that need my personal attention to succeed. Think fondly of me, my darling... And the sudden realisation of how alone I've allowed myself to become; how dependent on him for company.

I was packing my things to go home to the clan when he returned. Will I always be the peaceweaver, wanting us to work things out? Am I too greedy, wanting him to be there for me, for us instead of off on some wild scheme for his people? Am I just too fragile now, ready to feel abandoned so easily? I don't know. Again, we made it up. I'll go home to Paiho until our daughter is born. Jonny will visit me there, when he can get away from his work with the militia.

He says he will visit. I steel myself to see how it will work out.

And after... we'll stay there then, too. I'll talk to the aunts about us taking a couples unit together. Ulf was there when we talked about that, and suggested different ways Jonny might come to have a right to Paiho. He'd like it to be tidy, I think, but the options all seem so deep with meaning. How you connect a freecaptain to a new home? How is it that he's now feeling a connection to his old home - his old homes?

And Paiho.

I'm not meant to be here, now.

Home at Paiho; that's okay. But I've come home for the ancestor rites. There are disapproving looks and murmurings as I haul my grossly gravid self into the meeting house. I care, I guess, or I'd not be mentioning it, but right now I miss Auntie Yana and I miss Jonny and I'm always being controlled and calm and acting like I have a right to do what I do; like I don't hear or don't mind all these different expectations about what I'm meant to do or not do to look after this baby. It was awkward enough when I was here for Auntie Yana's funeral. Now, the waiting period is done and she's made her journey and returned to Paiho and will be received into the clan pantheon along with the other ancestors.

Or so they say.

I want to feel their presence again.

Do I not feel them because I no longer follow all the clan ways? Did they not recognise the descent from Rona'a in my cloneflesh, and lose sight of me?

Do they choose not to talk to me, or are they not really there?

Which would be worse?

I'm home, among kin, in a place where I belong, trying to feel like I belong.

The erendati still call to me. I dream of whirling in the dance until I'm only that-which-dances.