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Maria gets her tattoos at the regular age of 18 like most Rhoag do. The eldest in the city, a man who well remembers the Annex War like it was yesterday yet still walks with a kick in his step, does it as the custom usually begets, with Brigitta watching over her and holding her hand as the needle pokes in and out of her cheek. She chose a design that resembles the ones her father had, a sketch of Alces probably older than the girl herself clenched to her chest as the lines are inked.
She asks for a hexagon-like shape on her forehead rather than his diamond, however. Like a honeycomb, she says, for the Honeybee.
"And that's what you want to have on your face for the rest of your life?" Brigitta asks her then, half joking.
"Mhm. I want to remember Mama Fabienne whenever I look in the mirror fifty years from now."
Brigitta can't find the words to respond with. The elder gets back to work once Maria lays back on the table once again.
She comes home that night with the marks of an adult Rhoag, one orange-tinted hexagon framed by the lines running down her eyes.
"I came to accept it back when Arvid married me," Fabienne says a few nights later, chopping the shallots for stock. "Less my own insight and more the priest's."
The Honeybee is a little sparser then usual, most of Sunshade Row deciding to socialize out in the open tonight. If Brigitta listens and looks close enough, she can hear children laughing and singing, bright colored igniters in their hands, blurred through the window. Lycaon brand toy and training igniters, made for children to learn magic with the most harmless of spells, no more dangerous than bubble wands or sparklers.
(The little ones here often came to the emporium, coins in their pockets and wanting something fun and shiny. Such a different sight from what felt like only so long ago, children with the freedom and money to buy the toys they wanted.)
"Asked him while I was standing right next to him if he really considered what a union with a Paripus meant. He said, 'my daughter's part Ishkia. Of course I know what I'm getting into.'"
A nostalgic smile crossed Fabienne's face, and she pushed the cut vegetables off the cutting board and into the pot with the flat of the knife.
"I imagine you took it differently?" Brigitta leaned on the counter, pushing the peeler across the potato in her hand with a thumb.
"Oh, you bet. I want to say some part of me always knew, but to have it directly said to me was a wakeup call of some kind." Fabienne shrugs a shoulder as she moves to wash the carrots. "Does it come up often? Between other Rhoag, I mean."
Brigitta pauses. "Occasionally. I wouldn't say it's looked down upon for those reasons, but it's not exactly recommended, either. Most of the scrutiny usually came from..." She trails off, glancing over, expecting Fabienne to fill in the gaps. The other woman hums, picking up what was being putting down without another word. "When I started coming here more, my associates were telling me I had done it at an appropriate time."
"Oh, so they were only concerned if I was still young and beautiful?" Fabienne puts a hand on her chest in fake offense before rolling her eyes.
"No," Brigitta lets the skin of the vegetable fall into the sink with a wet noise. "Because I'm still young too, and the first love is always the hardest. That its easier to go through the inevitable when you're only just beginning to become an elder."
There's a moment of silence that passes through the room, the only sound being the clinking of a metal spoon on the sides of Fabienne's pot as she stirs.
"It's normal for Rhoag to have multiple partners," she continues after a moment, "but as you grow older, the strain of emotions are likely to affect you physically more and more."
"I can imagine. Goodness knows that girl and her little spontaneous runaway adventures have began making me worry to the point of a migraine."
"I keep telling you, she needs curfew."
"You don't think I've tried?"
They laugh then, the heavy atmosphere yet to be dispelled. Brigitta takes the cutting knife from her to pick up where she left off, Fabienne more concerned with the stove and keeping the broth on a low simmer.
"How did you do it?" Brigitta asks a few minutes later, sick of looking at the way the carrot on her board's been cut into crummy, differently sized and jagged slices. "Come to terms, I mean."
Fabienne doesn't answer immediately. "Suppose I just accepted that I wasn't Arvid's first love."
"Did that help?"
"It was a little sobering, I won't lie." Fabienne shrugs one shoulder. "He'd outlive me like he outlived his first wife, one way or the other, disease again or time. Right ironic how it turned out, huh?" Brigitta winces, and Fabienne cracks a somber smile. "As for Maria..."
It's Fabienne's turn to trail off, and Brigitta doesn't pry. If she wants to end the conversation here, that's her business, but Fabienne eventually says, "I looked in the mirror one night and told myself that if I did right by her, I'd still live long after I was gone. That what was important is that hundred, two hundred years from now, Maria knows that I loved her."
(A common belief held by both Rhoag and Paripus; death in forgetting for one, death in feeling nothing in the other. You never truly departed after your death until your name was spoken for the last time. Never truly dead until the living felt nothing for you anymore.)
"Does it worry you at all?" Brigitta puts the knife down.
"I was worried about doing it alone for a while, but I had the people here. Found a way to love again."
"Seeing as how she's probably pushing her way into the throne room right now to show her marks to the king," Brigitta chuckles. "I'd say you never truly lost the way."
Dinner is between the two of them, a simple soup and bread recipe Brigitta had wanted to try. They sit across from each other, Brigitta still taking the time to stare out the window.
"Do you ever get worried about it again when you look at me?"
Fabienne hums through a mouthful of stew before she swallows. "Not really. If anything, I'm relieved she has someone she can talk to about these things."
"Did nobody else in the area offer?"
"Some did. But it never felt right to her. She wanted to be taught these things by someone closer. Family friend, or the like, but Arvid never had surviving family, so it was at a loss until you came into the picture."
(Brigitta thanks Will mentally, as she always does when this topic comes up.)
"If you ask me," Fabienne continues, "I think she wanted someone she can count on still being here when we're all gone. Someone who knew and loved us as much as she does."
It's a harrowing thought, that give or take a hundred years, it would be just her and the child eventually. The boy would pass the throne on, his Partisans immortalized in the royal mausoleum, and there would be a day where even the king would close his eyes for the last time.
But the child wouldn't be alone when it happened, and the melancholy yet comforted glint in Fabienne's eyes tells Brigitta that she's well aware of that fact.
"It won't be for a long time," Brigitta says softly. "You're still young and beautiful."
Fabienne scoffs at her attempt at an echo, resting her chin on her hand. "Oh? And will you still be here when I'm old and wrinkled?"
"Well, I will be myself. Like I said, I'm still young. I'll be aging as well, and so will Maria."
"Will you both grow old with me, then?"
"Of course."
"Then I have nothing to worry about."
And that was that.