to be Networked,” interrupts her daughter, tapping her head where her implant would be if she had one. “A prosthetic doesn’t cut it, apparently. Something about instant responses and clear communication and—” The rest of the requirements are cut off by a grunt as she extends a wild kick toward the device on the floor.
Shenya the Widow catches the unit before it touches the wall, as her daughter surely knew she would. She employs two more limbs to raise that gaze back to her own, resting the flat of a blade on each side of that beloved face. She can feel her daughter fight, but Shenya the Widow is a hunter and a mother—two things as unstoppable as destiny. “Daughter,” she says quietly. “You know our reasons.”
Her daughter meets that gaze. “You know what?” she says. “I’m tired of pretending. I’m tired of having no one to—” She stops, and her voice drops. “Sometimes I just want to tell everyone the truth and just see what happens.”
Now Shenya the Widow rattles, low and soft. This is far more serious than a job and a Network implant. “You must never, my love,” she whispers, filling her words with the force of a mother Widow.
“I must never?” asks her daughter, eyes still locked on her mother’s. “I must never tell the truth? I must never say hey, guess what, I’m not a moron, I’m a—”
“Do not say it,” hisses Shenya the Widow, trembling. With effort, she withdraws the blade that has just slit the synthetic flooring near her daughter’s foot. All over her body she feels the pleasure of blades lengthening and edges hardening, and fights to keep any of them from coming in contact with that beloved skin—
“I’m a Human,” says her daughter in a steady voice.
Shenya the Widow raises herself off the floor, her many blades extending in every direction. “Sarya the Daughter,” she says, in a voice that would terrify anyone on the station. “Hold out your appendage.”
Anyone but her daughter, apparently. The gaze doesn’t break as the hand is offered, palm up. The rest of her body shows the traditional posture of respect for an elder, with the worst sarcasm Shenya the Widow has seen in a long time. All the more reason for discipline.
“It does not matter what you were, my daughter,” says Shenya the Widow, placing the edge of a blade on a hand already crisscrossed with faint white lines. “It matters what you are, and what you are is Widow.”
Her daughter’s hand does not move. The posture becomes even more sarcastic, if such a thing is possible. Those eyes gaze into her mother’s, waiting and judging. Expecting pain without flinching. Like a Widow.
Shenya the Widow’s hearts overflow. Pain without fear—this, in her opinion, is the central proverb of Widowhood. She has spent so much time instilling this principle that it is almost poetic to have it used against her in this way.
“I raised you thus,” she continues, struggling to keep her prideful pheromones in check, “because I could not raise you as—as what you are.”
Her daughter does not look away. Her hand curls around the razor edge in its palm, as if in challenge. “Say it,” she says. “Say what I am.”
“I—” Shenya the Widow stops, then is shocked that she is the one who looks away. “I choose not to,” she says.
For the first time she feels the hand under her blade tremble, and Shenya the Widow returns her gaze to that precious face in time to see moisture welling up around those strange eyes. This is a thing Humans do: their emotions can often be derived from their excretions. The literature calls these drops of liquid tears; they express intense emotion, whether it be joy or distress. In this instance, she is almost certain that it is—
“Do you know what that feels like?” whispers her daughter.
Immediately, all desire to discipline evaporates. “Daughter,” says Shenya the Widow, withdrawing the blade without piercing that precious skin. “My center and my purpose.” She encircles her daughter in a gleaming, clicking embrace, rests the flat of a blade against that fragile face, and flicks her mandibles twice in an expression of love. She draws closer, her gleaming, faceted eyes nearly touching skin. “If anyone ever finds out what you are—”
“I know,” says her daughter with a sigh. “You don’t want to lose me.”
“Well,” says Shenya the Widow, spotting opportunity, “there are other considerations.”
“Yeah?”
“For instance,” says Shenya the Widow, twirling a blade as if in