Titles are still hard

"Gisil," Ulrika said. She was tying her hair back in a ponytail - she disliked sleeping with her hair down. "I meant to ask you something."

"What is it?" he asked, settling down on the window sil and resting his sword over his knees.

"Well, Adeptus ruled over humans for a while, didn't they?" She saw Gisil nod, his eyebrow lifting curiously. "And they live longer and are stronger than humans, right?" Another nod. "So, why are humans still around?"

"Your history really is rusty, isn't it?" he asked. He began to play with the hilt of his sword, rubbing his thumb over the intricate inlay. "Well, to put it simply, for every one female Adeptus child born, there are hundreds if not thousands of males. Female children are very rare, which is not so for humans. It's about one to one for them."

Ulrika tilted her head, a bit confused. Now, she wasn't a genius when it came to biology, but if an Adeptus and a human had a kid, wouldn't that just make a half breed? Something on her face must've spoken of her thoughts because Gisil continued.

"A child of an Adeptus will always be an Adeptus," he explained. "So even if the mother is human, the child will be Adeptus. Though, it still has the high chance of being male due to the Adeptus blood."

"So that's why all the raping happened, I suppose," Ulrika said quietly. It was sick, but she had to concede that if that was the only way to continue their race, she couldn't exactly hate the lot of them for it. Her stomach churned - it disgusted her that she had nearly condoned rape. She reaffirmed that they could've done it the old fashioned way: courting and all that. A realization dawned on her. "Uh, Gisil... your mother..."

Gisil bowed his head for a moment, remaining quiet. A sour taste flooded Ulrika's palette. That was such a bad thing to ask. She had to remember that if she asked a question, she was going to get an answer. The answer wasn't always going to be the one she wanted.

"You know," Gisil said suddenly, startling Ulrika into paying attention. "A lot of people think that you're the weaker sex, but I'd like to see them do what my mother did. You see Adeptus would use a cruel ploy to trick women into bed; they would tell them that if the child was a boy then the Adeptus takes him, and if it is a girl, the mother gets to keep her."

"But isn't it known that it is highly likely that the baby will be a boy?"

"Humans are interesting in that if you give them a small bit of hope, they will cling to it and nurture it and never let it die until it is murdered."

"So how'd your mother keep you?"

"She convinced the midwife to lie, and say I was a girl." Gisil's lips spread in a smile as he rested his head back against the wall. His eyes were distant, but in a warming way. "She fought and risked her life for a child that she didn't want in the first place, from an act that she had no choice in."

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Titles are Hard

"Yes, thank you so much," Ulrika said shortly as she flipped the arrogant knight the bird. She glared as he walked off with his self importance holding his head high, and half her purse in his pocket. It was a moment before she realized that a small child and his slightly older sister were standing right next to her, holding on her cloak curiously.

"Miss? Miss!" the boy said, his brown eyes open so wide Ulrika was afraid they'd fall out of his head. "What does this mean?" he asked, and he stuck up his middle finger at her.

Ulrika paused, then rubbed the back of her head, feeling a sour weight land in her stomach. Damn what was she supposed to tell the kid? That was probably the reason why the knight just left without threatening her some more with jail time for not paying a traveling tax. Or whatever it was that he claimed, Ulrika had stopped listening. The only reason she paid was because she didn't want to keep using Gisil as a "get-out-of-fights-she-picked-free" card.

"Well, uhm," she said, then grinned. "It means 'Have a nice day!' You can use it both as a greeting and a good bye!"

The children's mouth gaped open, and Ulrika saw the boy was missing his incisor and the girl had her adult front teeth crowding the baby ones. She glanced around, but the handful of adults that were still paying attention after the argument looked just as curious and interested. So the middle finger didn't exist here? Sweet.

"I'm going to use that all the time!" said the girl happily. "Mamaaa! Mama! Look at what I learned from the nice traveling lady." She grabbed the boy's wrist and ran off with him, both holding their middle fingers aloft.

Ulrika was trying hard to not tear up from laughter.

"Clever," said the raven Bates as he fluttered down and alighted on her shoulder. "What will happen if another of your people ends up here?"

"Too bad," Ulrika said, "I got here first."

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