Shade's Sabre

Day 12

Freyia shut the front door behind her, pressed her back against it, then slowly slid down it until she was sat on the doormat, head against her knees. Scout sat next to her, pressed firmly against her side and she put a hand gently on his side as she sat there, taking steady breaths. The frontal assault had worked. A strong defense was often a strong offence, and by kneecapping her closest rival in Mei with a show of power it had stopped a lot of the other smack thay would have been sent her way, but all the same, there had been a lot of side glances, a lot of whispering on the edge of Scout's powerful hearing.

There was the sound of footsteps and a quick glance through Scout's eyes showed her her Grandmother heading into the family room. Instantly, voices started.

"Oh," her grandmother observed. "I thought you would have taken the hint and gone away."

"I was waiting for your response."

"My leaving the room was the response."

"Look, it won't harm the girl. It's totally plausible, we can just ship her out to her older aunt, let things die down."

"And you don't think they won't start back up the moment she returns?" Her grandmother responded. "You don't silence whispers by running from them, that only pauses them, reinforcing them for when they inevitably return. The only way out is through. She has to ride this."

"And the family?"

"This family has ridden many storms. This is neither the last, nor the biggest, that we will have to face."

"And what about us?"

"Just marry your damn toyboy and go be a Ping if it bothers you so much. The family will ride this. If you're too chicken to stay the course, then you know where the door is."

"I don't see why we should lose face over one girl."

"That's why you're not the matriarch. I'm done discussing this. Shut up and put up or bail. Either way, get out."

Freyia got up as her uncle left the room, casting a black glare at her, then paused at the door of the family room. Her grandmother was still at work on the protection balls, but looked up at Freyia in the doorway.

"Hard day?" Her grandmother asked.

"No worse than I expected," Freyia admitted. "Or probably deserved."

"You're still not sorry."

"I am that I let you down and caused you so much hassle."

"Love, i've been handling these idiots for over half a century, think nothing of it," her grandmother considered. "And as for letting me down... Well. You're not the first and won't be the last."

The words were like a sucker punch.

"Xiu's been called into work," her grandmother observed. "But she asked me to let you know, she contacted your father. It was a compromised line, and bad signal, but she let him know what had happened. He replied..." She paused to recollect. "'Tell her that of my parting words nothing is to be omitted, altered or rectified."

Freyia blew out a long breath as a weight seemed to fall off her. Her grandmother glanced at her.

"What were his parting words?"

"That I didn't need to try to make him proud of him, he already was and always had been."

Her grandmother shook her head in amuaement.

"Such a sentimental man," she said gently. "Go on, go get changed. I expect to see you at the table for dinner."

"Yes Grandam."