Labor's Love Lost 9

With contacts like Julma to boost Lharani's show career and give her tips, Tanirom suggested they just split the duties of racing and show training. Tanirom liked the fast-paced excitement of racing, and did her fair share of jockey work in the meantime. Lharani had to admit that the fun of showing Steeds was growing on her. That, and with a first time show of second place, she was bolstered immediately into a kind of fame.

Not the kind she really wanted, but it was better than nothing. The furry dark eyed twin spent many hours poring over Steed logs from around the world, looking for good mates for their already winning Steeds. Plus, after three more shows with Ivory, High Mistress Opthra realized that she herself wasn't cut out for this lifestyle.

Actually it was the not-so-subtle hints from her cadre of Lords and Servants that others around her were plotting, dangerous, nasty and backstabbers. That kept her away, and finally, got her to sell Ivory Steel back to Lharani.

“I think I'm going to call him Static Intensity,” Lharani announced, of the new foal that had just been dropped by one of Julma's mares. The bright almost electric-blue color tipping his legs and nose would also be coming out at the ends of his flight feathers – when they grew in.

Steeds were hardly the sturdy fliers of lore from birth. They certainly had a good coat of body fur on them, and the beginnings of their tail and mane. But their wings? While there were often some downy pinfeathers showing at birth, they rarely had their first set of flight feathers before their first half-year. Racing Steeds, Lharani noted well, had to mature well past that in order to be flown properly. A too-young colt set into a race might injure himself permanently with unsteady or weak wing muscles and poorly grown feathers.

But show Steeds? They actually looked best without their huge flight feathers grown in. The proportion of Steeds heads to their body was maintained most of their lives, but that pre-adult stage where the head and body seemed to match just perfectly was what Lharani wanted to grow in an adult. Finer features than the big burly racers, a smaller more slender neck… That aside from the colors. Since Zekiran Steeds had come from the same planet that the colonists had, it was clear that their colorations and patterning was based in the same gene pool. They were more easily spliced with human genes as well, proving that they were in the related group. No one bothered trying to splice Steeds with any of the local fauna, why do that?

Why mess with perfection?

In his prime, Ivory Steel had won some eight awards for appearance, and more than a dozen for performances. He always went back to Lharani's tail, though. During shows, she decorated her own tail with the same baubles that he (or her other Steeds) wore, just to keep the judges on their toes. Sometimes they actually awarded points for style for them.

“I'm going to be investing in a small new Zone,” Tanirom said, “Did you want to come and see it?”

Lharani looked up from her work, shutting the stud book and nodding. “I could use a break. Static Intensity can have a few days off his training, I don't think it'll hurt.”

“Julma can do it, anyway,” Tanirom confirmed. They packed a couple bags each and hit the hover port, which had gone in recently on the other side of town. The hillside looked so little like it had when they were children, many of the groves of dark tall trees had been used to create small business buildings and homesteads, and the space they had been in was often leveled down so now the hillsides were a series of terraces and jutting roadways. An engineering feat, a bridge between two large estates across a gorge, had just been put up and it impressed everyone including the twins and their parents.

The jet trip across the sea and up to Stetil took several hours, and the sisters bragged to one another loudly in the crowded plane about their successes in the Steeding field. They could one-up each other for hours – and that is what they enjoyed doing when they were together. It merely reinforced their sisterly nature, and of course it made everyone else jealous.

But they also got a number of people who asked for their business cards, on the way off the plane and into the next hover for the last leg of their trip.

Tuer, on the east side of one of Stetil's highest peaks, was hardly reachable any other way than a hover vehicle. While there was a huge forest around it, the township itself was actually visible as a series of mines open along the barer areas of the peak, and a strip of buildings that appeared to drift down into the forest like a candle's wax. There was a river that could be seen snaking down the whole side of the mountain, and it was no surprise that some of the people on the hover with the sisters were there to view the great Tuer Rock Falls . Fifteen hundred spans of sheer drop, almost impossible to view all at once.

“We can take a look at that, can't we?” Asked Lharani, and her sister nodded.

“I was thinking, I could start up a tour company here. Just for that,” she thumbed at the big poster of the falls, which was decorating one of the hoverport's restaurant walls. “Oh and look, you can buy one of these for just half a dec.” She grinned.

“But you plan on…. what?”

“Putting people on Steeds and letting them see it up close.” Tanirom waggled her eyebrows, “I think it'd be a great idea, even if a lot of folks think it's too high.”

“It's not too high for experienced Steeds and riders,” Lharani said, “and you've never really had to worry about getting Steeds to listen to you.”

“True. Not like you, but they pay attention to me.”

As they neared the site where Tanirom's Hold would be put, both women were looking intently at the surrounding area. As a Breeder would give the Eye to every person on the hover bus, these Beast Mistresses saw how trees bent to the winds, how waterways carved certain softer ground more than other harder, how the woods themselves gave over to glades now and then. “There's a good pasture land,” said Lharani in passing.

“That's what I was thinking, of course,” Tanirom announced. At last they reached their destination, and the brown and green spotted young woman threw her arms wide. “This is going to be the Rock Falls Steed Tour central!” She bellowed. Even the driver of the hover craft had to nod and smile at the thought.

“A little work, getting everything up here,” he said, and the girls turned.

“Yes, but we know quite a few people willing to do the work, and we know it's good work.” Said Tanirom.

“Transport's going to be the problem,” said the driver. “I'm one of the only one's'll come up this far without a road.”

“Well then we're just going to have to have a road put in,” grinned Tanirom.

“I wanted her to see it,” Tanirom said, quietly. “She suggested so many things about the tour, I … It would have been great for her to be able to … come and see it…”

She sobbed into Julma's chest, and then saw her mother Rahani enter the hall. She ran over, and they stood together waiting word.

When the Breeder came out from Lharani's chamber, his face was pained and grim. However, he held a moving, fussing bundle in his arms. “Well, the child is doing better now… He's still got a high temperature and I don't like that. He'll be all right for the moment,” he handed the child off to Julma who everyone agreed must be the father. They weren't sure – Lharani hadn't said anything about marrying or even wanting to be. “I need to get back to Lharani, now.” The Breeder slipped back into the dimly lit bedroom where Lharani had prepared herself for birthing.

She had, apparently, thought it would be much easier than it had been. It was complicated by the fact that she'd gotten a virus a week or so earlier, something passed from Steed to human fairly commonly. Blowing it off as sniffles because of the frequent rains that season, Lharani didn't complain when her fever started. She thought it was just the birth pains.

But it wasn't.

“Do you think that the child will be sick?” Asked Tanirom, of Julma. The man looked at the child in his arms, and shook his head.

“I don't think so, but we can't be too sure. I'm going to bring one of my own Healer friends into town, to make certain. If that's all right?”

The women waved at him, urging him to go use their vid and call. The sooner the better. But Rahani and Tanirom stayed in the hallway near Lharani's room, for a long time.

In silence, they waited. Listening for any sign that their precious family member was going to be all right. But at long last, the Breeder came from her chamber with a long scowl and would not meet the eyes of Rahani or Tanirom.

“I can't do anything more for her, I don't think she will live past this hour. She's lost blood more quickly than a normal birth – that's the sickness. Her blood won't coagulate properly now. There isn't enough blood in the city to help keep her now. I'm … very sorry.”

Tanirom was the first to enter the room, and was shocked at how pale her sister looked, even with her fur covering. Her fur itself was matted and sweaty, the labor had been long and obviously painful.

“You stubborn girl,” Tanirom whispered, “why couldn't you have waited for the breeder to check you out?”

“Didn't think it mattered,” Lharani said. “I thought … I heard him say something…”

Tanirom nodded. The strange feeling she was getting through her faint psionic link was of a distant longing, something that almost felt half-remembered – half forgotten. Not in pain, though, Tanirom thought to herself, Lharani wasn't in pain. That was likely because she hardly had enough blood left to pump through her veins, let alone cause her to be anxious. She was more than a little delerious.

“If … you want to, Raise the Slaves. They've been good.” Lharani said.

Tanirom squeezed her hand, and then their mother entered. Their father had been injured in a tree-felling accident, and had rarely been able to come to events since then, several years before. Rahani cried openly, and wept onto the chill hand of her firstborn.

“It's all right mother, we'll get the barn up in time for spring festival…” Was what Lharani's last words were. Wherever she was, after that, before her blood cooled, she was smiling.

Julma came back in when he'd finished with the vid call, and his expression was a stone mask of regret.

“Is he yours, Beast Lord?” Asked Rahani, of the child.

“Actually I don't know,” he admitted. “He could be. We could do the testing. But … not right now.”

“I agree, not just yet,” Tanirom said. “I've got to announce some things to the Slaves. Will we be able to keep them on as Workers, mother?”

“If not,” suggested Julma, “I can always use more help on my farm. She…” He looked at his dead lover, “she was always dragging them from one Hold to another, maybe they'll like being able to choose where they settle down.”

With a thick knot in her throat, then, Tanirom assembled those Slaves she could, from Lharani's chambers. There were more, on other Holds, which would have to be flown out. She gave a grave announcement, and noticed that the Bayaran were a bit put off by still being Held in their Status – if moved from one sister to the other. They gave a half-hearted cheer when the birth of her son was announced, though, Tanirom knew just how to make people at least halfway happy.

It felt like the end of an era. Dozens of Breeders sent condolences and donations, queries to Tanirom's health and assurances that such viruses would be tracked down and spotted in communities now that they were made aware of the very serious implications of them. It meant little to Tanirom that the reason most of them knew her address was that she and her sister were the Miracle Babies of 1940. Without her twin, Tanirom was serious and silent most of the time.

Her mother and she were left with the task of keeping up the Steeds, and Julma bought most of the stock from them sooner or later. Eventually it did turn out that he was in fact Ramo's father, a fact which had continued to be in doubt purely because three other attractive Steed men were well known to Lharani's homesteads.

None contested the paternity, and none offered to help with the duties of child rearing. Fortunately Rahani had largely retired with her husband and had the time to devote to her furry little grandson.

He was the sole joy left in their lives, it seemed. Without the time to really work Steeds or even the lands, they rented out certain portions of their Holdings, able to live very comfortably – if not as much in the loop as they'd like to have been. Talrom passed away as Ramo's third year came, The child grew quickly, to a skinny frizzy haired youth.

It was quite obvious that Tanirom's association with Julma was more than an academic or business venture. When she became pregnant, she openly announced that she knew the father to be he, and he stood by her side the whole time. There were some who would say it was rather morbid, taking her dead twin's lover on, but really he was a gentle man and a pleasant soul to be around. Plus he had a stable of winning Steeds.

The summer of Ramo's fourth year, as he was learning his history lessons and being bored with math, his sister-cousin was born. Mormo was her name, and clearly she carried the same mutations that her mother had. Julma's physical presence hardly showed any mutations, yet he did have a certain affinity for plants and warmth. Everywhere he went, it seemed, it was warmer and lusher. Immediately everyone saw that Mormo was an active, attentive child, and that the same warmth lingered around Julma's daughter.

Her brother Ramo had dark blue-green skin, bearing sparse thin tan colored fur, striking red hair with orange tips, and deep violet eyes that seemed to watch everything they could find. He had a tail shorter than his mother's, but ears just as long and elegant, and also his fingers bore hard claw-like nails. Mormo contrasted him with bright green colored skin, fur in pale beige around her ankles and wrists, dark greyish green hair and red brown eyes. Her ears were shorter than her brother's, tail longer, and she had unusually solid toes. Not quite hooves, there were three large toes with hard ends. Her fingers were not hindered thus, and everyone inlcuding their Breeder friends considered that lucky.

They grew up separate, mostly, because the Tuer Hold had to be attended constantly. Tanirom didn't want to be apart from her child. It was obvious from talking to her any length of time, at least to her mother, that Tanirom would cling to this child until she could cling no more. Her way of holding on to her sister – yet why hadn't she done this with little Ramo instead?

It mattered little to Ramo. He rather enjoyed being able to visit and not have to obey his aunt. His nana, grandmother Rahani, was still but late middle aged, and kept entertaining him with sightseeing and travel, while Tanirom kept Mormo close.

“I wish you'd let me take her on a trip,” Rahani said, at one rare dinner together. “She could see the desert in Kiran, you should see it.”

Tanirom continued to eat carefully, and only gave a simple grunt having acknowledged her mother's statement. At six and ten, the children could now more fully interact and it was clear Rahani wanted them to. She thought her remaining daughter was being far too selfish and uptight.

But, there was little she could do about it. When Tanirom sold off her portions of their original Hold back to her mother abruptly, Rahani knew there would be little contact left. The paperwork sitting on her lap in the den attracted Ramo's attention, and he asked quietly, “will we be seeing Mormo again?”

Rahani sighed, and turned her once glimmering dark brown eyes to her grandson and shook her head. “I do not believe so, not often at least.”

“Why would auntie Tanirom do that? We like playing together.” The boy was still only a young teen, but had passed his first exams and would be making an exceptional Lord to his Slaves when he did grow into more holdings as an Animal Master. His demeanor was mature, sensible. He still looked to everything new with wide eyes, studying everything.

“Your aunt is still hurt,” Rahani said, knowing that by now her grandson would understand the emotions behind all this, “by the death of your mother. She died bearing you, I believe she even resents you a bit. It's hardly your fault – she should someday apologize, if she ever comes to her senses.”

“But you do not expect her to,” Ramo said, head down.

“No,” Rahani replied. “Not any time soon, at least. It was a combination of illness and stubbornness that led to your mother's death. If she'd chosen to go to a clinic or at the very least have a Healer with her when she began labor, they would have discovered her fever and blood sickness. Remember that, always. It was not your fault.”

He nodded solemnly. “I will remember that, grandmother. I can hope that I see my cousin again.”