To Live and Uplift Underground 14


“You could have refused, you know.”


After dismissing Jarn’at and Younger Talia from her tent, I was surprised to not subsequently have the same thing done to me.


Because instead of doing so, my Aunt let me rest on her comfy sheets with her. It was obvious to me why she had allowed me in there to begin with-to make a point to my cousins- but even with them gone, she was more than content enough to lay back and hide away from the chill outside with me in those sheets.


“What?” Which is I didn’t catch on immediately to what she was saying. I almost fell asleep lying against her.


“You might be young, but you are not unproven,” the milfy drow said, “You might be a male, but you are not a spare.”


“I might have offered you as the price my girls had to fight for, but had you refused to be part of it, I would not have had much option but to accept it,” Older Talia looked at the ceiling.


And then she smiled. “As would the girls.”


I didn’t respond immediately and mulled that over.


“Why are you telling me this?” I asked because I could not see the point of it. Maybe post-coital taunting was how my Aunt Talia enjoyed her afterglow?


“Because most boys see being a pet as a way of being valuable to the gang,” she replied, “And from then on only as a way to gain more value.”


“You could have, for example,” Talia looked at me, “Asked to be my pet instead of theirs.”


“...oh,” I dumbly replied.


“Or you could have simply told us that you would only join my crew if it came with the same sort of privilege that you now get in Kan’a’s,” she shrugged, “Either way, your admission isn’t a favor that I am doing to you and it certainly isn’t a favor to either of my daughter or granddaughter.”


I grimaced because I had known that. Coming into this, I had already known all that. I had just... gotten caught up in it all.


“Is that why you engineered their struggle this way?” I asked, “Were you hoping that I’d refuse to play along altogether?”
It would have been the choice that got me the most freedom. However, in my gut, it didn’t feel like I needed it; unlike the situation before Jarn’at told others about my skills, no amount of claim on my person would stop others for asking for my work. Nor stop me from progressing up the technological ladder that I was climbing.


It would have merely set how I lived while I was working in Aunt Talia’s gang.


“It would have taught little Jarn’at and little me more prudence, at the very least,” she chuckled, “But I don’t imagine they like settling things like this either, so it’s a good lesson nonetheless.”


“Where does that leave us?” I breathed out. I didn’t believe my Aunt wouldn’t use my abilities, but it was always good to confirm things.


“Since I told the girls that I would give you to them if they brought you, and somebody didn’t interject at the time,” she smiled at me, “I’ll do so. Whenever I have a request of you, I’ll pass it along through them and, haha, let them reap their cut of you doing so.”


“It figures,” I grunted.


“Oh, don’t talk that way,” she chided me, “It makes you sound like a coward. A common malady among males, to be sure, but that’s not why you didn’t speak up when you had the chance.”


“How do you know?” I snorted, despite the fact that I was speaking to a crew lead. The fact that this was essentially pillow talk emboldened me, I suppose.


“Because you walked here all the way from your Aunt’s holes dressed in nothing but those rags in a warmless night. “ She said, “Though I will admit that is not conclusive proof, of course.”


“But if even if I were wrong and you are a coward, it’s certainly not at the expense of your ambition.”


“But then, that still leaves the question of ‘why?’,” she hummed. Her eyes were still on me as she pondered me, turning me around in her mind as if I were a puzzle.


“...what do you think?” I asked because I, of course, already knew the answer.


But knowing is one thing.


Hearing another say it-


“-because-” she smirked.


“You like it.”


I blanched and looked away.


“Struck the head, did I?” Aunt Talia laughed.


“Ah, but all that said, allow me to leave you with some bit of advice, from a woman who has seen how a lot of these things go.” She took a deep breath and calmed down.


“Whether you are afraid of the consequences or genuinely just like being under others,” she winked at me, “You’ll find that when your input still has influence, that you have choices.”


She gave me a look.


“Ambition makes the ability to choose a duty to choose.”


—---------------------------------------------


I could not stay the night with Aunt Talia, as much as her warm covers made the notion tempting. 


Dressed with the same amount of tunics that I had arrived with, my trip back was not any less cold or miserable. It was, however, quicker due to familiarity with the way. All the same, there was a certain amount of danger in it that had not existed when I went to talk to Aunt Talia.


If somebody had noticed that I had left not only my tent but also the crew area, I would be in trouble. If somebody suspected that I had visited the leader of another crew, it would be dangerous.


If Aunt Kan’a was the one who knew either of these things, well, she needn’t have waited for the front to take care of me.


So I had to be very careful when I snuck into a tent that I shared with other members of the crew.


Thankfully, I wasn’t stopped or questioned on my way there. Even when I entered my tent, the girls didn’t question where is it that I had gone.


I remember being anxious about this, though I suspect that they had all just assumed that I went to take a crap and that the cold made it hard for me to do so. Either way, the next day saw me get up with less sleep than I otherwise should have had, and set on traveling again.


Given that I didn’t know how long the trip was supposed to take, I could not really anticipate when it would be Aunt Kan’a turn to screen the gang with her crew. The vanguard and screening tasks were supposed to be divided evenly between everyone, so I could have, at least, narrowed down the three intervals when it could have been our turn.


Of course, without being a crew lead, I couldn’t possibly have known which of those time tables corresponded to Aunt Kan’a’s crew.


However, when the girls of the 3rd crew started trickling in one week later, I knew it was time for a shift.


Sylva was, technically, my sister. She was my mother’s daughter and she was over a hundred years old. So it was, she was the youngest of all the leaders of a crew.


Being the youngest crew leader also meant that she had the smallest crew.


But being a direct descendant of the gang leader came with all sorts of perks.


The new blood that started coming back in pairs and even in threes all had lead darts and long staves for weapons. As in, the least of them were equipped like Jarn’at might be. Like the favored daughter of a crew would be. Their veterans, then, were all kitted like the best veterans of the other crews.


It was blatant favoritism, yes, but it was of the kind that was expected and even respected. Given the small number of 12 girls that Sylva’s crew had, it was also not threatening enough to warrant the other crews to complain about it.


Or, well, not openly at least.


Sylva had been picked to screen the first leg of our trip and in many ways it was the best one she could have had. It was the span of time when we were least likely to meet problems on our way.


All the same, her girls often came back with fewer darts and more wounds on their persons.


Given the danger that there was in there not being a screening force for a moment, the crew doing it didn’t disengage all at once. They would slowly trickle in and give time for the next screening force to get ready, as well as turn in their last bits of intel.


The last part of a crew to come back was always the one screening directly ahead and, to my sister’s credit, she handled this part in person with only one other girl.


I knew that Aunt Kan’a had drawn the lottery for the 2nd shift when we were told to produce our weapons and get ready to head out the second Sylva came back. Given I’d essentially been the crew’s armorer, I didn’t have one.


It didn’t stop Kan’a from putting me in the skirmish line.


“You’ll all get roughly a week’s worth of provisions,” Soli told our crew the day that we expected Sylva to come back. Aunt Kan’a had left her to it while she attended a briefing with my mother, “so remember to refill your water skins often and to sight your camping spots well ahead of the evening.”


“We’ve all skulked before, aunty,” a newblood girl only a few years older than me yawned with exaggerated gusto.


Only for one of the crew veterans to slap her over the head, “A little more attention and a little less lip, girl. Screening’s an entirely different victim.”


“Quite,” Soli seriously nodded, “Make sure you really do have everything you need. If you come back to the gang with anything other than a warning, you’ll wish you froze your tits off out there.”


“Await your summons,” she then dismissed us as she gave me a look.


One that told me to wait for her.


“I see you still don’t have a weapon,” she noted.


I winced but there was nothing to it except admit the truth: “I didn’t think I’d be going on the frontlines.”


She frowned at that.


Then she reached behind her and pulled out a simple “wooden” stick.


“I wouldn’t throw this one,” she drily said as she passed me the weapon, “But it's better than a rock.”


I stared at it for a moment, dumbfounded. It was one thing to do a favor knowing that you’ll be able to collect in the future. It’s quite another to…throw good money after bad. I knew that Soli was invested in me being alive, but this was runiously close to being charity.


“There is no need for this,” I said, that deep pit in my stomach making me feel as if I was about to betray someone else.


Again.


“Just take the fucking thing,” Soli growled, “Don’t make me repeat myself.”


“I’ll…try to bring it back to you,” I promised as I took the stick from her hands.


“Don’t-stop with this mushy rat shit,” she spat to her side, “There is nothing strange about this, got it?”


“Got it?” she forcibly insisted.


“I-yes, understood,” I said as I slipped the stick into my pack.


“Good,” she breathed out, “Go make sure you are ready then.”


“Yeah, yeah,” I somberly said as I went to get my pack.


Sylva returned at some point during the afternoon, and the way I found out was when Aunt Kan’a raised her arms to make herself seem visible from at the head of our line. She motioned to follow her.


All of us in her crew stepped out of the lines making their way towards our new home, and wordlessly started dispersing in all directions.


I seem to recall being put in the squad scouting directly ahead of the gang, but I couldn’t really tell you. It's been such a long time. That position was, in many ways, the most dangerous one in the screening force, so it wouldn’t surprise me if I really was in that one. But that could easily be a bit of bitterness coloring what, honestly, was a bad enough situation all on its own.


At the very least, I DO recall that Aunt Kan’a personally saw my group of four go. Now, while I don’t recall what her facial expression was, I do have an inkling, and it wouldn’t surprise me to find out, that she was satisfied.


In the end, anxiety aside, I was too busy studying my surroundings before we even left the main group.


I looked at the gang we left behind, and I looked at all the holes, crooks, and corners that we’d been informed were ahead of us as we went.


I sharpened my hearing, hoping to hear what I hoped to hear, even as my group joked among themselves. 


Before we were any position to be in danger, sweat started to come down my brow as I didn’t hear a peep.


Before any opportunistic underground fauna showed up, my fingers started twitching precisely becaise I didn’t see a speck.


Before the tunnels that might offer foreign gang girls that might want to try and hit our gang while it was in transit were before me, I stepped carefully. Hoping, hoping, that I’d feel that telltale vibration of someone else’s gait following after us.


After some traveling, and making my squad mates curious about my nervousness, all of a sudden, it all evaporated.


Just by chance, happenstance really, and only because I was looking specifically for it, I saw the tips of two pairs of ears following behind.