The Maidening Ceremony

Chapter Six - Scene 3

            

William took his place at the round table, gavel in hand. "Fellow Elders, our population is dwindling again and the couples we have left are not producing new infants." He said the same thing every time the Council met to discuss the Ceremony and Millicent usually ignored him, but this meeting was different, because Arilya's training would be discussed and no matter how hard Millicent tried to be indifferent to the girl, she could not.

"Is it really such a bad thing if we do not produce new infants?" Elizabeth asked.

The rest of the Elders groaned a collective, "Not again..."

"Yes, Elizabeth.  We need to produce new hunters.  New food preparers.  Without new infants, what are we to do when the hunters die off?  We can go out there, hunt out own food, but how long before all of us die?  We tried that in the beginning and look where it has gotten us.  Ten left.  Only ten of us are left.  We need them.  We need the Community."

Murmurs of assent floated through the cave.  William pointed an angry finger at Elizabeth.  "Your counter-productive, snide comments are no longer allowed.  Do you understand me?"

Elizabeth slammed her palms onto the table and shot out of her seat.  "We have all sat back and let you lead this Council, William, but we are all the same here. We are all equal.  Why is my opinion less worthy than yours?"

"When your opinions start being useful, they will be just as valuable as the rest of ours.  Now, would you care to regain your seat so we can behave like adults and have a conversation about the training of the merphen?"  William did not often lose his cool; it was evident he was now trying to save face and put the previous outburst out of the Council members' heads.  Because what Elizabeth said was true – no one elected William as the leader.  After the numbers started dropping, the Elders agreed to be equal; no one above the rest.  William took advantage of that agreement over the years and began acting like the leader, but no one stopped him.  Millicent was not surprised, however, that Elizabeth became the first to question it.

But Elizabeth calmed herself quickly.  It was unusual for any Community member to express passion, but even more unusual for the Elders to do so.  Elizabeth seemed to realize her behavior was out of place.  She resumed her seat, as William suggested, and the meeting continued.

"There are seven merphen this year.  Four males, three females.  Do we have any females from the last class who were not paired?"

Joseph, the Record Keeper, picked up a tablet in front of him and examined it.  "No, we were short of females last year, as well."

"It seems as if another male will be left un-paired."  William rolled his gavel in his hands, unhappy with the disproportional numbers.  "Let us discuss Ceremony training mentors.  Would anyone like to volunteer?"

Usually, no one volunteered and William ended up assigning based on a rotating lineup.  For reasons unknown to her, Millicent was always left out of the rotation.  She never questioned it and the others did not seem to notice or care.  But out of the blue

"Thank you, Elizabeth."

"You are welcome.  I would like to mentor the girl with the red tail."  She looked straight at Millicent as she spoke, a smug little smile on her face.

Millicent took the bait, stupidly.  "Are you sure that is a good idea?"

"What do you mean?" she asked sweetly.

"You seem to have an agenda against her."

"I do not know what you are talking about."

Millicent made a hasty decision.  Her heart took over and she blurted out, "William, I would like to mentor Arilya."