Chapter 3
It has been a big day, but I am in such a good mood.
I had a one-off no-strings sexual encounter with an itinerant heroic firefighter and there’s a new baby and we’re going to rebuild the old house and everything is going to be perfect and nothing is ever going to go wrong again.
Also? I might seriously go to space. I enjoyed goat herding, but maybe there are other goats on other planets who need to be herded.
I’m appreciating the simple things in life. The sun is shining brighter. The smell of the hospital disinfectant is particularly sharp. There is a spring in my step and an ache between my thighs and…
I step into Freya’s hospital room and find the whole family gathered.
Skor must have managed to find his way out of work to be here.
Impressive. Bjorn is on Ragnar’s lap, yanking aggressively at his beard.
Ragnar is pretending it doesn’t hurt, because he’s a big soldier and a toddler can’t possibly be seen to do him any damage.
“The fire inspector has been,” Mila says. “The cause of the fire has already been determined.”
It feels like I was gone for ten minutes, but apparently entire lifetimes have taken place since I got laid in a closet.
“It has? How?”
“Bjorn accidentally started the fire,” Mila says. “He knocked one of Dad’s old lamps off the chain by hitting it with a poker.”
“That must have taken some serious upper body strength,” Ragnar says, proud of his feral little creature.
“Yes. Anyway,” Mila continues. “Skor was telling us that the land is actually worth millions now. So it might be time to sell the place and cash out, now that we have children who need to be provided for…”
Sell? No. The word is awful and disgusting. Sell the property? Sell the bones and our father’s ashes? Give away everything that was given to us, betray his vision in a single generation? Mila’s baby won’t even know that the place existed, and Brenna will never run in the garden.
“We can’t,” I say, thoroughly confused. “You know we can’t. It was left to us. To our family. It’s not intended to be sold.”
“It’s intended to provide for…” Skor starts to say.
He is a tall, broad, blond man in a suit.
His beard is trimmed close to his chin. His hair is cut short.
It’s a very specific look for a very specific kind of man.
One who doesn’t know how to put a nail into a piece of wood, much less build a home.
“Make him stop talking,” I growl.
Mila puts her hand on his. She knows this needs to seem to come from her, even though I know every single word of it has probably been drafted in a fucking email written by the man next to her.
“Why not keep the land,” I say. “And provide for the children the old-fashioned way. Their fathers’ labors can pay for them, the way our father’s labor paid for us. We can rebuild the longhouse…”
“It wasn’t insured. It was too old,” Skor says.
I look at my sisters and I realize that I’ve mistaken this for a conversation.
It’s not. They’re just telling me what’s going to happen.
Skor has been planning this since he claimed Mila at her choosing ceremony.
Ragnar has nothing to do with it, or much less.
Business doesn’t interest him. Going into space and finding sentient things to kill, that’s more his business.
I used to be scared that he’d find a colony and decide to settle there.
From time to time, there are opportunities for high ranked military officers to take control of their own colonies.
I used to worry that he would take Freya and the babies away.
Then I realized that what I was really afraid of was being left behind.
That was when I started thinking about applying for a voyage myself.
If I wasn’t going to be chosen, and I wasn’t going to bear children, then I had to do something with myself.
None of this matters, though. This conversation is a formality, a courtesy.
They don’t want me to be too upset. The facts of the matter are that Freya and Mila are the executors of the estate.
They don’t actually need my approval to do anything.
They’re going to let the remnants of my father’s home be razed to the ground, and a dozen smaller homes are going to be put in its place, and we’ll be rich because money is the only currency their husbands understand.
This is what men so often do. They find beautiful legacies, but have no respect for them.
They tear down things they didn’t do in order to profit from it for themselves.
I shouldn’t blame them. Our people have a long and storied history of traveling and ravaging and pillaging the world around them for as long as any of us can remember.
The impulse to tear down and take is too strong to resist. Even little Bjorn couldn’t help himself.
I know he didn’t do it consciously. He’s too young to have any malice in him. But he has instinct.
He understands force, and fire.
“You’ll have enough money to buy a goat farm, if that’s what you want,” Mila says. “Or a dowry for a husband.”
I bite my tongue hard. Arguing with them won’t make any difference. The house is already destroyed according to them. It could be restored, but they won’t do that. They are going to do what they are told, and if I argue, all I will do is make things unpleasant.
The baby lies contentedly in Freya’s arms. Bjorn is grinning on his father’s lap.
Mila has her hand on her belly, and her eyes on mine with a pleading expression that begs me silently not to make this any more unpleasant than I have to.
Neither one of them are in any condition to argue, and I’d be an asshole to go against the force of a combined family.
“Okay,” I say, forcing a smile. “Sounds like a plan.”