Airport, Central, Shuell
16th December 2019
Councillor Letitia Greenwood had been gone long enough. She had meant to spend no longer than two weeks in Shuell, yet after the news of her mother’s flight, she had avoided returning home to face the consequences for her family. She and her daughter Carolyn had remained, watching sports and pretending everything was going to be okay. Yet the more time passed, the more she realised it would not. Her sister Juliette had needed to represent her at an emergency Full Council session, the topic of which had been deemed “too dangerous” to tell her over the phone. It was time to go home.
“What are we going to do about grandmother?” asked Carolyn as they waited for their airplane to be prepared. The remainder of the Kerlian delegation were staying in Shuell for the time being, so the jet would merely be returning the two Greenwoods.
“I do not know,” replied Letitia, irritably. “There is little we can do. I cannot speak with her; the call would be far too monitored for my tastes and anything we say could be used against us. Arnott wishes revenge on your grandmother for what happened to her and Robinson in June. Short of overthrowing her, I see no solution.”
“Reena says…” began Carolyn.
“Do not speak to me of her,” Letitia snapped. “She is a liar who cares only for upsetting her grandmother. She went on a game show in Xiomera! She has no decorum, she cares not for responsibility, and she is so far down her family line of succession that she will be able to marry a male should she choose. I do not want you being friends with her.”
“But…”
“I said no, Carolyn!” she shouted, drawing some looks from nearby airport personnel. She sighed and crossed her arms, staring out the window at the runway. Her daughter sighed and sat down on a seat, looking miserable.
“Ma’am?” one of Letitia’s security guards walked up, holding a mobile phone. “There is another call for you.”
“Is it my mother?” asked the Councillor.
“Yes, Councillor,” the guard said, looking resigned, already knowing what was about to happen. Letitia plucked the phone from her fingers, and hung up the call, then wordlessly handed the device back to her guard, who stifled a sigh and joined her two colleagues near the door to the room they waited.
“Mum?” asked Carolyn after a short pause. “What do you think that meeting Aunt Juliette attended was about?”
“I have no idea,” sighed Letitia, sitting down beside her daughter and sighing. “I expect we shall find out once we are back on Kerlian soil. Although, I do have my suspicions.”
“You mean the Au…”
“Yes, that,” Letitia interrupted quickly, before her daughter could say the word.
“Yeah, that I would understand. Will you still let me join the military next year if we are at war?” asked Carolyn.
“We are not going to war,” Letitia said firmly.
“But if there is a war, then…”
“We are not going to war!”
Carolyn fell silent, twirling the end of her scarf in her fingers as she thought. Despite her mother’s insistence, the 17-year-old was not certain that her country wouldn’t end up in a war it didn’t want to fight. She had heard, as they all had, about a leak of material relating to the Aurora Programme. She herself had no idea if the Programme was real or not, but judging by the reaction of her mother and the other Councillors to the previous two leaks, she figured it likely was.
She knew that people hated Kerlile. She had seen it. They viewed Kerlians with suspicion, people thought of them as an oddity at best, and a dangerous threat at worst. Her country would never be safe in such a hostile world. She would never be safe, as long as she lived. She would die if her family was removed from power, she knew, and yet the Council were so widely hated that as long as they were in charge, people would be out to get the Kerlians. Carolyn was cursed.
Absentmindedly, she pulled out her phone and brought up the Kerlian government’s messaging app. She typed out a message to Liling, a great-niece of Councillor Chiu who was in Carolyn’s class in school in Maytown, and was a friend. She received no immediate response, so she went back to staring out and watching the planes.
Eventually, their airplane was ready, and they boarded with their security. It was a private flight, with plenty of room, and the guards sat back away from the mother and daughter. The take-off was uneventful, with Carolyn staring out the window and Letitia lying back and thinking about how thankful she was that 5-year-old Jia was not on this flight, and would thus be unable to vomit in her presence.
“Councillor Chiu is right,” Carolyn said suddenly once they were in the air.
“Carolyn, I understand why you would feel like that given what has happened recently,” began her mother. “But the paranoia of the Chiu is no way to live a life.”
“They hate us,” the teenager whispered. Letitia reached out to take her daughter’s arms, and turned towards her.
“People who try to change things are often hated. Living in Kerlile, you cannot fully grasp the extent of the changes we promote. I am known as a traditionalist on the Council for opposing the reform efforts of Arnott and the others, and so one living in Kerlile might be tempted to say I oppose change. That is not true. The very existence of Kerlile is predicated upon change.”
“In what way?” frowned Carolyn.
“We are trying to change the attitudes around the world to women. At the time of Kerlian foundation, there were few countries who granted women the same rights as men. In some democracies, only men could vote. In some countries, only men could hold property and their wives were treated like it too. You know there are still places where these things happen out there. But back then, it was so widespread.”
“I know all this from history class, what relevance does it have in this context?”
“When we set out to build a women’s utopia, we changed that in our territory, what was once North Fleura and became Kerlile. Everyone agrees that we changed attitudes towards gender in that area. However, look at the course of history in the rest of the world – since 1924, women’s rights have come a long way. Would that have happened without Kerlile? Possibly, even probably. But I like to think we accelerated the course. Shifted the average, encouraged women to fight for rights, put pressure on other governments even as they didn’t realise we were doing so. That there are more countries in the world today where women can be free than there would be otherwise.”
“But only in Kerlile are women truly free.”
“Oh, my daughter. You are a truly loyal Kerlian. I will let you in on a secret, though: that is just what we say. There are other countries where women have freedom nowadays: Xiomera, Laeral, even our old enemy Lauchenoiria. Yes, there will be more instances of sexism, of violence against women, of marital abuse in those countries than Kerlile. But you cannot argue that a Kerlian has more freedom than a Lauchenoirian, without sounding either silly or as if you are writing propaganda.”
“I…” Carolyn looked around, eyes wide, looking to see if any of the guards had overheard. They were out of earshot, and had no idea what was being discussed, much to the teenager’s relief.
“My daughter, the Kerlian project has been a resounding success. The world is not yet perfect, but we are making progress the world over and our existence encourages other countries to make sure women have rights. It is far easier to give someone rights than take them away; short of a state like Monagon conquering the world, women will have rights in many countries from this point on. If we were to fall tomorrow, our mission would carry on without us, though it is not complete. I do not fear such a possibility because of the impact on women all over, but because of the impact it would have on us, the Council and our family.”
“Why are you telling me this? And why now? What if the plane is bugged?”
“Because, Carolyn, you need to know the truth if you are going to one day take my place. And besides, the Shuellians – and everyone else – already know all this. They know we do not believe every word we say. The things we say in our media are for our citizens, not for them. I will be blunt, my daughter. Our fight, these days, is not for liberation, but for power. Your grandmother lost, that is why she went into exile. If we want to remain in our position, we must succeed. That is the truth of the matter.”
“But… you’re saying it doesn’t matter, then. If we all die.”
“Of course it matters!” Letitia said, shaking her head. “All I mean is that the future of womankind does not rest squarely on our shoulders. You needn’t be as frightened as you seem of the future, they cannot stop what we have already started. Not completely, anyhow.”
“Then why do you oppose reform? If our mission is already mostly over, if the world is already on the right path, then what risk does reform have to us?”
“Councillor Hale. She is the risk. She supports democracy – and we cannot have democracy and remain in power. Reform will lead there, little by little. Even if Arnott thinks she can control it, she cannot. It will spiral out of her control, and the country will in turn spiral out of ours.”
“Okay, I do not agree with your fundamental beliefs here, but for the time being let’s operate on the assumption that remaining in our position is the most important thing. Well, what is it about power that makes it so important, if you do not want to change things?”
“Security,” answered her mother. “Without power, we do not have security, the protection from threats to our family. We lose access to one source of income, although I will admit we do have others. We lose access to protection from prosecution for political crimes, too.”
“If Kerlile was a democracy, there would not be political crimes,” countered Carolyn. “And if we are so hated as Councillors, it strikes me that there would be a lot less threats, should we no longer be in our position. And as you said, we have other sources of income, which we would be able to focus on and grow without worrying about politics.”
“Where did you learn to debate so well, my daughter?” Letitia asked, amused.
“School. Now, of course, that is operating on the assumption I share your beliefs about our position being of the utmost importance over policy.”
“You do not?”
“No, I still believe in the Kerlian mission. I still believe that until the day when women the world over are free from oppression, we have work that needs to be done. That we cannot rest, cannot stop, until that day. As long as a single woman is beaten by her husband, controlled, abused, looked down on because of her gender, that the Matriarchy is necessary. I do not hold this belief because of the propaganda, but because of what I have seen. Yes, there are nations where women have full legal rights. But they are still looked down upon because of the clothes they wear, viewed as sex objects in many of these countries. No, our work is not complete.”
“You make a compelling case, Carolyn,” Letitia said thoughtfully, lying back. “I shall have to think on it more.”
“At the moment, we are not helping, I agree. It looks like Kerlile is doing nothing to advance the women’s cause worldwide because we aren’t. The moves we have made have all been about power, territory, not about women’s liberation. The Aur… Pierre’s orphans being sent out into the world will not do a thing. No, we need a whole new strategy. And when we get home, I am going to write one out and give it to you. A strategy that is not about gaining power for Kerlile, but about gaining liberation for women. One that will not involve covert operations, or angering foreign governments, but that will empower the very people we claim to want to empower.”
“… just who have you been speaking to, Carolyn? This is not like you. You have always been far more interested in military matters than politics.”
“When I was younger, I believed that joining the military was the best way to serve my country and its mission. I still believe in serving my country and its mission… but I’m starting to realise that there are better ways to do that. Yes, there have been a group of us Daughters, who have been discussing these things together.”
“I am intrigued to know who is part of this group,” said Letitia.
“You will find out soon enough. And we will present our plan. A radical restructuring of Kerlian society which should appeal to all three factions on the Council – traditionalist, reformist and religious.”
“You already knew everything I said about history, didn’t you?” Letitia realised, looking at her daughter, who nodded.
“I wanted to see what you would say,” replied Carolyn. “I am glad you were honest with me.”
“You’re starting a fourth faction, you know,” warned her mother.
“I like to think we will unify the three existing ones. Anyway, we have a long flight, and I am tired. I think I shall try to sleep. Goodnight, mother.”
LIDUN President 2024 | she/her | Puppets: Kerlile, Glanainn, Yesteria, Zongongia, Zargothrax
