Three perfectly-timed raps at the door. Madya looked up and placed her liner back in its inkwell. “Enter,” she called, but quietly enough not to wake her newest son.
Kamiéra gently opened the door and bowed as if posing for a rote-text. “You sent for me, Mistress Madya?” she asked, assuming a battle-rest pose that could have been from an illustration.
Madya smiled. “I did indeed. Close the door, child.” She waited as the youngling gently closed the door and marveled that this was the same girl who’d been too spoilt to even look her in the eye her first night here. She did not urge the girl to sit, however, as discipline had produced the marvel before her and she saw precious little reason to tinker with a working formula.
“You have been voted Company Leader every moon since you arrived,” she began. “Unanimously, I should add.” The girl was still just a girl and so she blushed. “Your Company has performed near or at the top of every Mark in that time. There has been no infighting, no squabbling, and no backsliding. Those sisters of yours have absolute confidence in you and it shows. You are clearly a natural leader.”
There. There was that odd look the girl got in her eyes at the strangest times, as if trying to recall the name of a random and imaginary poem from a dream. It ended quickly, as it always did, and just like that, the girl was suddenly no longer blushing and somehow seemed more ... confident?
Remarkable the effect a compliment can have on a young person. Madya quite simply had no memory of ever being that impressionable, but again, she was loathe to alter this effect.
“You and your Company now have your first Leave. Most novices who receive that spend their time getting to know the young men in town, or spending coin at some of the shops that line the Vision Way. Knowing you, of course, I expect you and your sisters will spend the next week drilling and preparing for the next Term.” She’d meant it as a joke, but the girl got that faraway look and then simply nodded and asked to be dismissed.
Madya watched the young woman leave and shook her head, itching to pick up Kalren but also grateful for the chance to get some work done without the need to feed him. She hoped she hadn’t been quite so serious when she was that age, but even if she was, she was glad to have become who she was now, as Kamiéra eventually would in her own time.
