Further continuation of Kate Bakers masterpiece....

Continuation of Kate Bakers masterpiece….worth a read…then I added to it?

by hpetterson. So this is my addition to the story...(glshade)

Here is the link back to Chuck Wendig's Terrible minds blog so you can read all the rest of the stories from this week...http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/12/13/flash-fiction-challenge-200-words-at-a-time-part-4/

We are always meant to be pregnant; we daughters of Queens. We mothers of Queens. We are destined to hold a screaming infant upon our breasts, bloodied and exhausted from delivery and rooting for sustenance. We are meant to swaddle, cuddle and coo down at our future rulers. We, the perpetual regents. 

The first daughter set foot upon Winter colony, shielded against new and foreign elements in a sealed white suit and gold-plated helmet. In the older, rarer reels, she mimics a kiss through the raised, visor, touching the glass with thickly padded and protected gloved fingers. Unfastening the bulky suit, slender and still protected hands settle upon the United Agencies logo which adorns her chest and the sewn-on identification patch. Commander Eridana has landed in her new home. In the glare of sunset, the one photographer who accompanied the journey is unable to mitigate the fading light but captures the silhouette of a now noticeable pregnancy.

We will never be called “Princess”, nor inherit any throne. Should our perfect Queens fall, we simply produce another. Some have written us into our history holos as drones, reminiscent of ancient Apis mellifera.  We are the enduring members of a hive, feeding our potential matriarchs with the royal, nanotech jelly, occasionally coveting a taste but wary of the price. 

Free of the suit, she walks to her balcony. The doors open as she nears the threshold and she paces to the edge.  A slight movement to her right catches her eye.

“Mir…there you are.” She murmurs holding her forearm aloft. The Kestrel adjusts its flight and performs a lazy chandelle, then arcs to land on her offered perch. Mir flies by the offered arm and instead circles the room slowly. The first daughter turns and just catches the disturbed image of her hawk. Mir continues and lands on her forearm, and stares into her eyes.

Yes I did notice it Mir. She looks demure showing no notice of the fact there is a invisibly cloaked person in her private chamber. A guard would be executed for such a breach.  She deftly releases the meter long microbe thin spool of nano-wire from her wrist communicator. And remembers her father’s last words.

“Your child is first, your people are second, and you are always tertiary darling….You are a Kestrel…in name and spirit. Although you are a bird in a gilded cage, never show mercy on anyone who thinks you are a songbird daughter…you are a Kestrel…a raptor of the sky….fly daughter…fly.”

Eridana knows what duty demanded feeling the weight of the garrote anchor in her palm, the off balancing weight of the child queen in her belly. Inthe periphery of her vision the cloak rustled and revealed in the passing flight of Mir settles and shifts. An assassin would have already struck, then some other princess would carry the future queen not her. Somewhere the photographer was still capturing the moment, this moment for posterity. Regent protector Commander Eridana alone in her guilted home in the ice facing the cold clean winter and an unknown assailant. Drama for the future ruler to know about herself and the woman that she would call mother. 

You are tertiary her fathers voice rang again in her head as she shook Mir away and spun in a graceful pirouette given her condition and het the weight fly. Refusing it kill was her choice. Come spring she would have enough blood on her hands. This pawn she did not want to kill. The distortion changed as the anchor sailed into it and contacted rather then passed through. Hand protecting her belly she glared at where the recording photographer was, a pose for the eyes upon her.