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When Alana was twelve, her father summoned her to his office.
“This is for you,” he said, shoving a dagger toward her, hilt first, without looking at either her or it.
“For me?” Alanna couldn’t help asking.
Her father did look at her, then, eyes narrowing, “You are the girl one, aren’t you?” He asked.
It was a more reasonable question than it might seem. Both Alanna and Thom’s hair were vaguely chin-length, Alanna having just had her hair cut, and Thom overdue for his, and Alanna had just come back from practicing hand-to-hand, so she was wearing her brother’s trousers.
“I am,” Alanna said, looking to the dagger doubtfully. It was, she thought, the most beautiful object she had ever seen, small jewels winking in its hilt, its long blade tapering gracefully, and beautifully deadly.
“Then this is yours. All vor girls receive them when they turn twelve, for defending their honor. This was your mother’s.”
Alanna processed that. It was a lot. Father never mentioned her mother at all, and this had been hers. This beautiful knife had been Alanna’s mothers and now it was hers. Perhaps it had been her grandmother’s before that.
It wasn’t Alanna’s birthday, that was a little over a week ago. If she asked, Alanna knew her father would have claimed to have forgotten. She knew that would be a lie. Her birthday was the anniversary of her mother’s death, and her father would never forget that. This was the first birthday of hers and her brother’s that her father had ever acknowledged. She knew that her father would kick her out of his office immediately if she asked.
“My honor?” Alanna asked instead.
“Oh, you know,” her father said.
She does, sort of. Though her father certainly never explained it to her. It’s a bit of a let-down, that even this is about sex, like girls aren’t good for anything else. Delicate flowers, existing to be deflowered.
But still she, it’s an odd sort of reassuring, an odd sort of exciting. This was hers, hers to use, meant for her to use. She’s allowed to fight back, she’s supposed to fight.
Alanna took the dagger. It felt surprisingly heavy, but right in her hands. For all its beauty, this was a real weapon, not a toy or bobble, as deadly as a plasma arc if given the right opportunity.
“Thank you, Father,” Alanna said.
“Hmph,” was her father’s only reply. She knew full well that he would not have given it to her, had tradition not demanded it. But that was alright. It was not truly her father that Alanna was grateful to. She held the knife in her hand with all its deadly strength and stubborn defiance, held it as her mother had held it, her grandmother before her. Thank you, Mother, she thought, and all the women of Barrayar.