"Do you ever miss your moonblood, Kamiéra?" Llaha asked, her thinly-gloved fingers effortlessly moving needle and thread in the intricate pattern they'd learned in class this morning. When no response was immediately forthcoming, she added, "I think I miss mine, but I'm honestly not certain. It was the sign that I was ready to leave the Children's Quarters and prepare for adulthood, but, well, ugh."
The rest of the room, except the girl to whom she'd addressed the question, laughed sympathetically.
Jon, however, was concentrating on three things at once, one consciously, the other two no less taxing for his mind.
Unlike the other occupants of the Sleeping Quarters, he had no experience with thread and needles other than the time he'd tried out his dad's vintage skateboard into a downhill cul-de-sac and then a driveway and then a garage. However, unlike the other novices, he was passionately dedicated to and quickly absorbing every single thing he learned here, and so he was catching up to the others fast.
His old interests and disinterests meant nothing. What he learned here was everything.
Because you can never tell when you'll need to mend a dress for a diplomatic dinner with no time to hand it to the servants, or repair stitchwork on armor between battles, or craft protective sleeves for Will focuses. Obviously.
The second thing on his mind was the question presented. He had never had a moonblood, which he guessed meant a period. On the other hand, maybe his body had? And what was the right answer? She had asked Kamiéra, and although he was Kamiéra, and Jon had never had a period, maybe Kamiéra had?
Which led to the final thing occupying a huge portion of his mind, but not his conscious awareness. These were his sisters. Shouldn't he tell them to call him Jon? But they insisted on calling him Kamiéra, and that meant that here, to them, that was his name, and he was sort of their leader who couldn't let them down or fail to excel, and wouldn't it be backsliding to before to have them call him Jon when he was expected to be Kamiéra?
"No," he responded primly, and then laughed, and everyone joined in.
Amaso, who had become best friends with Llaha
because old rivalries and hatreds mean nothing we are all sisters
held up her needlework with a triumphant shout. "Crown me, I'm first!" she cried, and displayed the delicate, if obviously flawed work.
"Wonderful work, Amaso!" Jon said, and it so clearly came from the heart that everyone smiled a bit more. "And you didn't even use the Will and the Wind!" Not that anyone would have thought to do so, having been explicitly instructed not to use the Gift for mundane training.
Because every truth learned here is a truth learned well.
And someday, it may have to be done when wounded or exhausted or pregnant and therefore unable to summon the Gift at all or well.
A few more finished, then most of the rest. Respectfully, they waited for Kamiéra. There were some good-natured jabs about how she was so much better than this morning just based on the lack of blood loss, but they were sisters in adversity and cheering each other on, and everyone knew it.
Finally, Jon held up his work with an uncertain smile.
Everyone gasped.
Tesliain, the quiet one, cousin to the bride of the Heir, said what they were all thinking. "Did you use the Gift?"
Jon frowned. "Of course not," he said. "Anyway you could tell if I had." He paused. "Is something wrong?"
Llaha gently took the pattern from him. "It's beautiful," she responded reverently. And really, it was. There was not a single error; and he had gone beyond the basic pattern for the night and done the advanced one Magistra Gelis had told them to do of possible.
Jon's smile changed as the compliments came in, from uncertain to beaming to happy and assured. He was learning and learning well, for his family, for his sisters, for the Empire, and for himself. He wouldn't want to be anywhere but here, at home.
