“You spoke of when we first met,” Alea said, lying on the bed beside Dehsah. It had been perhaps six or seven shifts since Darek had left them… she’d lost count, as she’d slept at odd intervals. A female captain had come by about two shifts back to tell her that Lieutenant Darek was unavailable and the matriarch would send for her… eventually. “Do you remember that well?”
“Just because I have seen a few more shifts turn than you have doesn’t mean I could forget a thing like that,” Dehsah said. “It was a very exciting time for our Dee.”
“Do you recall what happened when she came in?” Alea asked. “There were only primers for eight novice students, and there were already eight of us. The assistant asked the class matron which of us would be dismissed, myself or Elida…”
“And the matron told her that the two of you could share. Of course I remember,” Dehsah said. “Then she turned it into a history lesson. When we got to know you later, I thought back on it and remembered thinking how nice it must have been for you to be included in the class like that.”
“Nice?”
“Wasn’t it nice?” Dehsah asked. “I thought it was.”
“I should not have opened this topic,” Alea said. “Dee doesn’t understand how I feel… there’s very little chance you will. It seems very simple to me, though.”
“Well, I am a simpler person than our Dee,” Dehsah said. “So try to explain it to me.”
“If you don’t understand how terrifying it is for a child to be laid down on a stone altar and used as… as a prop while her teacher talks about the eight-part knife and the silken cords…”
“Oh, Alea… I’m sure nobody ever got sent to the goddess because there were only eight primers for a class of nine,” Dehsah said. “She was simply using that as an example.”
“Yes, being made an example of,” Alea said. “That’s always pleasant. Being reminded that my placement in the class… or even my life… could be ended at any time, for the convenience of my social betters was ‘nice’?”
“Oh, you must be remembering it wrong,” Dehsah said. “That’s completely backwards. What the class matron said was that we were lucky to be living in modern times when we have enough of everything to go around and so nobody needed to make way for the new student. She was telling you that you were safe and you had nothing to be afraid of.”
“So long as the charity of House d’Wyr held out,” Alea said.
“Yes,” Dehsah said, nodding. “Exactly. Wasn’t that nice?”
“Elida and I shared a lot of things after that,” Alea said. “Everything in the classroom had already been allocated, and then there came a latecomer with guards and attendants, taking up space and resources, and Elida and I were told that we should consider ourselves fortunate that we were allowed to stay and witness this.”
“But… don’t you think you were fortunate? To be allowed to join classes at a house chapel? Not many houseless elves get that kind of opportunity,” Dehsah said.
“And for Delia Daella, all it took was a word to her mother,” Alea said. “Her mother who gives her everything she wants.”
“Her mother who never says no,” Dehsah said. “I think if you understood the difference, you would have a much fairer opinion of our Dee.”
“Oh, I am unfair now?” Alea said. “In the orphanage, beds for sixteen girls were stacked in a room this size. Was that fair?”
“This size?”
“Well, it was taller,” Alea admitted. “But do you know what your Delia Daella said when I told her about that?”
“In fact, I do,” Dehsah said. “Since she was sitting on my lap when you told her.”
“Oh,” Alea said. “I did not remember you were there.”
“She said, ‘I would imagine you cannot have been lonely very often’,” Dehsah said. “She was always very serious, even as a child.”
“Can’t have been lonely… I have not had a moment’s privacy in my life,” Alea said. “Not the way she does. And she thinks sharing quarters with fifteen other girls was some sort of fun excursion.”
“Or maybe that was her way of telling you that she was lonely,” Dehsah said. “She brought you out of the orphanage entirely before long.”
“With another word to her mother,” Alea said.
“You resented her better fortune and you resented that she shared it with you,” Dehsah said. “You might have been grateful.”
Ce laughed.
“I’m glad my perceived lack of gratitude amuses you,” Alea said.
“Oh, Alea… it is not that. When I realized you really had left, I thought that our Dee was better off without you, but now I think the two of you were spun by the goddess especially for each other,” Dehsah said.
“What do you mean?”
“All this time you’ve been waiting for her to apologize for being born, and she’s been looking for someone to accept that apology!” Dehsah said. “Is this really why you broke her heart before she set off on her journey? Because you had to share a book in catechism class with the other orphan girl?”
“It’s not about the book!” Alea said. “It’s… everything. I had to work hard to be accepted into the class. I was one picked out of eighties. It wasn’t like that for her. Delia Daella just decides she is going to be a priestess and they make the class bigger.”
“For shame, Alea! Do not mock a divine calling to the service of the Forsaken,” Dehsah said sternly, then ce giggled. “Of course, you know our Dee feels a pressure in her bladder and thinks the goddess is calling her to the cubby.”
“You shut your mouth,” Alea said.
Dehsah just laughed harder.
“If I were a d’Wyri, I would flog your backside until you could not sit,” Alea said.
“Would you like to?” Dehsah asked.
“I wouldn’t like to, but you need correction.”
“Alea, darling, I doubt anyone living in this cavern has taken more floggings than I have,” Dehsah said. “I think at this point I must be irredeemably beyond correction.”
“If that is the case, then you need to stop talking,” Alea said. “You say too many wrong things. If you truly cannot control your mouth, I think it would be best for the sake of yourself and everyone around you to keep it closed.”
Alea waited for Dehsah’s inevitably irreverent response, but ce said nothing.
“Dehsah?” Alea said, rolling over to look at her. Dehsah was just lying there on cer back, absently stroking cer penis. Ce looked over and smiled a tight-lipped smile. “Fine,” Alea said. She got up off the bed. “Good. I welcome your silence. Perhaps this can be the first step towards a more disciplined and proper existence for you.”
