Editing Story:ROAD TRIP! (Warhammer High)/Part Five (section)

===The War God's Wife===


Freya dropped the last of her clothes onto her bed for later sorting.  “Mission accomplished,” she declared.

Her mother’s scent at the door, and the faint sound of her breath, announced her company.  “Freya, dearest.  Have a moment?” she asked, in Juvjk.  Despite never having set foot on the planet Fenris until the age of twenty eight, she had learned the language from her father and husband.  Freya liked that she spoke it around the house.  Certainly, it had eased her own time on Fenris.

“Sure, what’s up?” she asked.

“Just checking in,” Gairwyn said.  “Warp Travel’s never safe.”

Freya shrugged red locks over bare shoulders.  “I’m fine.  Thanks for checking, though.”  She held her new gloves aloft.  “Look at what Bjorn gave me!”

“I saw at the party,” Gairwyn said, sitting down on the gargantuan bed.  “They’re really pretty.  Doeskin?”

“Yep,” Freya said, sliding them on.  “They’re a tiny bit loose, but they’re still really comfy.”

“That was nice of him.”  Gairwyn smiled down at her daughter.  “And I wanted to say before you vanish into the laundry room…I’m proud of you.”

“What for?” Freya asked.

“Going out to see the people on their own level,” Gairwyn said.  “That was brave of you.”

Freya looked down in modesty.  “It was educational, certainly,” she said.

Gairwyn leaned over and wrapped her arm around her daughter’s shoulder to pull her into a maternal hug.  “And despite what your father thinks, I’m very proud of how maturely you handled Alex’s difficulty.”

Freya felt her cheeks warm a bit at her mother’s remark.  “I just did what I thought would help,” she said.

“And that’s why I’m proud of you,” Gairwyn said softly, mindful of her daughter’s hypersensitive hearing.  She kissed the top of Freya’s tangled red mass.  “You’re growing into a responsible woman of the pack, and your father and I are both very pleased to see that.”

Freya leaned her head against her mother’s shoulder and grinned contentedly, eyes shut.  “Thanks, Mom.”

Gairwyn let the moment continue for a moment before rising to lean against the dresser across from the bed.  “Do you know how your classes at New Cyprine are going to work, regarding your career choice?” she asked, apropos of nothing.  “Their athletic and political science departments aren’t exactly their star roles, yet that’s what you’re both interested in.”

“Yep!  I’m pretty much railroaded into the first few classes,” Freya said, folding her hands in her lap.  “But starting with year two, you can take any of about thirty classes in whatever order you want, then write a seventy-page paper at the end of the last year.”

“That’s intense,” Gairwyn said.  “I will admit, though, Freya, that as proud of your choice as I am, I didn’t think you'd be the Political Science type.”

Freya rolled her eyes.  “Yes, well.  I’m strange like that,” she said.

Gairwyn chuckled, shaking her head.  Though there wasn’t a single one of her genes on her daughter’s body, their hair was so similar one could be forgiven for thinking they were related.  “Freya, you wouldn’t happen to be cruising for an easy degree, would you?”

“Seventy page graduation paper,” Freya said flatly.

“True.”


Jake pushed the door of his apartment open backwards, and shuffled in, arms laden with swag.  “Behold, for it is the electronics fairy, and I bear stuff,” he said.

George looked up from his holomag and blinked.  “Wow.”

“Aww yeah, buildin’ me a rig,” Jake said, laboriously hauling his goods to his room to set up.

“Uh, maybe you should leave that stuff in its packing until you move, so it doesn’t break in transit,” George pointed out.

Jake looked down at the pile of hardware in his arms.  “You’re ruining my entire life here, Dad,” he grumped, setting the parts down gently and wrapping them up in a blanket.

George stood and walked over to the entrance of his son’s tiny room.  Jake was gingerly packing the electronics into bath towels for transport, looking longingly at them as he did.  “Jake, about what your mother said before…”

Jake’s shoulders tensed, and he sighed in rising anger.  “What?”

“I don’t want you to think we don’t like that you’re spending time with the Royal family,” George said.

“Okay.”  Jake straightened up.  “Well, Mom sure wasn’t convincing me not to.”

His father set his teeth and tried to rein in his own irritation.  “Look, I don’t agree with Sandra about your friends using you as a morality pet.”

“Great, because it was really not what I wanted to hear, coming home after three months,” Jake said.  “I mean, she didn’t even stop to ask me if I had fun.  She just jumped straight to questioning my perception and judgment.”  He glanced over at his father and narrowed his eyes.  “Did you guys come to some conclusion about me and the Royal girls while I was gone?”

George hesitated.  “We discussed what your college plans would mean for us, in terms of you being out of the shop.  I’ll have to hire an assistant, since I was assuming that you were going to help me.”

“Sorry about that,” Jake said, packing up the last of the electronics and starting on his Nocturne purchases.  “That doesn’t explain Mom’s unexpected truculence,” he noted.

“Don’t talk about your mother like that,” George warned.

“Don’t give me this ‘united front’ crap,” Jake shot back.  “You know as well as I do that she was way out of line with that little accusation.  What brought it on?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he stood from his suitcases.

George glared at his son, but he relented.  “Your mother thinks that you’re going to get so attached to the Royal Daughters that if something goes wrong between you and Venus like it did with you and Hana, you’ll be emotionally demolished by it,” he said.

“Great.  And she should have said that outright instead of passive-aggressively accusing me of poor perception,” Jake said.  “Where is she, anyway?”

“She’s picking up our ration card,” George said.

“Good.  Did you guys add me back on for the nine days that I’ll be here?” Jake asked, abandoning his posture and rooting through his souvenirs.

“No, we left you off from the day you left to the mid-year break of your first year at Kouthry,” George said.

“Cool.  Venus’ parents are loaning her a car, so we’ll be able to get around on campus if we need to,” Jake said.  He dug a pair of little boxes out of the bag and held them up.  “Here, this one was from Alex to me, but this one is from me to you.  I said I’d get you something,” he said.

George took the proffered box and opened it.  Inside was a small storage card.  “What’s on it?” he asked.

“An explorable holo of Heliosa,” Jake said.  “One of the Sanctuaries of Nocturne.”

“Wow.  Thanks,” George said.  “This will work on our ancient projector?”

“Yes.”  Jake extracted the watch and set it on his bedside table, putting the chain and other accoutrements in as well.  “All right.  I need to do paperwork and start getting winter clothes ready to pack.”

“Did you wash your clothes before coming home?” George asked.

“On the ship, yeah.”  Jake cricked his neck.  “All right, I better get to it.”