Certainly they wouldn’t have dared to say such a thing in the hearing of the kin of Naime the Just, no matter she’d been in her grave for most of Naime’s life. Over a century and a half old, and half cyborg at least by the time Naime first met her, she’d lost an arm and part of her face in a bombing attack in the waning days of the clan-feuds; in the family portrait where three-year-old Naime rested in the lap of her namesake, the prosthetics showed plainly.

Naime the Just saw no reason to dissemble her wounds; the walking-stick Naime used on bad days was inherited from her: tall, with an adjustable high-friction hand-grip for walking, and several others should she decide to convert the staff to a weapon. Stout work, in carbon-composite and metal fittings, with a skid-proof tip that worked equally well on pavements, earthen tracks, and high rocks.

Her enemies weren’t like those of her namesake; they wouldn’t come on her with bombs or projectile-weapons, not at this stage of the game. Not yet. More they’d press for an escape clause for the use of Ships against Outlanders, or narrowing the choice of crew to certain clan-lines. Slava, for example, who hailed from the True Ocean ship-colonies, was considered an Outlander by those who wanted to narrow the compass of the clan-system to the Continent west of the Inland Sea.

***

In which Naime the Shipwright compares her political situation to that of her namesake. From Camp NaNoWriMo project Shipwright, Captain, Figurehead, short stories in the Ship’s Heart universe.

Weekend Writing Warriors offers a selection of eight-sentence excerpts from many different writers. For the full selection, see here.