Page 10 of The Artist
“If not, I’m sure you can borrow something from Aubri or Freya; they have more than enough,” Thor comforted her.
“Remind me again, when is your birthday?” Holly asked Thor. “Is it December or January?”
“January seventh. I’ll be twenty-five.”
Holly grinned. “Then we’ll be the same age for a few months. I turn twenty-six in April.”
Freya kept craning her neck to look out the window and when a drone finally arrived, she lit up. “The French are here.”
It was fun to see my cousin, who usually walked with grace and poise, squeal with glee and run through the room and down the stairs.
“Someone is happy.” Lachlan, who stood next to me, took a sip of the non-alcoholic welcome drink in his glass.
“It’s because of Belle. You know that Freya and Aubri see her as a little sister of sorts.”
“Mhmm, Belle was always one of my favorites as well. The French can be difficult but she’s different.”
I’d known Lachlan for eleven years and found him easygoing for a Motlander. To hear him express criticism of the entire French delegation was unexpected. With a nod to Lachlan, I set down my glass. “Excuse me, I’m going to greet them as well.”
We Northlanders argued with the French at every summit, but we always took each other’s side when it came to our right to be different. Like us, they resisted the rigid social rules that all Motlanders lived under.
At the first summit, the French had spoken a broken English and never cursed. When the Motlanders complained that we Northlanders were using inappropriate forms of communication and repeatedly asked us to stop cursing, we got stubborn. Our response was to turn up the swearing. As if that weren’t enough, we also taught the French to use a few of our favorite sayings such asshit a sheep, fuck a duck, anddancing devils. It always amused me to hear them use our lingo in their French accent. I appreciated that they weren’t afraid of using the full range of a language. Over the years they had taught us some French curse words as well.
When I walked outside, the French were exiting their drone. The machine was stripped of any luxury and reminded me of the drones we used in the military. As the leader of the Huntsmen, an elite unit of soldiers, I’d been on my share of flights in bumpy machines like that one. It was no wonder that the French delegation looked happy to get out of the drone.
I watched Aubri and Freya hug Belle, who was no longer a little girl. Over the years we had watched her blossom into a woman. Her eyes still had the same golden honey color, but they had lost a bit of their innocence.
Over the years, we’d learned much about the French society and the way they were organized. Unlike us they didn’t grow up in families but insisted that a French child was the child of everyone. It was seen as a civic duty to reproduce. Every male had to donate semen at the age of sixteen when his sperm count was the strongest. For women, they were required to have a minimum of two children. It was up to each woman when she chose to go through with her pregnancy as long as the first one was between the age of seventeen and twenty-seven. In an effort to grow their population the French government rewarded women for every pregnancy they endured after the first two.
Just like every summer since Belle turned seventeen, my eyes fell to her stomach. Despite her being twenty-four, there were still no signs of a child growing inside her. It was possible that Belle had done her civic duty in the eighteen months since we’d last seen her. If so, her body didn’t show any signs of a recent pregnancy.
Simon was helping Celeste out of the drone and it was easy to see that she on the other hand was very pregnant.
“Congratulations.” I walked over to greet them.
“For what?” Simon asked. His height hadn’t increased since we first met.
“Celeste is pregnant.” With a smile my gaze ran from her stomach to her eyes. “That’s amazing.”
She touched her front. “I’m happy you think so. Most days I regret signing up for a third one. I’m so tired all the time and I don’t remember the first ones kicking like this. I think it’s going to be a…” She searched for the word and turned to Simon asking him something in French.
“Dancer,” he said.
“Yes, I couldn’t remember that word.”
“That’s okay. I’m just impressed that you all speak English so well.”
“We weren’t given much choice,” Simon pointed out. “The Motlanders who taught us their language hoped that we would grow up and want to join them.” He rolled his eyes because like us, the French had no wish to be included in the Motherlands.
With a pat on his shoulder, I said, “It’s good to see you, Simon. I saved a cold beer for you.”
“See, that’s why I prefer coming here instead of the Motherlands; you don’t have a ban on alcohol.”
“Mason.”
I looked up to see Victor giving me a nod in greeting.
“Victor,” I greeted him back. “You’re looking sharp. Did you grow?”
