The months leading up to the ceremony passed too quickly, filled with preparation, for both the ceremony and her coming journey. She gleaned as much as she could about hoverbike care, shadowing Xia and Kov to learn upkeep and troubleshooting. Her practice rides on Xia’s bike turned into practice rides on her own, once it was drivable. She often drove it around, caring for it herself when it broke down on the roadside with her own saddle bag tool kit, with less and less issues as time passed, until she was riding for hours straight at a time.
Xia sometimes joined her on her drive around the city and the surrounding countryside, and sometimes she drove with Luth at her back, sitting in her surprisingly comfortable second seat. She also began working on her prosthetic herself, customizing it for comfort and durability, her familiarity with her tool kit increasing everyday.
Ovu demanded some of her time as well, reviewing navigational star charts with their strange formal names and geographical maps, as well as Oongx lore and previous acolyte travel history. He gifted her a copy of the journal of Fergus, the last acolyte to join Oongx’s constellation, forming the star at the tip of her tail, now called Gustella, spelled in γαζετα or just the shorthanded Γ in her charts. Confusing. She had been much older than Ceit, starting her travels in her early forties, and Ceit found her writing incredibly dry, but read it nonetheless. It was amazing that someone could make a forest of giant glass insects dull, but Fergus managed to somehow. Ovu had given it to her claiming it a riveting read. Figured.
She also did her best to spend time with her family, helping Keris in the kitchen and following Allegre around until he sent her off, claiming shamelessly that she was getting underfoot and he couldn’t afford to lose the other one. She had always had a good relationship with Leuna, in the evenings they often just sat together on the front porch, comfortable in each other's companionship. Whereas Eistra seemed almost frenzied in her hovering. She was glad her mother didn’t have her own hoverbike, or she might never have time to herself without Eistra popping up with snacks, or ‘just checking in’. She tried to think of her mother’s behavior as endearing, and it was for the first couple days, but by the second week she was exacerbated.
‘I really don’t need another pair of gloves, mama.’ Eistra had come to her and Luth’s bedroom as she was getting ready for bed, Luth was out with her girlfriend and therefore exempt from their mother’s lingering. ‘I know you must be tired of me being so clingy,’ Eistra folded the gloves, the soft leather flexible in her hands. ‘I just… you’re my baby girl. I know you’re ready to go off on your own, and I am proud of you. I just, I know what it’s like to leave everything behind. When I married your father, I left everything I knew to move here with his family. And while I don’t regret it, there were things I wish I had been prepared for. And…I want you to feel like you have a place to come back to, a place you’ll always be wanted.’
Ceit hadn’t given too much thought to her mother’s experience. She had known she had moved from a distant village, having met her father when at school, her mother a boarder and her father a day student. And that her mother never spoke about her own family. They had never visited, never even written.
‘And I worry, what if something happens. Zsa Zsa’s cultists are out there, and they aren’t the only ones,’ she continued. ‘Some places. Some places will consider you…’ she trailed off, looking distantly out the window. ‘You aren’t the only person with albinism I’ve known.’ She started suddenly. ‘My older sister, Venita, was raised to be a sacrifice.’ She swallowed heavily. ‘She was so kind, so gentle. But my family considered her cursed, no matter how good she was, every mishap, every misfortune to befall our family was her fault. And the only way to assuage the curse was to burn her. We all had to be there, to be witnesses.’ Tears poured down her face silently. ‘And I swore, I would never, never let something like that happen to someone I loved again. But then I failed you. When the cultist took you. I failed to protect those I love. So. I couldn’t bear if something were to happen to you, not again’ She wiped her sleeve across her face, rubbing her reddened eyes. She hiccuped, forcing a smile through her tears. ‘Please be careful. I will miss you, everyday.’ Ceit wrapped her mother in a hug, holding her, trying to make her feel how here, how alive she was. ‘And know that, to me, you have always been a blessing.’
