The Matriarch's Daughter

Chapter Five: Peacocks in Senate Halls

Without a doubt, the turn in the conversation was the weirdest interaction Thepa had ever had with her mother. Thepa knew her mother to be stern, often uptight, and downright ruthless when it came to matters of the state, but the moment Thepa started to come apart and her mother doing an about face, was one Thepa couldn't recall happening in living memory. The conversation vexed her so much, Thepa didn't even noticed the continued slights against her position as the two sipped on morning tea in the luxurious halls of the embassy.

"Have you even thought about when you will come home? You don't know what I had to—"

"Sister Vivian and Sister Onna," Thepa shouted, cutting her mother off.

"Keep your voice down. There's no need to let the whole of the nation hear you," Lockti answered, her tone laced in condensation, cleaning her hand from tea that had escaped her cup.

But Thepa pushed forward. She knew how precise her mother was with language. If manners were the most important lesson Thepa had to learn growing up, precision of language was a close second. From the moment she could speak, she learned to say things clearly and with intent. If they weren't careful, a wayward Matriarch could destroy a matron's life with a stray word.

"You said, 'Not all sisters are like Sister Vivian or Sister Onna.'"

"I know what I said. I was there."

Thepa could tell it got to her mother, who was looking quite intently at her own wrist, having long ago wiped the spilled tea from her body. For the first time in her life, she felt like she was on the offensive and had cornered her mother into an unseemly act.

"But why?" Thepa continued to press. "Shouldn't I want to have friends...advisors as you say like Sister Zelphina too?"

Lockti stopped, finally settling down her cup of tea. Looking her straight in the eye she rocked Thepa to her core for the second time that day.

"Bean."

It had been eighteen completions since Thepa last heard her mother call her Bean. Most six completions old wouldn't have given it a second thought, believing a younglinghood nickname was something they would have grown out of. However, Thepa never forgot. It was the day the three people she knew died, just not in the same way. Her Mimi to life, her mother to happiness, and her to her freedom. It was the day she was deemed to be the daughter of the Matriarch.

"Mom?" she asked afraid. Vulnerably couldn't even begin to describe what she was seeing or feeling. She set her own tea cup down trying not to shake.

"There are times when the path you're on feels like it's crumbling beneath your hooves," Lockti began, her voice low but steady. "When everything seems to be falling apart, you must keep moving forward. You have to trust you will find solid ground again."

Lockti's gaze, though soft, hinted at something more. Thepa felt a chill run through her, realizing that her mother was trying to tell her something without revealing it directly.

"Is something happening in the Beachwick?" She asked, her voice barely registering above a whisper.

"You can't run away from who you are," Lockti replied, sidestepping the question. "You are a Warbol. A Youngling of the Mountain hears the call of the wild, but a Warbol breathes Esha's smoke. His fire lives inside us, beckoning us to take our place among the Sisterhood."

Thepa's heart pounded in her chest. "Mom, you're scaring me."

Lockti looked at her for a long moment, locking her gaze, her expression unreadable. "Fear is a powerful thing, Bean. Don't let it hold you back. Instead, go where it teaches you. Go where he teaches you."