Varia
Chapter fifteen
Iwoke to a knock at the door.
“Yes,” I said.
I had only ever seen her in chain mail and plate armor. Without it, she was something else entirely.
Her face was sharp and striking. She looked like someone who had never needed to soften it for anyone. High cheekbones, firm jaw, olive skin with the glow of someone who spent most of their life outdoors.
Her eyes were a steady, piercing blue. Her hair fell loosely around her face, apparently never having been introduced to a styling product and not suffering for the absence.
The outfit was leather. Of course it was leather.
Sleek and fitted. It was the kind of leather armor that had resolved the tension between protection and mobility in favor of both, simultaneously.
A sleeveless upper piece with structured shoulder guards that gave her silhouette a commanding edge while leaving her arms free for the work they were clearly built to do.
The leather was worn and slightly scuffed, something used rather than displayed. Straps and belts crossed her torso and waist in patterns that suggested gear and weapons as a matter of course rather than decoration.
Tight leather pants contoured to legs that had clearly been doing serious work for years. Knee-high boots built for terrain that didn’t ask permission. Fingerless gloves that offered grip and protection while maintaining dexterity.
And then there was the physique.
I recognized the category immediately: the women at my gym who walked directly past the elliptical machines and went straight to the weight room.
Broad-shouldered, with deltoids that gave her upper body a squared, powerful silhouette.
Arms defined by dense, functional muscle rather than ornament.
Her lower body carried the same logic. Thighs with the kind of muscle that suggested deadlifts were a professional requirement.
Her body was compact and purposeful, shaped by sustained effort and actual necessity.
Every muscle looked as if it had earned its place.
“Congratulations,” she said, setting the tray down. Her eyes went to the ring again. “I’m happy for you. Both of you.”
“Thank you for the food.”
“You’re going to need fuel. A lot of it. Today is going to require it.”
I looked at the tray. On the rough-hewn wood sat a thick slice of coarse bread, a wedge of cheese, several slices of salted ham. A small bowl of warm pottage steaming beside an apple and a scatter of nuts. A clay mug containing something that smelled of bergamot.
“What’s the drink?” I asked.
“Tea.”
I looked at her. “I expected something like morningroot, given that I have already consumed deeproot and moonroot.”
“No,” she said, with a warm smile that did something to the stern lines of her face.
“It’s just tea.”
She sat on the edge of the room’s small chair with the relaxed posture of someone who had earned the right to take up space anywhere she chose.
“I’m so happy for you both,” she said. “When I came to this garrison, I noticed an aching behind his eyes. You learn to read the people you serve with. I learned to read Scipio years ago.” She smiled.
“Since you came to this fortress, I have watched that aching disappear. This morning I spoke with him. I have not seen him like that in years.”
“And you,” she said. “I’m sure you enjoyed your claiming.”
I considered this.
Was this girl talk? I had not done much of it in my life. My friendships had tended toward the collegial rather than the confessional. The kind of talk that involved coffee and academic complaints rather than feelings rendered directly.
Varia watched me with patient expectancy. She had all the time in the world, and she was interested in how I would handle this.
I picked up the mug of tea. It smelled exactly like tea. This was more comforting than I expected.
“I enjoyed it,” I said, with what I hoped was appropriate brevity.
Varia’s smile suggested that brevity would not be sufficient.
“Come on,” she said. “Tell me more.”
There was no embarrassment in it. No teasing quality designed to make me uncomfortable.
She had grown up in a world where Yravel’s principle was not a subject for whispered conversation behind closed doors.
It was a foundational theological reality.
Desire was sacred here. The claiming was the most significant spiritual event two people could experience.
Being enthusiastic about it was not something to manage or apologize for.
I had thirty years of a different cultural framework to unlearn. I was willing to do the work.
I decided to be the type of woman who had this conversation.
I held up both hands, a short distance apart. Then I moved them further apart. Then a little further.
Varia’s eyes went wide. Then she laughed. A real laugh, the kind that arrives without warning and takes the whole face with it.
“I knew it,” she said. “I absolutely knew it.” She leaned forward with focused intensity.
“Consider it confirmed,” I said.
“And the”—she gestured at the distance still implied between my hands—“adjustment required?”
“Managed,” I said. “With impressive attention on his part. He was thorough.”
Varia looked at me and nodded, receiving exactly the confirmation she had hoped for.
“I heard you being thoroughly attended to,” she said, without a trace of embarrassment in either direction.
“My quarters are down the hall. Senior lieutenant. Four years at this posting means my quarters are close enough to Skip’s that I can be at his door in under a minute if something requires his attention.
” She grinned. “Earlier this morning, nothing required his attention. His attention was very thoroughly allocated elsewhere, and the stone walls of this fortress are, I will say, less soundproof than their construction implies.”
She said all of this with ease. It was factual. “In Mytharo this is not a source of shame. Yravel’s principle: desire is sacred, the flame burns completely. You should know that being audible about the sacred is considered entirely appropriate.”
“I will keep that in mind going forward,” I said.
“You already demonstrated a thorough grasp of the principle,” she said.
She paused, with the look of someone about to say a true thing directly.
“I found it—quite affecting.”
I looked at her.
I understood what quite affecting meant. In my world, the admission would have required significant unpacking. Here it was only honest information from a culture that had resolved the issue of sexual shame differently than mine had.
I found, somewhat to my own surprise, that I did not mind. There was something pleasant about the idea of being heard and the hearing being welcomed rather than managed. There was a slightly exhibitionist quality to the whole thing.
“How did he take you?” she asked, with directness.
This was girl talk at a level I had not previously encountered. I had done coffee and academic complaints. I had not done this. I was doing this now.
“He had my legs over his shoulders,” I said. “At the moment the claiming sealed—the ring glowing, the bond completing—we were looking directly at each other. It was, I will say, the theologically optimal configuration for a claiming.”
Varia’s smile was warm. She understood exactly what I meant.
“Yes,” she said. “It would be.”
She reached for another piece of bread. I picked up the tea.
“I am looking forward,” I said, “to a comprehensive exploration of additional positions.”
Varia laughed again.
“You are going to fit in here,” she said, “extremely well.”
She took my hand and looked at me with warmth.
“You are a lucky woman.”
I was in an excellent mood. I was also discovering that I was the type of woman who enjoyed saying these things out loud to someone who laughed in the right places, asked the right questions, and did not require anything to be managed or softened.
I had not previously known I was this woman. Apparently, it had just taken the right conditions. The conditions were, I noted, excellent.
“On that point, you are correct,” I said.
She smiled. Then she reached for a slice of the ham.
“So,” I said. “Why am I going to need a lot of fuel today?”
“Scipio took me aside this morning.” She pulled off a piece of bread. “If you’re going to live here, you’re going to become one of us. Which means training. Starting today. You’re going to learn to ride a horse.”
Her eyes met mine.
“He also told me about the weapons work he started with you,” Varia continued. “I am going to continue that. Every morning. He wants you able to handle yourself.”
“I like the sound of that,” I said.
Varia smiled as if she had expected this answer and was pleased to have been right.
“Finish your meal,” she said. “You’re going to need it.”
***
Before she left, Varia set a folded set of clothes on the end of my bed without explanation or ceremony.
Unlike the rest of the outfits that were delivered to me, this outfit was clearly designed for combat.
Leather, of course—a sleeveless structured upper piece with cross-torso straps and buckles, fitted leather pants, knee-high laced boots, fingerless gloves. The standard kit for a female warrior at Outpost Ely, scaled to my dimensions.
I held the upper piece against myself. The shoulders were close, but the body sat slightly loose at the waist and chest.
Varia would have filled this out correctly. I did not. The leather sat against my body waiting for the current occupant to catch up.
I put it on.
The leather was cool at first and then body-warm within minutes, molding slightly to whatever shape it found.
The straps crossed my torso. Each buckle was placed where it would actually be used rather than where it would look impressive.
The boots laced to just below the knee with the snugness of something designed to stay on in rough terrain.
The fingerless gloves left my fingers free while protecting my palms. I was beginning to understand that the palms absorbed the most punishment when you were learning to grip something you had never gripped before.
I was ready for my training.
***