36 - Good for You, You Ragged Pup

Dukir, in the disguise of a Rasheem Amir, made a great show of being very firm with the demoted Raghnall, just enough to have it noted by the court.  You played your part well, boy, he thought. Horrified at this awful posting, the demotion from the head of the Women’s Rasheem, nobly restraining yourself as Diryish called you out in front of the whole court and verbally took you apart, for all imagined failures. They all thought you were going to take the high jump.

“I’ve a lot of birds waitin’ for us, sir,” he said.  “All packed and ready.  You ready to leave?  I suggest you be ready to leave within the hour.”

“Of course, Amir,” Raghnall pulled his elbow free with a snap.  “I was packed last week.”

Good for you, you ragged pup.  Good for you.

**

Kyrus sat, in the niche of the fireplace, the rock warm against his flank. I’m not sure I know what I should be feeling now.  People seem to have these weird ideas of what I should be of what I should show.  I’m just looking for a place to lay my head.  Priviliged people... you have no idea what it is to be hungry.

I... I... don’t know what to think.  People are dead because of me.  I’ve survived at other’s expense.  People have died while I lived.

Isn’t that what a warrior is?  One who lives at other’s expense? One who lives while other youngsters die?  What marked me out as one to survive?  Why me?  I survived toxic sand and knife fights and starvation when my food went to siblings who died anyway? Why me? Why did I survive?  Why did I make the incredible lottery that ensured my survival?  Why me?

I’ve fought hard to keep breathing.  I’ve fought hard to do what I needed to keep  air and water and calories flowing.Even with Mama and I both two siblings of mine wasted and waned.  Two siblings died. Two siblings failed.  My mother and I fought to keep eating.  No matter if time went sideways.  No matter if things got strange and twisted.  We held each other to a straight line of time.  We held each other to the straight and narrow.  We could follow the track of the bees from one flower to the next.

It was not a single line.  It was not a single track.  It was a meander across a flower meadow never understanding how one could get here without going ‘there’ first.  It was the thin, delicate, gossamer thread of survival.  The line to allow breathing to continue.  It didn’t care for warrior hood or honour or creation or pro creation, it depended on survival of the individual alone.

Which leads to the survival of the genome.  The survival of the successful line.  The survival of a viable gene set.

But how is that possible when mandery is anathema?  

Mandery is necessary but for anyone below a certain level Mandery is vile.  Above that invisible line, Mandery is necessary.  Mandery is a matter of survival.  This bothers me.  Mandery smacks of priviledge and ownership.

I begin to understand that ‘owner’ is a swear word in Milar.