“All right, all right.” T’sha rattled her wings. “Take me there. Public affairs must wait for affairs of the home and egg, it would seem.”
“Sometimes, T’sha.” A rare flash of humor brightened Ca’aed’s voice. “Sometimes.”
Ca’aed spoke to T’sha’s kite and took control, guiding it between the swarm of traffic—kite, wing, and dirigible that always buzzed about Ca’aed and its wake villages. T’sha’s birth family lived near the top of the city. When she was young, she and her siblings had played chase, darting in and out of the light portals that made up their personal ceiling.
The family Br’ei had encouraged a garden around the tendons that tied their private chambers to the main body of the city. Anemones in all the colors of life puffed out eggs and pollen that sparkled brightly in the approaching twilight. T’sha paused in front of the main door, intending to take time to organize her thoughts, but she misjudged her distance. The door caught a taste of her and opened.
Her birth parents waited for her in the center of the greeting room—pale Mother Pa’and who seemed to fill any room with her presence even when she was contracted down to the size of a child, and brightly shining Father Ta’ved, who had an aura of calm around him that could work on T’sha better than ten hours in a refresher. The interlocking rings of their marriage tattoos still appeared as dark and strong against their skin as they had when T’sha was a child.
Father Ta’ved’s city had fallen to a slow rot, one of the first. Mother Pa’and’s family could not bear the idea of their friends all falling into an ordinary term of indenture, so they arranged for Ta’ved to enter into a childbearing marriage with their oldest daughter. After two children, Ta’ved and Pa’and decided they both liked the arrangement. Ta’ved liked not having the pressures of his own house to worry over, and Pa’and found him an excellent father and friend. So, they renewed the promise. Pa’and even gave Ta’ved the option of bringing other spouses into the household, but he had never used it.
“Good luck, Mother Pa’and, Father Ta’ved.” T’sha rubbed her parents’ muzzles. She noticed, gratefully, that they had decided to leave her little sisters T’kel and Pa’daid out of this family conversation. T’deu had probably absented himself.
“Now.” T’sha backed just far enough away so she could see their eyes. “Let me see if I can guess how this will go. Mother Pa’and, you will wish me the best of luck on my new mission.” Mother dipped her muzzle in acknowledgment. Father clacked his teeth, just a little. “And you, Father Ta’ved, will mention that this is likely to be the work of a lifetime. Mother, you will agree with him and say how hard it is to do the work of a lifetime with no family to support you, to have to promise constantly and barter for everything that you need instead of being surrounded by those who are dedicated to helping you because their future and contentment are tied to yours.” T’sha swelled, spreading her wings to encompass the whole room. “Father will agree profoundly, and I, so moved by your arguments, will fly instantly to the marriage broker, pick myself out three husbands and a wife, and not leave for the candidate world until my entire load of eggs is thoroughly fertilized.” She subsided.
“Am I right?”
Mother clacked her teeth loud and hard, shaking with her amusement. “You could have gone straight to the marriage broker, Daughter T’sha, and saved your breath to choose your spouses.”
T’sha deflated to her normal size. “Mother, Father.” She thrust her muzzle toward them, pleading. “I promise, when my business on the candidate world is done, I will graft myself onto the marriage broker until I have found someone to be madly in love with, someone to sire my children, and someone to keep my home. Will that satisfy you?”
“Deeply,” said Mother Pa’and. “You will never be in a better position to make those promises than you are now.”
T’sha’s crest ruffled. “And if we’re done predicting my imminent political death?”
“Daughter T’sha.” Father Ta’ved sank just a little. “You know that is not what we’re doing here.”
“I know, Father Ta’ved, I know.” T’sha brushed her muzzle against his. “But I have been given so much, both in responsibility and authority, that to spend time seeking after a household of my own before I’ve done my duty by the People and my city…It feels greedy.”
Father Ta’ved swelled proudly. “Such a feeling does you great credit, Daughter T’sha. But children for your family and your city is not a greedy wish.”