The Lot of Women (PG-17)

Writers: Avery
Date Posted: 27th October 2015

Characters: Zelah
Description: Xeladrie remembers her sister's tragic death. It makes her angry.
Location: Sunstone Seahold
Date: month 2, day 6 of Turn 8
Notes: Mentioned: Bryvin
Rating: PG-17

Zelah

Xeladrie hated her pregnancy. She hated Bryvin. She hated the lot of
women in the South. In short, she hated everything on Pern today.

When she'd been informed callously by her father that Bryvin was the man
who she was marrying, she'd spent the entire lead up to the marriage
hating him with the same bright fervor she'd felt when she was a small
child. That was an old hatred, born from watching her older sister
suffer and wither because of a choice Bryvin had made. She'd built him
up in her head to be a horrific monster who'd taken advantage of her
sister's naiveté and preyed on her, planting his seed and running to
leave her to face the consequences alone.

The consequences of being unwed and pregnant at a Hold, especially as
the Lord Holder's eldest daughter, were grave. Elarie had been claimed
to be sick and wasting, cloistered away from the rest of the Hold so no
one could see her growing abdomen and realize her shame. And then her
health had taken a turn for the worse, and she'd sickened and vomited
and wasted for real. Until she threw herself into the sea rather than
die in bed, rather than go to the Hold's Healer and have it be found
out. Have her mistake be whispered about by everyone in the Hold.

She'd heard about it in whispers, since she was still considered a child
at the time. Her mother had withdrawn with the rest of her siblings in
grief. Her father had gone cold and remote. The maids and ladies were
rushing around discombobulated in their grief. And so the youngest
daughter had been able to sneak out of the Hold buildings and down to
the sea, to go picking along the rocky beach towards the caves where she
and Elarie had played long ago. The guards who'd found her had taken the
body away, but the rocks still had traces of blood and strands of long,
fine blonde hair. She'd been able to kneel and touch the rocks Elarie's
body had broken against, to look up to the cliff above where her sister
had thrown herself from. Those clues had made it all too easy to picture
what it would have looked like.

Her sister had _suicided_ because of Bryvin. Xeladrie would never forget
that.

And now Xeladrie was pregnant by the same man.

If she'd been barren, maybe Bryvin would have put her aside and asked
for another wife after a few Turns, and she could be quietly retired off
to live alone. It might have been bad for him and Sunstone, since the
grants for territory she'd been traded for would have been in dispute,
but it would have guaranteed her freedom from this man.

But she wasn't barren. Her swelling belly was proof of that. That meant
that her fate was sealed. She would stay wedded to Bryvin, until she
died, or he died, or something terrible happened to separate them.
Carrying Bryvin's child meant securing her place as the Lady of the Hold.
It was safety for her - he couldn't harm her as long as she was pregnant
or it'd risk his heir.

And once the child was born? What would he do then?

If her child was a girl, then she'd be condemned to the same awful life
as Xeladrie. She'd grow up a Lord Holder's girl, she'd be traded away in
marriage to an old man for land or territory. It would be a terrible
life. And since a girl couldn't be the proper heir, Bryvin would have to
get her pregnant again, to make sure they had a boy.

A boy who would get to inherit the Hold. Who would be able to take
liberties with whoever he wanted without consequences to himself, while
the girls had to suffer shame. A boy who would have all of this part of
Pern at his fingertips.

Her eyes closed and hot tears dripped from them. Either she was carrying
a girl who would suffer as she did, or a boy who would own everything.
She didn't want this pregnancy. She didn't want this child.

**Elarie, is this trap why you killed yourself?**

Xeladrie's child might be lawfully permitted by her marriage contract,
but it was unwanted and painful, and it left her feeling trapped with no
way out. Her sister's choice had never made much sense to her before.
But today, she could imagine why Elarie had felt imprisoned, and had
done what she did.

There had to be a way out for her. She just had to find it.

Last updated on the November 15th 2015

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The Lot of Women (PG-17)