Children being children, talk of politics, organization, and duty were of at-best varying interest, and decreasing with decreasing age. With supper concluded, the older children took the younger ones to the privies, leaving the two youngest to toddle around and Baba and Mama to talk to their eldest sibling.
Alleisa eyed her eldest daughter with an appraising, but proud, eye. Gone was the willful child who'd headed off to the Academy, gone even was the one who seemed so strangely uncertain last Autumn Dawning. Kamiéra had truly grown into the young woman they'd hoped she'd become, rather than the incessant dilettante they'd feared she was destined to be, Mother be praised.
That vague look in her eye of a moment ago, though. It had lasted for just a moment, but it was the old Kamiéra come again, leaving behind the world when it wasn't to her liking. But just that suddenly, it had left, and the girl was avidly questioning troop dispositions, armaments, and the distribution of that new steel blend she had worked out with Jelaris.
Odd, but if that was all that was left of the girl she had feared could never run a House, Alleisa would take that trade.
"We have more news," she began as her husband stood up to pretend to attend to the little ones, which she knew meant taking an opportunity to play with them under the guise of herding them out of trouble. Mother and Father hear her, if she wasn't already carrying another of his get in her, that sort of thing would have had her trying for another that night. "We have entered talks with Kelsra about offering your Bond."
The old Kamiéra looked back at her. "Mother," she began in that tone that always meant a sophistic argument was coming. "I haven't graduated yet, and I cannot be Mistress of War if--"
Alleisa held up her hand. "Be at ease, daughter," she said, and just that quickly, that strange look returned and disappeared. The girl shut up and suddenly seemed more relaxed, so if the cost of an obedient daughter was a brief daydream every few minutes, so be it. "These are early talks. Kelsra has many sons, and is the most powerful House in the West. The Oneist filth has spread through some of the heathens in the Long Marches, and we will need reinforcements all along that border. Because of how unsettled Court is right now, we cannot be sure of reinforcements from any of the Chamber Houses. Nothing has been set yet and nothing would be until you've served your first triad after graduation."
Kamiéra nodded. "Of course, Mother," she replied sincerely. Remarkable. Was this really her daughter? "Is the Oneist threat that bad?"
"Not yet," Odrem rumbled from beneath a pile of little arms and legs, his heavy voice cutting through the squeals of small children being tickled by hands and a Will. "But it is always a bad idea to suffer a heretic to live."
Now was not the time to start a theological debate over the differences between Matrianism and Patrianism, so Alleisa let that by without comment. Kamiéra, however, rubbed a temple and spoke up. "But the Mother teaches that all lives and minds may be redeemed," she began.
"The teachings of the Mother and Father are not always in perfect agreement, Kamiéra," Alleisa began, shooting her husband a look. Whether he saw it under Padra's attempt to climb his head was anyone's guess, but sometimes one shoots one's husband looks regardless. "We leave it to the Patriarchs and Matriarchs to sort these things out. As between husband and wife," another look, she was sure he saw that one, "You will find that while the marriage bed is one of life's true joys, debating your husband can be almost as much fun." She got up to quickly extract her youngest daughter before the child completely overtopped her father, finally letting her smile grow beyond the tiny smirk she'd held it to for whole minutes. When she'd been here, she had been sure she would enter a Battle Cloister, so distant was her interest in children, but she thanked the Mother daily that she'd agreed to the Bond to this man her parents presented her.
So quietly she barely heard it in the growing din of laughs and happy screams, she heard Kamiéra reply, "Of course, Mama."
