thought. “I would prefer not to, say, murder those who would come for you.” She shrugs, a long chain reaction that begins at her carapace and clatters to the ends of her blades. “You know how it is once you get started…”
That does it. Her daughter battles valiantly, but the tiniest of smiles manages to fight its way to the surface of her face. That’s what this expression is, this concerted mouth-and-eyes movement. A smile.
“Good point,” says her daughter, the corners of her mouth twitching in both Widow and Human emotion. “We wouldn’t want you to murder unnecessarily.”
“No, Daughter,” says Shenya the Widow. “We would not.”
“I mean, you might murder the wrong people, or too many people—”
“Almost certainly. You know what it’s like when the righteous fury is upon you. Once you begin—”
“It’s hard to stop,” Sarya the Daughter says quietly. She takes her mother’s blade in her hands and caresses it, watching her own eyes in her reflection. “At least, that’s how I imagine it.”
Shenya the Widow allows her daughter a moment of reflection. She herself has always found fantasies of mayhem soothing; she assumes the same is true for Humans. “It would comfort your mother,” she says after a moment, “if, before you left for your field trip, you would correct your earlier statement.”
Her daughter sighs and rises to her feet as her mother’s blades retract from around her with eight distinct rattles. “I am Sarya the Daughter,” she says softly. “Adopted, of Shenya the Widow. My species is—” She sighs. “My species is Spaal.” With one hand, she signs the Standard symbols that she has used her entire life: I’m sorry, my tier is low. I don’t understand. She looks disgusted with herself, standing in the center of her quarters with her shoulders bowed. “Happy?” she asks.
And that is that: another trans-species child-rearing triumph. A marginal success, perhaps, but a parent must take what a parent can get. And now that the crisis has passed, Shenya the Widow may turn to a happier subject. “Now, my daughter—” she begins.
“I don’t even look like one,” her daughter mutters, turning away. “Anyone who thinks so is the moron.”
“Daughter,” says Shenya the Widow. “I would like to—”
“Did I tell you I have an interview at the arboretum?” her daughter interrupts, lifting the prosthetic off the floor with distaste. “Yeah. Even a damn Spaal is overqualified for that one, believe it or not. I think most everybody down there is actually sub-legal, so I could actually be a manager or—”
“Daughter!” hisses Shenya the Widow.
Her daughter turns, expectant, blinking against Shenya the Widow’s exasperated pheromones. The Network prosthetic dangles from one hand, already displaying a new error message.
“Perhaps you should leave that here,” says Shenya the Widow, gesturing toward the unit with a gleaming blade.
Her daughter laughs a short Widow laugh with the corners of her mouth. “I’d rather go naked,” she says, holding down a control to reset the device. “You think this is bad, try going without any unit at all. I tried that once and—”
“Take this one instead,” says Shenya the Widow. With a smooth movement, she reveals—finally—the tiny device she has been holding behind her thorax this entire time.
Her daughter stares, jaw dropping downward with that peculiar verticality that once so disgusted Shenya the Widow.
“I was going to wait for your adoption anniversary,” says her mother, almost afraid to judge this reaction. “The waiting, however, proved to be—”
The prosthetic hits the floor with a weighty thump as Sarya the Daughter leaps forward to seize the gift. “Mother!” she breathes, fingering the tiny locket and earbuds. “How can we afford this? This is—I don’t even—this is amazing. It’s perfect!”
“I had it customized,” says Shenya the Widow, allowing her own pride to seep into the words. “I even installed your little friend on it to help you get accustomed. They say if you cannot have the surgery—” She hesitates, now feeling her way forward. Because someone might discover your species is the exact type of phrase that could ruin all her hard-won progress. “Then this is the next best thing,” she finishes.
Her daughter says nothing in words, but her disregard for her own safety says it all. With a wild Human laugh, she flings herself into razor-sharp limbs, arms outstretched. With skill developed from long practice, mother catches daughter in a net of softened blades and flat chitin.
“These are the good kind of tears, correct?” asks Shenya the Widow, stroking the warm face with the flat of a