86 — Family

Long past midnight, two women retraced their steps. They scaled a tall wall, and trespassed into an empty estate owned by a missing-in-action general. A grassy field that was only illuminated by stunning starlight lay out before them. There, they found a man laying in the grass, looking up. 

“Hey, big guy,” Kaite greeted Jaegré.

Flo plopped down beside him. “We knew you'd be here,” she said. 

“Hey love, hey sis,” he said to Kaite and Flo, respectively, still looking up at the stars. “Yeah, wanted to get a bit more of this view before the weather changed. I’m not used to feeling cold yet, but what I have felt I don’t like one bit. Flo, you’re lucky. Not sure how Kaite and Sheam can put up with it. Speaking of, where’s the captain? Midnight oil?”

“Sheam’s addicted to work.” Kaite said. “If it's not the museum, or Emmett's community organization, it's hunting down Jossimer. Speaking of — any sign of him on the grounds?”

Jaegré shook his head. “I did a once-over earlier. All listeners are working. All feather-wires intact.”

“Fucker can't hide forever.” Kaite then threw a piece of grass at Flo for no reason at all. 

Flo grabbed Kaite by the wrist and pulled her down into a tangle of limbs.

Jaegré laughed and sat up, touching his forehead to Kaite’s. They closed their eyes and held that pose for a moment. “Got a lot on her shoulders. And she moves fast. Not sure how the three of us keep pace with her.”

“She's somehow even faster with her hurt leg!” Flo said, contemplating.

“No kidding,” Kaite said. “Offer's still open to just cut it off. Make a real pirate captain out of her.”

“No!” Flo said, sternly, eyes serious. “No joking about that!”

“Fine, fine!” Kaite said, yielding with a wry grin. “Sorry, babe.”

Flo’s serious tone did not abate. “I worry about her more and more. She throws herself into all of that work day after day. I know it’s been a few months but… she never really did rest while recovering. I know a lot of the time she seems really happy, but sometimes, I can see it — it weighs her down. I guess she’s just tired, but…” Flo trailed off.

“Don’t worry about her,” Kaite said, booping Flo’s nose.

Flo twitched her nose playfully, her serious tone somewhat softening as she turned to Jaegré. “We wanted to check on you. Kaite said you came out here to be alone but I'm not sure you ever actually said that. So, I said we had to check. So, now we're checking.”

“Nah, not alone,” he said. “Just to think. I think I can still think with you two.”

“What’cha thinkin’ about?” Flo asked, laying down completely, watching the two above her. 

“The Giant.” He simply said 

“Still, or again?” Kaite asked. She had found a long twig and was breaking it into smaller and smaller halves.

“I think about it a lot, too,” Flo said, eyes to the stars. “I wonder if I can thank it for helping you come back to us.” Her voice had turned dreamy and introspective.

“I want to go find it.” Jaegré said, laying down as well, his head near Flo’s.

Kaite continued to fiddle with the twigs, apparently aimlessly, but the other two knew better — she was using bits of grass like little strings, wrapping and tying. “Planning to get yourself slurped up by it again?” She asked. “Keep doing that and I may stop pretending to worry about you coming back.” Kaite tried to keep her tone playful, but couldn’t help avert her eyes as she said it. She knew her eyes held the truth.

“Maybe, actually?” Jaegré said. “I mean, probably not? Only if it wants me to visit. It's up to it, right? If I can even find it.”

“That would be so cool,” Flo said in a dreamy tone. She was tracing out constellations with a finger, one eye shut. 

Kaite had finished building her little man made from twigs and grass. She playfully made it dance on Jaegré's chest for a moment, singing in a gravely voice, “I'm Jaegré, and I miss my gigantic rectangular girlfriend thing!” She then pretended to swallow the twig doll in one gulp, adding, “Mmm! Together at last!” in a brassy baritone.

Flo lost herself in a fit of giggles at the display. Then she made a serious, almost scolding face, saying, “If that’s really what Jaegré wants you shouldn’t make fun!” while wagging her finger.

Jaegré smiled and held his hand out. Kaite acquiesced, placing the stick-and-grass doll gently into it. 

She then caught Flo staring at her, the sort of look that indicated Flo was expecting an admission. “What?” Kaite asked defensively. 

“That was funny, but what’s it all about?” Flo asked bluntly.

Kaite scoffed, but found herself answering anyway. “I'm not jealous. Well, not very. Just don't forget about me if you run off chasing that thing. I'm not through with you yet, big guy.”

“Oh, yeah, don't worry. You all — you're home. I want to wander, see what’s out there, but I'll find my way back.”

“Yeah?” Kaite said, throwing more grass at Jaegré. “I bet you'll be glad to get the fuck out of this shithole city.”

“He’s not getting bored with us,” Flo said, looking at Kaite. “Just like I won’t.”

Jaegré smiled to himself, and then looked up at the sky. “Flo’s got it. I do like this place, in all of its fucked up ways. I will come back. There's things I want to do here, too.”

“Like what?” Kaite asked, resuming her search for projectile-worthy vegetation.

“I guess I want to start a family.”

Flo sat straight up, startled by the words. Kaite clasped her hands over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

“You want to have a baby with Kaite?” Flo asked, her eyes wells of earnestness, glancing back and forth between the two.

“Maybe he does with the Giant!” Kaite exclaimed, gasping on her laughter. “Or wait — oh shit. With Rémi? You two getting back together?”

Jaegré threw grass at both of them — two big fistfuls. “That's not what I mean,” he said.

Kaite finally was able to breathe. “Uh, well, that's what what you said means, dumbass. Fuck, it's easy to forget you both are only a few years old.”

“Yes! Innocent as newborn lambs!” Flo proclaimed, her hands and legs flailing in the air, kicking the sky. 

She then stopped suddenly, as if remembering something. Her hands folded over her chest, and she grew still. “Jaegré, when you think back to being inside the Giant, does it ever feel like you’re not quite… remembering?”

He frowned, thinking. “Go on.”

“Like, I think back, and I remember parts, but in my memory it’s different, not like I am remembering it wrong, but like — what’s the word — possibility space? The act of remembering being there feels like it can allow new things to happen, like, there’s other dimensions that you didn’t notice before, but somehow can still explore them, even if you're sure you didn't, and it’s — it’s like I am still in there, somehow.”

Kaite was about to laugh and ask, ‘What the fuck?’ but Jaegré was already speaking.

“Yeah,” Jaegré said quickly, “kinda like being in a dream…?”

“Yes, but you're awake, and it makes sense?” she replied just as quickly.

“Well, when I think back, it’s more like…”

Kaite had stopped listening to the words — the two had already developed a shorthand about what it was like in that mental space within the Giant. It had become more and more difficult to understand for anyone who hadn't experienced it.

Instead, she focused on them, their faces, their tones of voice, the way their bodies moved when they said certain things, and the ways they reacted to one another. Since saying it out loud, they had begun to behave even more like sister and brother.

It was more than that. They had both changed. It wasn’t just the way moving through the Giant into new states of beings had changed their physical or mental manifestations — the fight had changed them. What they saw had changed them. What they had chosen to do had changed them.

Flo, in occasional flashes, seemed strangely older — like the experience had aged her. Kaite felt goosebumps when she thought of the possibility that Flo’s mind had spent years of time in the Giant, developing, maturing. Kaite felt like it was time that had been stolen from her.

Jaegré had begun to live his own life, separate from the group. It had all happened so fast. He hadn’t grown distant, but he was suddenly busy. He had interests. He had things he wanted to focus on that weren’t Kaite’s interests.

She felt melancholy about the change in many ways, but had tried to tell herself it was a good thing. Jaegré life was fuller.

But she still felt like it left less room for her.

Their relationship hadn't changed. They could still have the same conversations. They were still physically intimate. They were still partners in many of the ways two people who loved each other could be. At the same time, all of that had taken on a different hue now. There had been a change in the quality of light in their lives.

He wanted to start a family. She wondered, what would that be like? Sheam often called those closest to her by that word, but that couldn't have been how Jaegré had meant it. That wasn’t news. That wasn’t something new.

It was a word that meant something very different to Kaite. She held it in a much more traditional sense. She imagined it meant something life-changing for Jaegré. She imagined that it would impact all of their lives.

Kaite quickly realized that whatever he meant, she needed to be part of it, and that thought scared her.

She had also made an assumption, without realizing it.

Without knowing what she was doing, Kaite pushed herself up off of the grass, and began to walk. She walked away from Flo and Jaegré, who were locked in a conversation she didn’t understand and she could take no part in. She walked away from the lights of the city, and from the stars.

She walked to the trees.

Dry leaves crunched underfoot. If it had been day, Kaite could have admired the million different shades they bore, from yellow, through orange, to the deepest reds. The faintest wind caused the not-yet-fallen leaves to stir. An owl could be heard in the distance.

Kaite reached out a hand to touch rough bark as she passed by one of the trees. It was dry, and rough. The sensation left a lingering itch on her fingertips. She rubbed it away, and kept moving. Her every step bringing her farther from her loved ones.

She looked up at what remained of the leafy canopy. During the summer it would have been an opaque barrier, but tonight stars could easily be seen between the gaps.

She wondered, finally allowing thoughts to intrude into her solitude, if she had been here before. Not herself, specifically, but one of the innumerable other hers that had apparently existed.

Sheam had told her what Delphiné had revealed. She knew about the repeated re-manifestations of useful delegates. She knew that she had been named dropped. She knew that the delegation had survived a thousand years of rebellion.

She had felt a chill run down her spine knowing that she had been on Jossimer's mind. A handful of her orders — her victims — had come from him. How long had that been going on? Who had he commanded her to kill? How many countless times across countless lifetimes had she obeyed?

Kaite imagined herself up in the trees, silently stalking traitorous souls who dared cross the delegation. She thought about them finally breathing easy — thinking they had lost their pursuers. They imagined they were free of the delegation’s grasp. They could live their own lives. Then, sharp metal would rain down, ending it all.

Maybe it had never happened exactly like that, but she was sure it had happened. It was why she had existed at all. It was her purpose. It was why she had been made and remade and remade—

She then found herself laying on the forest floor.

She didn’t know why she was lying down.

She found that she was crying. 

She didn’t know why she was crying.

She gave in, curling up, letting out her tears. She clenched her mouth shut so the sobs would escape as quietly as possible. She couldn’t stand the hurt that she knew she would feel if she actually did let out a cry, and no-one came for her.

The rest of the world, the rest of reality, seemed to fade away for her. She was helpless, alone, curled in on herself, in a place that didn’t matter, in a time that didn’t matter, with only a pain that she didn’t even understand to keep her compa—

“Kaite?”

She jerked, looking up, surprised.

It was Flo. Jaegré was just beside her.

Kaite, in realizing how surprised she was, only cried harder. She let the sobs come out, heavy and loud. She let the fucking owls hear it.

The two wrapped her up in their arms, holding her silently.

“It’s okay, it’s okay — I’m here. We’re here.” Flo cooed.

“Sorry for talking about the Giant so much,” Jaegré said. “I know that losing us to it really shook you. I should have thought of tha—”

“No,” Kaite managed, through gasps. “That’s not— not it.”

They were both quiet.

“I don’t know what it is,” she coughed, and then let out the sobs she had been still suppressing.

They let a moment pass. They let Kaite cry for as long as she needed to. 

They had all night.

“Maybe,” she finally said, wiping her tears. “I don’t know — maybe, it’s like, everyone’s changed.”

Flo and Jaegré exchanged a glance.

“All of you. New faces. New bodies. New states of being. New ways of being and expressing who you are. And I am just… Kaite.”

“Just Kaite?” Flo said, kissing her forehead. “I don’t know what being just Kaite means. I don’t know why it’s bad. Can you help me understand?”

“Just an assassin,” she said in a low, heavy tone. “I get told to kill people, and then I kill them. That’s all I have. That’s all there is to me. That’s all there will ever be to me.”

Jaegré let out the smallest of laughs, barely a breath.

Kaite, surprising herself, let out a laugh as well. “What?” she demanded.

Jaegré, in an uncharacteristic expression of affection, kissed Kaite’s forehead. “Flo, I’m afraid our sweet Kaite has amnesia. She’s forgotten everything about herself since, hell, since before the moment she and I met.”

Kaite scoffed, but then buried her face against his chest. “That’s just… stuff that happened, though. I’m still just me, exactly the me that they pulled off a tablet hundreds of times before. Exactly the me they’ll make again some day.”

“Let’s help her remember?” Flo said to Jaegré, her eyes twinkling in the faint starlight.

“So I was sitting there, in a small windowless room in the heart of the lodge,” Jaegré began, in the tone and cadence of one telling a ghost story. “I began to hear sounds, thump — thump! The next thing I knew there was the rattle of keys, and the door swung open.”

Flo grinned broadly and squeezed Kaite and Jaegré close.

“You tell this story so oddly,” Kaite insisted. “That’s not—”

He cut in. “Let me tell it how I remember it. This is about how I see you. This is about who you are to me.”

Kaite frowned and scrunched her face up.

“I saw her there. I was sure it was time for my execution. I was glad, honestly — I expected experiments. Instead, she just said…”

Flo began to laugh, right on cue. She always laughed at this part.

“Thought you’d be taller.”

Flo lost herself in a fit of giggles.

“I did not fucking say that,” Kaite insisted, wiping her tears away. “Okay I did, but, like, way later. That wasn’t the first thing I said.”

“We snuck out of that building like a pair of oversized mice, just, the biggest, biggest mice,” Jaegré began to laugh as he told it. The story had evolved many times over the telling. This was a part that Flo had contributed.

“When we were finally safe, I asked why. Do you remember what you said?”

Kaite snorted. “Yeah, but you’d rather say it yourself, I guess.”

Jaegré grinned. “You were tight lipped at first. I asked if I worked for you now. You said fuck that. Said I was my own man — you said that you just felt it was a shame that someone who fought so hard to be free didn’t get a real chance to be. Then you pointed to the door of the shelter and said, go on, do whatever you want. I freed you so no-one would ever have a say in what you did with yourself ever again.”

Kaite shook her head. “I have no idea where you got all of that from. We said maybe six words between us that first night.”

Jaegré smiled knowingly. “I understand subtext. It was required in my line of work.”

Flo nudged Kaite, joy in her eyes. “Maybe you didn’t say exactly that, but it’s all true, right? That’s really why you did it. That’s really how you felt.”

Kaite made an exasperated sigh. “Yeah, yeah I guess.”

“Does that sound like just an assassin to you?” Jaegré let the question hang in the air.

Kaite blew air through her nose before replaying. “That was a million years ago.”

Jaegré shrugged. “Fine, how about something more recent then? Neither of us were there — and sorry about that, again — but I feel like I was there considering how often we’ve heard the story of you versus the entire god-damned army.”

Flo nodded firmly. “I like Nat’s version a lot. I think it’s funny how each time they tell it even more soldiers arrive. I think they're up to four trolley carriages. But, gosh, you know, I think my favorite telling is by Rémi.”

Kaite scoffed. “Fucking Rémi Meribor?”

“Not lately,” Jaegré said with a teasing grin. “But yes, that Rémi — oh, hey, Flo has an impression.”

Flo cleared her throat, and then spoke with a melodic accent. "You can always count, on somebody, with a bodycount."

Kaite let out a laugh; a heavy, deep laugh that came from the gut. “Okay, I give in. What did she say about me?” she said after she caught her breath.

Jaegré almost glowed as he said it. “If I was cornered and down to my last bullet, but then saw I light up on a hill — and in it a lone figure, Kaite Quinn herself, here to single-handedly take on all of my enemies in my stead. I'd lay my pistol down and start praying for the souls of those bastards about to be put down.”

Flo was grinning ear to ear. “You do her accent way better than me, Jaegré!”

Kaite was silent — stunned by the words.

“Know what all of the stories have in common though?” Jaegré said, after getting Kaite to look into his eyes.

Kaite brightened. “That I was a sick as fuck warrior goddess who shredded those uniformed goons?” she guessed, with a smirk.

Flo squeezed in, putting her head on Kaite’s chest, tangled up between the two larger bodies. “Everyone talks about how you took charge, and did everything you could, until you couldn’t move anymore, to keep everyone safe.”

“You protect. You rescue. Does that sound like a delegation assassin to you?” Jaegré asked plainly.

“That is what I think of when I think of Kaite, though,” Flo added. “Just Kaite.”

Kaite sighed, and felt she had no words. She just sat with the thought for a moment.

“Honestly, Kaite,” Jaegré said softly into her ear. “I think your changes are the most impressive of all. Sheam, Flo, me — we all go through the weirdest shit. Of course it’s going to change us. It couldn’t not change us. But you? Every time you make a decision to be a bit different than the way you were a minute ago — that’s just you doing it.”

“I’ve loved every version of you,” Flo said, muffled. “I love today’s version the best. I think I’ll love tomorrow’s even more, though.”

“Is that really why you were crying, though?” Jaegré said, prodding. 

Kaite squinted one eye closed. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t think Flo and I don’t notice. You and Sheam both do it, and I am not sure who picked it up from who.”

Kaite blinked.

Flo pulled her head free of the embrace and nodded. “If something is wrong and you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t say, ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ you talk about something else, something that’s also upsetting and sad, so that makes everyone think you talked about the thing that’s actually wrong, and then we stop trying to help you.”

Kaite scoffed, but didn’t contradict. “We both do that?”

Flo nodded. “Oh yeah.”

Kaite let out a long breath. “Okay, yeah, fine. I guess I am feeling left out. It’s silly. It’s stupid. It’s a thing a child would feel bad about.”

“Left out…?” Flo’s face crossed with concern.

Kaite let out a huff, and then a grumble, and then gave in. “Sheam spends all of her time with Emmett and Natalie talking about their big fantastic plans. You two have all sorts of new shit going on, and when it’s the three of us, you mostly talk with each other."

“Hey, yeah, okay, I see what you mean. I get it.” Jaegré said, nodding. “Don’t beat yourself up for feeling a thing, love.”

“I think I know what to do about that,” Flo said, tapping her chin.

Kaite laughed. “Okay, what’s your magical fix, babe?”

“Oh, you already did it. You let us know you feel left out. Now we can—”

“Oh, no, fuck, don’t—” Kaite began to protest.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want you all just going out of your way to include me in stuff that has nothing to do with me.”

Flo shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. Being part of people’s lives doesn’t mean you’re included in everything they do and everything they’re about. But you have a connection to everyone you just mentioned. I think you can understand what that connection is. You can talk about what it is with them.”

Kaite thought for a moment. She remembered how, just a moment ago, she was reflecting on how Flo and Jaegré’s relationship had evolved so quickly after they had had their shared experience.

“Okay,” she admitted. “I guess that makes sense.”

“Try it, with us,” Flo said, kissing Kaite’s nose.

“Ugh, come on — give it a moment to sit,” Kaite said with a laugh.

“Fine, then I’ll start.” Flo said. “You and I love going out and exploring together, right? We haven’t done that in a while. We should again.”

Kaite smiled at the thought. She did remember enjoying it.

“Aaand,” Flo added slowly, “I want to learn how to do the knives thing!”

“The knives — but those are my entourage. You're one — you can't also make one.”

“Can't I?” Flo asked. She then lifted up her key. “I killed Delphiné with this. That's basically the same thing, right?”

“Damn… okay, yeah. Yeah sure. Okay.” Kaite's mind was racing. “Okay. Training regimen. Yeah. But also, why? I thought you really weren’t into the killing. I know you changed your stance on that — you’ll do it if it’s important enough, but…?”

“Oh,” Flo said, as if realizing that she had forgotten to say something. “It’s just the way you were talking about being an assassin. I figured, if I could do it, you wouldn’t have to anymore.”

Kaite laughed, and tugged Flo into a bear-hug. “You sweet, silly woman,” she said, kissing her cheeks and forehead. “You don’t need to do that for me. You especially don’t because I do not plan on putting down my knives any time soon. There’s a lot of delegates and Benefactors I still want to kill. Jossimer, at the very least, fucking deserves it.”

“Oh!” Flo giggled in the embrace and returned some of the kisses. “But I can still train with you, and we can do that together, right?”

Kaite grinned. “Yeah. Murder girlfriends.”

Jaegré said gently, “I do want to strike out on my own, go new places, see new things, but clearly I’d love it if you came along for some of the trips. Both of you.”

Flo perked up. “Oh, and… this is just a little nudge. One thing I see you and Sheam have in common is a beautiful creative energy.”

Kaite laughed. “Creative? Me?”

“You literally never stop making things, Kaite. Not with your hands, and not with your mind,” Jaegré pointed out.

Flo nodded. “So, yeah, you can join in the talks about the big fantastic plans for the Circle — you’re basically their security expert, you know — but you could also just… do artistic stuff together. Just you and Sheam. I think she’d like that a lot. I think you’d like that a lot. I know she wants to do creative stuff, but she also acts like she can’t. Says it’s all behind her. Maybe if you were part of it, it can be in front of her again?”

Kaite took a deep breath. “No promises,” she said.

“A promise to who?” Jaegré said, poking her. “You’re doing this for yourself, love.”

“No, she can also do this for me,” Flo said sternly. “I don’t want you to ever feel alone, Kaite. Never, ever. Not even for one second. Can you promise me you’ll do this so you’ll feel less alone?”

“Okay, okay,” Kaite said, rubbing Flo’s hair and touching their foreheads together. “Yeah. I’ll try. I promise. But…”

They both waited.

“There’s something else I’ve been avoiding. I have ideas about the hunt for Jossimer. I know things about him. Stuff I've never wanted to talk about, but think I should. It’s kind of a long-shot, but maybe it can help.”

“I'm sure Sheam and Nat and Emmett will want that!” Flo exclaimed urgency. “I want that! I really, really don't want to let him ever hurt anyone ever again.”

“Hey, Kaite,” Jaegré began cautiously.

She peered at him.

“That family I said I wanted to start…” Jaegré said slowly.

Kaite felt her heart clench up.

“You know I see you as part of it, right? You know that. I didn’t think I needed to say it. But Flo’s right. I should have said it.”

Kaite struggled to speak as she was choking up. “I…” She realized something in a flash. She saw the assumption she had made. She was not part of a family. She had never been. She wasn’t allowed to be. She was never going to be. People like her didn’t get to be in a family. 

Struggling, slowly, she got her words out. “I honestly thought I wasn’t meant to be. Since you said start — I thought… it was something new and different, and I am something—”

Jaegré rubbed the back of her neck as he leaned close. “Just because there’s new and different doesn’t mean we get rid of the old and the same, Kaite. That’s not how family works.”

Flo managed to get her arms around both of them. “It’s going to be okay, Kaite,” she said, grinning. “You’re part of our family. No matter how much we change, no matter how much you change, no matter how many new things happen — us being family is not going to change.”

Kaite began to cry again, but this time it was different.

She stayed in the moment. Her mind didn’t fold in on itself, forgetting where she was, why she was crying, or even who she was.

She was still afraid, because now she had so much to lose. She could no longer push it all away, pretend that it wasn’t real, pretend that it wasn’t hers. 

Still, she wasn’t crying out of fear.

She cried because suddenly the thought she had been hiding from for years now couldn’t be ignored anymore.

She could have everything she had always dreamed of — but it was even more shocking than that.

She already had it.