The Extraordinary Accounts of One Lost Girl

-1-

They were arguing again. Their hushed voices filled the corridor filled with snaps and flustered sighs. They tried their best to keep their voices low. But yet I could still make out snippets of their conversation though the door of father's study.

'She's barely sixteen!'

'I know.... Graduate soon....... She'll_'

'Then postpone it somehow!'

'You know I can't do that!'

Their hushed voices resumed again.

'Is there anything.... postponing..... engagement.'

'.... I know of. Seeta, I am trying my best here. .... Nothing I can do.... The military.... If they decide.... Esper... nothing we can do.... Engage her to a noble... withdraw in the future.'

'She's not English, William. .... Proud histories... marry... mixed race.'

I felt the blood drain off my face. He's going to marry me off then. I looked down at my two hands. They were small, dark skinned, rather ugly. But they were the hands of a child who barely grew even if she were sixteen. I received most of my mother's islander features; short, dark skinned thick black hair with the only expection being my eyes. Won't I be a child bride? Like those ceremonies the British were trying so hard to abolish in the rural parts of India?

But I've read the children were much younger than me. Yet, sixteen seemed too young. I never imagined when I was smaller that I might ever attain this age. Sixteen. An age where you once felt that will be the start of your future, the start of freedom. You would be free to do what you choose; your parents cannot hold you down as much. But the older I became, the more constricted I felt. I had more than eighty years ahead of my, considering a human lifespan. Okay, take sixty, just in case I didn't live up to a hundred. Yes, eighty seemed like a good age to leave the world.

Would I be stuck for sixty years under a husband, raring his children in a world torn apart by war?

I felt that I could not bear and eavesdrop at my parents' discussion any longer. I fled to my room upstairs, careful not to make a sound as I climbed the wooden staircase.

Would father really find an engagement for me? Even if my partner he found would be good and kind, it felt constricting. Like as if there would be an invisible chain around my throat. Maybe I should talk to father privately. He barely looked at me, but I didn't think that he would be unreasonable enough not to listen.

As I neared my room, I tried to think of a way out. I knew that it would be my impending fate in the future. It was expected. I was the daughter of a highly ranked noble military man, from a long time of espers. So I prepared. An educated woman would have a higher chance of being independent, not needing to rely on a husband. Ever since I realized what fate awaited me, I prepared. I worked diligently on my school work, working hard enough that I would gain favor from my teachers. I didn't care even if I would have to curry favor from them, as long as someone would recommend to a university. Only a handful of people went to university. Women got married, men joined the Western Alliance. The ones who went were only the clever ones, the ones who would be advantageous to the government if educated. I didn't care to what stream I would be recommended to, though I had no hope for the more interesting streams like science, philosophy and architecture. Women were not allowed to follow those streams. Even if they did, it was frowned upon, considering them a burden and a hindrance.

But I didn't realize my parents would prepare my engagement too soon. Once an engagement is made, the only way out was through soiling my reputation. I do not want to resort to something like that.

I was not useful to the military as an esper, since I was not one. If I were an esper, I would be given a rank and a salary, like my brother, even if I were a girl. A girl cannot go the military as a soldier either, since they never took women.

I could go to a convent and become a sister, but that commitment felt like a prison itself, the same as marriage.

Maybe if I could at least get qualifications to train as a teacher or even better, a nurse, I would be more than happy.

That thought stopped me in my tracks as I prepared for bed. A nurse. Maybe, maybe I could voice my thoughts that I wanted to be a nurse. Even better; a nurse that will serve in the military. But it seemed like the best excuse. The pay was usually good and it would not dishonor my family. I was not sure whether I wanted to spend my days in battle field, tending the wounded with the smell of blood all over. It also seemed like a lot of commitment as well.

I slept, quite angry and disappointed at my lazy nature.