Page 24 of Nyanine's Divide

“Kari is right, Tavionna. The rightful ruler is not determined merely by blood but by action as well. You are the rightful priestess and will remain so. Ayira merely adds to your family and colony. If you both have heirs, the rightful successor will be determined by action as well as blood. Whoever proves to be the most successful at handling your duties will be deemed successor. She cannot take this position from you.” Father crosses his legs, the beads on the outsides of his pant legs clacking quietly.

“That’s not how it’s been done on our world, it was always the next in line.” Tavionna sniffles, wiping at her face.

“But on our world, love, we’ve not had multiple successors for the position. This is new. Perhaps your father is correct, thingsare different when there are multiple heirs to succeed. You were groomed and prepared for this, blessed by the goddess, and have brought our world back into glory. Ayira has no ability to take over for you. You are the rightful heir as it stands. I’m sure the goddess Wonékano would agree.” Seuke kisses her hand gently, wiping at her tears.

She nods, accepting our words, and silence reigns for a bit as she collects herself. Kari gently grabs her plate and holds it out to her. “Here, how about we eat something, then we can discuss this more. You need food, you need strength.”

We all eat in silence for a long while, and it isn’t until most of us are finished that Tavionna begins to speak again, shocking us all.

“My mother murdered her father, leaving her an orphan on a dirty planet close to death.” Her voice is devoid of emotion, quiet, haunting in the silence. Her eyes remain unfocused as she admits this truth, and it’s as if she can’t bear to truly think about it, she must disconnect to admit it.

Those words hang heavy in the air, and no one has a response. Father glances at me, and we lock eyes for a long moment. I can almost hear his thoughts about forgiving her, opening up, sharing our lives.She’s our kin, and no matter the damage her mother did, she is not her mother. She made mistakes based on her mother’s teachings, her mother’s mistakes, but she’s making efforts, and we should, too. Blah blah blah.I can literally hear the words, the tone of voice, as if he’s projecting his thoughts into my mind.

Her mother is way worse than we thought originally. She was abusive and dismissive toward Tavionna, we knew that. She treated her poorly, taught her to be a selfish, power-hungry priestess, but Tavionna has shown that that is exactly what she doesn’t want to be. Now it turns out that her mother was even more despicable than we all thought.

“I couldn’t stomach it after I witnessed it alongside young Ayira. My stomach came out, I wept for her, for us, and couldn’t process for awhile. I know that I should speak with Ayira, explain my odd behavior, tell her the truth of her origins if she doesn’t remember, and offer her a place with her people. But I’m not sure I can handle it right now. I’m barely processing this and accepting the information as it stands. I simply can’t believe my mother would murder her own mate.” Her words are whispered as she struggles to get them out, lost in her thoughts.

“I just, I think the right thing for me to do for now is to focus on the task at hand and come back to this. I’m here to help Kari, to protect you all, to offer what assistance I can. My relationship with Ayira can wait a bit longer.” As she speaks, she seems to find her resolve, her spine straightening. She turns her gaze to Kari, her head moving quickly, whipping her hair over her pink shoulder. “Didn’t you want to go city to city and village to village, meeting with the leaders, so we could try and gain support and information?”

Kari’s eyebrows rise, and she gulps. “Yeah, I did. But, Tavi, if this is more important….”

“It isn’t. Sister, I assure you, the safety of you and your planet is so much more important than my messed up family. You’re the family I have now, the family I need to focus on. We need to fix this issue now before it gets worse or is too late. If we finish this mission, then I can focus on that one.” She grins at Kari, and I recognize her words. She’s stealing from Kari’s dictionary to connect with her and convince her. Tricky.

“But are you sure that’s the best course of action, to ignore this? If you’re going to be mending broken relationships or creating new ones with your family, isn’t now the best time while you're already doing it with us?” I cock an eyebrow at her and wait.

Her head spins to pin me with a blank look. “You have a point, Vahru, you do. However… I’m fragile at the moment, and I have no idea how much Ayira remembers. Bringing this up now might cause more damage to her, and the last thing that I want to do is to make this harder for her. If I open up wounds she sealed long ago, it could take us time we don't have right now to unpack all that, to work through it. Our situation is a bit simpler. However, your world is on a precipice. We need to fix it, now, and that’s what I’m here to do, what we’re all here to do. One task at a time. I assure you, I will come back to this Ayira issue, but it’s not the priority right now. You are. Your world is.”

We stare each other down for a long moment before I nod, accepting her logic. She’s right, if Ayira is severely traumatized by her past, then bringing it up now will stop us from focusing on the problems we’ve been trying to solve for months now. It could distract her, cripple her, and cause a significant loss in our help that we desperately need at the moment. We don’t have that kind of time. If we’re having to protect the village this way from drones and cameras so that we can’t be spied on, it’s only a matter of time before the enemy takes more drastic measures to get their information.

“Well, I think meeting with the leaders is a good idea, we can use the portal to get there quicker than driving, however, considering that the chancellor of the local city didn’t want to meet with me, I’m unsure of how the others will feel.” Kari sets down her plate and picks up her tea, cradling her cup between her hands against her chest. She sips it as Tavi turns back to her.

“Oh, my dear, sweet sister, that’s what I’m here for! I can sway them with some emotional spells to convince them to see you. It won’t affect their opinions of your mission, mind you, but it will get them to open their doors to you. You’ll get your meetings, even if I have to work a little magic to make it happen.” Tavi grins ferally, and Kari chuckles.

“Is that even right?”

Tavi shrugs. “I’m not forcing them, just persuading them a bit. If they fight the magic, they can still deny you. But it may help get you in front of more of them. We’ll take notes of their responses, see who’s willing and who isn’t, and we can use that to figure out who we can trust and who we can’t. Perhaps we’ll learn more than we think.”

“Hmm.” Kari looks at me, and I shrug. Whatever she wants to do, this is her mission, I’m just here to protect her. I may not agree with everything, but if she’s going to get the information that she needs to get this sorted, she’s going to have to take risks that I don’t like. The best thing I can do is be there to help and protect her through it.

“As long as you take me and Kosiiba with you, I’m okay with it. We’re not going unprotected, princess.”

“Fair enough. Jeff, what do you think?”

He pulls Willa into his lap and nods. “I suppose if you feel it’s the right thing to do. Take your protection, take your comms, and stay in touch. Let us know when you head back. I want to be kept in the loop.”

She nods crisply and grins at Tavionna. “Well, we should probably get ready to head out. Let’s get this done so we can get to working out this issue!”

I sigh and hop up, gathering up the plates and cups to clean as everyone scatters to begin planning their day. We have a lot to do, a lot of places to go. Portaling means we’ll be seen, we’ll be able to be tracked and watched by our enemy, but it’s a calculated risk we must take if we’re to acquire help. I don’t think this is the adventure Kari was looking for, but, god, I hope that we can solve this so we can have the adventures we truly want before we die, if all this doesn’t kill us first. Only way to go is forward.

This issue has been a long time building, and as much as I’m grateful that there’s finally someone to resolve it, I’m also agitated that it’s my mate that has to be the one to do it. We’ve only just found each other, and the last thing I want is to lose her to this. We have plenty of help for now, lots of people to watch our backs and help protect us, but if this goes sideways, my only hope is that I can get her out before it’s too late.

Chapter 18

Tutkijaa

Sitting at my desk, I continue watching my programs sort through historical information on this planet repeatedly, looking for anomalies or changes. So far, all I’ve seemed to find is an insane amount of the same shit. Kari was right, the history on this world and the divide between the people is almost identical on every site you look at.

Plunging into the dark net and darker nets, I continue my search, setting up algorithms to sort through information for me at a faster rate than I can achieve. As much as I hate AI sometimes and the idea of robots and shit, I will admit that this use of AI is brilliant. These algorithms can search for keywords, phrases, topics, plus so much more, and file the information a thousand times faster than even I could, and I’m damn fast.

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