Chapter Text
I live on Mars.
Like the rest of my people, the Reds, we were sent here by the Golds, the rulers of humanity, to mine helium-3 for the future terraforming of Mars. That way, the other Colors can move here from overcrowded Earth. All I've ever known is the mining colony of Elysia. The shadows of the tunnels, the artificial light that clears the way, the red earth underneath my feet.
One thing you should know about Mars is that there is not much gravity, unlike other plants in the solar system. Such as Earth. So when someone is executed, usually by hanging, you must pull their feet to break the neck. You do that in order to give them a quick death.
They let the loved ones do that.
I was six when my parents were executed.
I was six when I pulled the feet of both my mother and my father to give them a quick death.
Whenever I clean up after a day at the Webbery, I have to remind myself no one is watching me. All the women and girls are thinking of going home to their husbands and families. The women are musing about returning to love and warmth and joy even in the hardships of our mining colony of Elysia. The girls are trading gossip about everything and nothing.
The women and girls don't know that I'm hiding the body of a man underneath my clothing. Biologically, I'm a men. But I know that I am woman. Only my family, my family of choice and love and acceptance, knows that while I have the body of a man, I am a woman.
I'm sure the Grays know as well, but they don't give a damn. I'm just keeping my head down and living my life. So if I'm not causing trouble, then the Grays don't care and my clan ignores me outside of my marriage to Aiden, the Helldiver of the Xi Clan.
Aiden.
I grin as I think about my husband of two years as I change back into my blouse, ankle length skirt, and boots. Aiden, with hair the color of fresh blood and eyes like rubies in the mines. He knows who I am, that despite being assigned male when I was born, I live as woman, who I really am. That I can't give him children, that if we get caught, we could both be killed.
But he loves me anyways.
"You did good today Eilidh." Caoimhe, my nineteen year old adoptive sister, tells me with a smile. Her dark red hair, from color to texture, is identical Bronwyn's, our mother, but her eyes as the same shade of scarlet red as her late father, Arthur, who died when she was eight. Fine boned and slender with soft curves, my sister easily the most beautiful woman in Elysia. "You're the best Silkweaver we've had in decades." she declares proudly.
Harvesting bioSilk in the Webbery is a much less dangerous task than working in the mines. But to be the Silkweaver, to directly harvest and weave the volatile raw silk, requires intense dexterity and hand-eye coordination. They say your hands and your fingers must move faster than flames.
Mine are faster. At sixteen years old, I'm the youngest Silkweaver in living memory.
"Thank you sis." I say with a grin. Isolde, Fionn's wife, joins us and the three of us link arms. "My dear sisters, let's go home." Isolde, twenty three years old with light red hair and strawberry red eyes, says with a smile. She's pregnant with my brother's fourth child, but the pregnancy isn't too far along of her to not have to work at the Webbery.
We leave the Webbery, the three of us chatting softly about the upcoming Laureltide. The dayshift should be over soon, which means that Aiden, Fionn (Caoimhe and I's brother), and Lonan, Caoimhe's husband, should all be home soon. The three of us maneuver through the tunnels of Elysia. We have to pass by the gallows as we go through the Common, where the Gamma families live above their shops, smithies, eateries, bakeries, and taverns. Above the Common is the Pot, where the Grays live, along with the supply depots
I have to forcibly keep my eyes on the tunnel that leads to the Xi township and not look instinctively at the gallows. In the gallows there is the rotting corpse of Ruiri, a fourteen year old boy from Beta Clan. He was hung for trying to steal foodstuffs to feed his family.
My father was twenty two and my mother was twenty when they were hanged. The Gray captain, Jackson ti Umbridge, accused them of being Sons of Ares agents. The accusations were false. Jackson should have claimed they taught me to read and write, which they had actually done.
But no one could prove that Jackson's accusations were false. The Copper MineMagistrate, Bartholomew cu Fitzwilliam, didn't give a damn to properly investigate. Nor did the people of Elysia care as well. My parents were black sheep of not just the Xi Clan, but of Elysia. So no one cared to try and fight back against the accusations.
And so they executed my parents.
Now anytime I see someone get hanged, I flash back to my parent's execution, to how my tiny arms had struggled to pull their legs, to the snap of their necks when I managed to give them a quick death, to the stillness of their dangling bodies, bodies that hung in the commons and rotted for three months before they had been pulled down and their bones grounded into dust.
That night, I had slept in the orphanage, crying myself to sleep. Crying for my mother and father and for the life I had lost.
Six months after I was put in the orphanage, Caelan had vanished. And Eilidh reappeared six weeks later, claiming to be an abandoned, hidden child from the mines left in the tunnels. No one in Elysia cared to investigate the lie I had made up. Sometimes children were left in the mines by parents who can't afford another mouth too feed. The Grays certainly never bothered to look into the bold faced lie I had woven to explain my 'story' as Eilidh.
Caelan was assumed dead. I live on as Eilidh.
Caoimhe seems to sense my darkening mood, and we walk faster. I see Tara, a seventeen year girl from Gamma, sneering and glaring at me. She was one of the dozens of girls swooning over Aiden. And among the many in Elysia who were shocked when he married me.
It's been two years since Aiden married me. Meanwhile, Tara has been married for six months new to her husband, eighteen year old Brendan from Gamma. It was a marriage that her parents had arranged for her. But even now, she's still bitter that Aiden chose to marry me and not her.
Petty and vindictive, she never misses a chance to make my life as miserable as she can. I avoid her whenever possible, which is easy to do. Our respective clans, Xi and Gamma, barely intermingle with each other.
Never mind the fact that I had to point out to Aiden that she was enamored with him. I think to myself. My husband is a loyal man. Aiden hadn't even registered her inflation of him. By his own admittance, he only has eyes for me. When he told me that, I had never felt so adored, so cherish.
"Let's go home." I say, thinking about the home I have with Aiden in the Xi township. I think about the home I used to share with Bronwyn, Fionn, and Caoimhe before I married Aiden, and we took up our own home.
Not about the little house, now abandoned and believed to be haunted, that still sneak visits too, I lived with for six years with my parents.
Even as I walk away, familiar grief grips my heart and I have to will the tears away.
Aiden isn't home when I arrive. So I visit Bronwyn, my adoptive mother. The house is small, with a living room and dining room combined into one suitably large space, and a few rooms. Fionn and Isolde share one room, Bronwyn has a room to herself, and my nephews share one room— little Liadan still sleeps with her parents.
She smiles as soon as she sees me enter the house, her blood red eyes the same shade as Fionn's. "Hello little bird." she coos, hugging me tightly. I hug her tightly in return, inhaling her usual scent of mint and leather. As always, I feel at immense ease and safety with her.
Bronwyn adopted me ten months after my parents' unjust execution. She knows who I am— Fionn, Caoimhe, and Bronwyn all know the truth of me. But they love me and accept me no matter what. Isolde and Lonan accept me for it as well. The little ones just know me as Auntie Eilidh.
My life isn't good or fair, but it's warm and soft with unconditional love and acceptance.
"Bronwyn." I say softly. "It's good to see you again."
Bronwyn, now thirty eight, is one of the older woman in Elysia. She lost her right hand five years back when trying to untangle a particularly snarled knot of bioSilk. Despite her decades of experience, the machinery ate her hand, forcing her to cut if off with a slingBlade to save herself. As a result, she had to retire from the Webbery prematurely. But now she watches over her grandchildren when their parents are away at work.
"Auntie!" four year old Ryan chirps as he dodges Isolde's hands to jump at us. I narrowly catch him in time, and he grins up at me with the same eyes of his father and grandmother. "Hello Ryan." I say with a grin. "How are you today?"
"Good!" he declares with a grin as bright the sun. Though I have no idea what the sun looks like. "Connall and I saw the haunted house today." Ryan tells me, and his twin brother tumbles out of their shared room. I suppress a flinch as Bronwyn inhales sharply.
No one's lived in my family's old house. It's claimed to be haunted by the ghosts of my parents.
"You shouldn't go there." I chide him softly as I set him down. He clings to my skirts, pouting. Connall joins us. "Auntie Eilidh!" he says with a grin. "Are you and Uncle Aiden staying for dinner?"
"Maybe." I admit.
Fionn enters the house. He smiles at me and his twin sons race over to see him, while Isolde carries two year old Liadan in her arms. "If you and Aiden want to come over, we could invite Caoimhe and Lonan." he suggests. "One big family dinner."
I grin. "That would be lovely."
Isolde nods thoughtfully. "If we pool our rations, we could make it work."
Bronwyn smiles. "Everyone under one roof again." she says, even as she glances at her left hand. A simple iron wedding ring sits there. She gave Fionn his father's wedding ring, the only thing his mining crew could recover after he was paralyzed bitten by a group of adult pitVipers. The crew had to burn Arthur's body as the pitVipers borrowed into his body to lay their eggs. I survived getting bitten by a pitViper when I was seven, as Fionn had been able to suck the venom out in time.
I can't help but fiddle with my ring. Not the silver wedding ring Aiden gave me on our wedding day— made by his uncle, the blacksmith of the Xi clan— that I wear on my left ring finger, but the other ring, on my right index finger.
I twist around with the platinum and fire opal ring that my father gave me the last time I saw him and my mother in their jail cell three days before their execution. They had been visibly tortured, but still with their dignity. James, the kindest of the Grays stationed in Elysia, had snuck me in so I could say goodbye to them in private. Sadly, James died five years ago. Officially of a heart attack, but the rumors whisper about foul play.
My ancestors brought the ring to Mars from Earth. It was passed down from generation to generation in my father's family, from one firstborn to the next. Aiden and I have been discussing adopting from the orphanage, so I'll give it to the first child we adopt. Or maybe I'll give it to one of Fionn or Caoimhe's children, as there's always a chance Aiden could predecease me due to the dangerous nature of being a Helldiver.
I shudder, and pray that that will never happen.
So I focus on the family dinner. "I'll tell Aiden." I assure my family.
One forged from love, acceptance, and choice.