With a smile, Hen admitted, “It does, doesn’t it?”
“How many blooded families are there, then?”
“I should probably know that,” Hen admitted. “But I was never much of a history student. It’s a really small amount though. They all live up in the High City, which is the smallest district, so it can’t be that many compared to all the others put together.”
If Dagan was disappointed by Hen’s lack of statistical knowledge, he didn’t show it. He just gave another thoughtful nod, causing some loose hair to slide out of his braid and frame his face. “And the Children of the Blood aren’t raised by their parents, then, or the community?”
“I wasn’t either.” Hen looked up at the branches to keep from staring at Dagan’s hair. Honestly, it was even more distracting than his wet shorts, which was saying something. “My family and I stayed close, but that’s considered sort of, I don’t know, embarrassing? Lower-class.”
Dagan made a little humming noise. “That seems very cruel, to someone like me.”
“I wondered if it might.” Hendrik glanced back down. He was fascinated by the idea of Dagan’s massive family. The sheer disorder and chaos of it must’ve been overwhelming. And yet, Dagan’s eyes crinkled fondly every time he spoke of them, even when he was complaining. His face was so easy to read, far easier than any book. There was something charming about that, more charming than any desperate flirtation ever could be.
Dagan said, “We do begin apprenticeships early, and in some cases we go to live in another conservancy. I started training at 16. My oldest brother went to live with the Head Verder when he was 12. My mother cried for a week.”
“Even though she had nine other children at home?” Hendrik asked with a little smile.
“If Alexia and Erron hadn’t almost killed her, I swear she would’ve had more when he left.” Dagan chuckled. “But they were walking and talking by then, past the hardest age, so thankfully for our peace she didn’t.”
Hendrik shook his head. “She must be exhausted all the time. And your father.” It was funny, too, that they never called their parents by name, which everyone in the City did. Yes, Kon was his father, but he wouldn’t dream of calling him that. It sounded so odd and clunky. Like calling him master or brother as if he was some kind of…
Authority. Heh. Food for thought, right there.
Dagan had already moved on, though. “Now, if you ask Alonza—the apprentice Verder—no one cared when he left, and our parents had plenty to keep them busy, and he’s never been fully appreciated at home. But he’s just like that.”
Hendrik laughed. “So, Verders are the ones who are responsible for the health of the, uh, conservancy?”
“Right. And the Head Verder has her own little conservancy, but she’s also charged with the overall health of the entire forest, so it’s a lot.”
“So your brother’s pretty high-ranking, huh?”
“Yes, but we don’t like to let him know we think so.” Dagan smirked. “He did work hard for it, though. From the first moment he learned to tap into his lifecasting, he spent day and night refining it. He deserves to be Head Verder, someday, but please don’t tell him I said that, when you meet him. He’s already insufferable.”
“So his lifecasting is better than yours?” Hendrik couldn’t help trying to wind him up a little.
“Yes,” Dagan said with a calculated, melodramatic sigh, letting his head fall back. “But so are Alexia and Erron’s. And Nika’s—by all the gods, Nika will surpass us all, I think. They’re a wonder.”
“One of your brothers? Or—”
“No, sibling. Not brother or sister. I have two of those.” Dagan sat straight again.
Hendrik frowned thoughtfully.
Dagan’s bright honey-gold eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You have no word for someone in between or outside of man and woman, in the City?”
“In between.” Hendrik considered this entirely new proposition seriously. “So both?”
“Sometimes. Or sometimes neither. Or sometimes no gender at all.”
“So, when they’re born…?”
“Oh, we don’t know what gender someone will be when they’re born,” Dagan said easily. “We can reasonably guess whether they’ll be able to bear children or not, based on what they look like, but that has no other bearing on their personality or life path.”
Hendrik spent a moment mulling this over. It wasn’t as alien a concept as he’d thought at first, though. Places like the Red Lantern were famous for blurring gender lines, though such things weren’t always about sex, from what Hendrik understood. Perhaps they did have words for these concepts, and Hendrik was just woefully ignorant.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
Dagan said, “We have stories of a time when such things were determined at birth, and people were made to be either a man or woman regardless of their own inclinations and feelings. But it led to women being forced into certain societal and professional roles and men into others, and while some people were content, quite a few were perfectly miserable. It’s much simpler to let people be who they are with as little interference as possible.”
That much was familiar to Hendrik, at least. “Kass had an uncle who was a priest in the Archives, before they were closed. He talked about a time when two men or two women sleeping together was forbidden. It always seemed like a disordered idea to me, forcing people to live and sleep with someone they couldn’t honor properly. But in the City, it was never like that. That was back before the wastes.”
“What if you and he had wanted a child?” Dagan asked.
“Me and Kass?” Hendrik made a face. “Why would we want that?”
Dagan laughed. “Some people do. Could you adopt a child? Or get a license to have a friend carry one for you? Here, sometimes a family member will raise or carry a child, but if you need a license, I’d think that would be difficult.”
Hendrik tried to picture it: Kass cooing at the baby in his arms, Hen standing behind him…looking utterly horrified.
Definitely not.
Hen said, “I think some of the richer families can adopt, but they won’t be blooded anymore if they do. It’d be well beyond my means, though, even if I had joined an elite corp.”
“It seems very difficult to build a family in the City.”
“I didn’t know it could be any other way,” Hendrik admitted. “It’s just how things are.”
Dagan seemed to mull this over for a moment. He pursed his lips, which were otherwise in a perpetual, natural pout, when he was deep in thought like that.
