The Confrontation

Writers: Jelena
Date Posted: 26th September 2013

Characters: Genna, Sinla
Description: Genna confronts her mother with her sins and makes a demand.
Location: Amber Hills Hold
Date: month 3, day 5 of Turn 7

Genna

Genna's stomach knitted tight as she turned the doorknob. How could she
ever face her mother again? Much worse, how could she look her father in
the eyes, knowing what she knew? But she knew she had to go home. All day
she had been hiding and eventually people would get worried. It was a good
thing she had made a friend working in the kitchens, a friend her mother
didn't know of and was more than happy to hide her away for a while. She
hadn't spoken of the reasons for her hiding, but had been welcome
nonetheless. Now, however, it was time to face the music.

Sinla shot up straight from her position on the couch when she heard the
front door of her quarters open and close. "Genna?" she called as she
watched her daughter walk in. "Oh Genna, where have you been? I was so
worried!" she flew of the couch to embrace her daughter, but Genna
purposefully strode away.

"Worried about your little secret, no doubt," Genna spat, walking into the
kitchen area for a glass of water, if only to have something else to focus
on, something other than her mother who followed her every step around.
"Don't worry, I didn't tell anyone. Yet."

"Genna, I'm so sorry for what you saw, please, it has never happened
before, I promise you," Sinla begged for attention, praying for her
daughter to turn around and look her in the eye. She did turn around, but
with so much anger in her eyes Sinla almost wished she'd turn her back
again.

"Don't lie to me, mother. I caught you once before, remember?" How dare
Sinla treat her like a gullible child still. She still couldn't see her
like the adult she was now. Not even now.

"Nothing happened then, Gen, please believe me," Sinla started, reaching
out to take her daughter's hands, but having them snatched away at once.

"Does Father know?"

"No.. no, there is nothing to know, dear, please..." she searched her
daughter's eyes for a clue as to what she was thinking. "Are /you/ going to
tell him?"

Was she going to tell him? What would it do to her father if she told him?
What would it do to their family? She was torn this way one second, then
that way the next. "Will you break it off?" The fraction of hesitation that
appeared in her mother's eyes was more than enough to tell her the truth.

"How dare you!" she screeched, whirling the glass at her mother. Before it
shattered on the ground, it drenched the front Sinla's dress. "How dare you
preach to me all these turns about decency, virtue, the good of the
/family/!" For a moment she shot forward as if she was to strike her
mother, but then she turned away violently, pacing back to the living room
angrily. "How could you do this? How could you do this to father?" her
voice was still a high-pitched screech as she kicked and slashed at their
furniture, needing something to unleash her anger on.

"Genna… please. You've known your father and I aren't happy. Haven't been
for so, so long. Daihmin and I… it's something different. Please, don't
yell," there was no use denying it all now, so maybe she could persuade her
daughter with the truth. At least she'd had the forethought of sending her
younger children off to a friend for the night. With Makarl away on
business, maybe she'd have the chance to calm Genna down before he got back.

"I don't care, mother. Nothing can justify this, nothing," Genna hissed.
"All this time you kept me from everything I ever wanted, because it might
hurt my reputation and now you.. you.." she kicked at a vase on the table
and as it landed safely in one piece on the carpet she kicked it again for
good measure, taking small comfort in its coming apart. How could she ever
look her father in the eyes with this secret on her heart? How could she
live under the same roof as her mother? But she couldn't tell her father.
It would be his undoing. It would be all their undoing. A broken up
marriage, the shame it would bring to her and her brothers. To her uncle,
her aunts, to everyone she loved. Tears of frustration came running down
her cheek as mother fell silent, out of ideas, out of words.

Looking at her mother and feeling the vile anger she knew she could never
bury, Genna's only thoughts were of finding a way out of this mess, to get
away from the guilty eyes of her mother and the unknowingness of her
father. To get away from her own guilt for keeping silent.. or speaking up.
Finally a planned formed and it gripped her with an ice-cold determination.

"I'm not going to tell anyone, mother. I won't do that to father, to the
rest of us. But on one condition. You're going to let me go to the Weyr."

Sinla looked at her daughter with silent disbelief, searching her tearful,
angry eyes for something to tell her she didn't mean what she was saying.
It felt like black-mail. It was black-mail. Her heart shrunk at the
coldness in her daughter's eyes and she knew then that she had broken
something beyond repair.

"Genna, sweetheart, please think about this. You know I had good reasons
for not letting you go. Please don't leave in anger and come to regret it."
But now she had set her mind on a solution, Genna shook her head calmly.
She could get away from all of this, chase her dream. Maybe there she could
bury the anger and hurt she felt now. And be a dragonrider. "I won't regret
it mother. I might regret keeping your secret, but I won't regret going.
I'm going to go see uncle Chupsin now and you can decide what about. Either
you come with me and tell him you've reconsidered my going to the Weyr, ask
him to contact his dragonrider friends, or I'm going to tell him about what
I've witnessed today."

"Right now? But darling, it's late, can't it wait till morning? Sleep on
it?" Sinla pleaded, needing to buy herself some time to come up with a new
plan. But Genna had already marched off and all Sinla could do was run
after her, searching her mind wildly for a solution, for a way out.

Last updated on the October 16th 2013

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The Confrontation