Bannerless (The Bannerless Saga 1)

She didn’t think she could smile any wider. And those eyes. “Yeah, sure, I just have to drop this off at home. I’m Enid, by the way.”

“I’m Dak. Nice to meet you.”

Later she decided she’d fallen in love with him on the first note she heard him sing. Seeing him only confirmed it, and holding hands with him was inevitable. Perfect, even. They spent that whole day together. He played some more, and she listened to every song. That night, at the close of the market, townsfolk gathered to build a fire pit and roast some kebabs over it. She and Dak sat side by side through it all, and when he leaned in close, nuzzled the hairline behind her ear, and whispered if she’d like to take another walk with him, she grabbed his hand and led him off to the orchard over the hill. They found a sunken dip between roots that was both dry and out of sight, pulled each other down, rolled in the grass, one ending up on top, then the other. She’d felt such a

desperate craving for him, she didn’t know where to start: take his tunic off or hers, knot her fingers in his long luscious hair or grab tight to his back. They were body to body, legs locked together, and she still wasn’t close enough to him.

Auntie Kath talked about the early days during the Fall, when sex was the most reliable form of recreation and pleasure they had. And how that warred with the terror so many of them felt about having children. They could barely take care of themselves in this new world with no electricity or running water or reliable medicine or reliable anything. The early epidemics wiped out a measurable percentage of the population, and after that the ancient diseases came back—cholera and dysentery and everything—and confidence in the world vanished. But they really liked sex.

Enid hadn’t understood until now. Until right this moment, when it all became clear. If you lost everything else but could still have sex, things wouldn’t seem so bad, would they?

Hormones, she’d been taught. The flush of hormones was soaking her system and making her crazy. But right here, in the middle of it, the heat was real, and Dak filled the sky.

“You’re so pretty,” she breathed, pressing her hands to his cheeks, sliding them down to his chest. She couldn’t feel him enough.

He laughed, kissed her again and again, everywhere, all over her body. He found nerves in places she hadn’t known she had them. Her own body turned new and weird and messy and breathtaking.

For a long time after, they lay still and exhausted, her clinging to him and him lying flat, looking up at the sky filtered through branches filled with new apples. The sky grew chilled, and the goose flesh rising on her arms made her snuggle closer to his warmth. Dak hummed a song, the melody vague so that she couldn’t follow it.

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Enid would always remember exactly when she got her first implant: it was after her first bad storm. Still the worst storm, according to her own memory. The next morning, after returning to Haven and staying up most of the night fetching water and blankets and seeing the refugees settled, she’d felt an aching, bruise-like pain deep in her gut and for a moment wondered if she’d been injured somehow, if the stress of the storm had hurt her. Then she went to use the latrine and saw blood spotting her underpants when she pulled down her britches. She wondered if stress could cause internal bleeding, flashed yet again on the memory of that body and its ashen, gaping wound, and panicked, wondering if she was dying. Of course, she wasn’t hurt and wasn’t dying, and if she’d been thinking straight and not sleep-deprived and traumatized, she’d have known exactly what was happening: she had started menstruating.

Peri shared her cloths for the blood and came with her to the clinic the next day for her implant. Enid felt small, fragile, and defiant. The clinic was still crowded, a few of the worst-injured cases still occupying beds where medics could keep a close watch on them, and other survivors sheltered in safety until they could make plans. Enid felt odd, being here for such an ordinary reason when there were folk here who’d almost died. Everyone must have been staring at her; they must have known why she was here. Everything was different now. She hated that it ought to be so. To so randomly be declared an adult. Not really, of course—she still had to go to classes and help with the same set of kids’ chores. But this was a sign that time was pressing on her, and an unknown future was opening up.

“You’re very quiet,” Peri said. Enid didn’t answer, because she didn’t know what she was supposed to say.

“It’s just routine,” her mother said. “Nothing to be scared of.”

“Not scared. Sad.” Her eyes started pricking, tears burgeoning, and her anger that she was about to start crying made her want to cry even more.

Peri squeezed her shoulder. “You’ll wake up tomorrow and everything’ll be just the same, you’ll see.”

Even with the storm, even with all the injuries, the medic on duty, Alvin, seemed to know exactly why they were here, with Peri’s hand resting on Enid’s shoulder.

“Implant time?” he asked.

“I’ll do the honors if there’s space in the back exam room,” Peri answered.

“We’ll make space.”

They ushered out a woman and child with a bandage on his head—not the ones from Potter, Enid thought. They didn’t look twice at her. But then, they had bigger worries. Enid decided that nobody was staring at her; it just felt like it.

Enid sat on a chair while Peri went to the pharmacy in back and returned with a jar. Using tweezers, she pulled out the sterilized implant, just a little capsule an inch or so long, thin as a toothpick.

This was one of the bits of technology they’d worked hard to save after the Fall. Because if you could manage birthrate, you could manage anything, and they had the statistics to prove it. Before the pre-Fall supplies ran out, medics figured out how to derive the hormone from what they had on hand, how to develop the little cellulose, slow-delivery packets. Didn’t look like much, really. Not a big deal at all.

“Ready, kiddo?”

Her mother hadn’t called her “kiddo” since she was eight. Ironic that she did so now, when Enid was supposed to be growing up. Peri had done this dozens of times, but Enid still sort of wished one of the other medics was on hand. Then maybe she’d feel a little less like a child.

First came a swipe with a numbing agent that made the skin of her upper arm tingle. Then a swipe with alcohol. Then a tool that looked like an awl, at which point Enid decided not to look anymore. After a pinch and a weird sliding sensation under the skin, it was over. Peri held gauze over the spot, so Enid couldn’t see exactly what it looked like. Time enough for that later, she supposed.

While Peri was cleaning up, putting tools in the pot by the stove to be boiled later, Enid asked, “Why do only girls get implants?”

Peri turned. “Oh sweetie, that’s a good question. It’s a holdover from the old days. Women carry babies so it’s up to them to manage it. Except when it isn’t.” She shrugged away a lot of explanation there. Complications, Enid thought.

Then her mother came over and put her hands on Enid’s shoulders. “I have to give you the speech, now. Ready?”