Kes and Tresit got ready to go, making what few preparations they needed to, and then said their goodbyes to Anara and Lanam.

As they walked, Kes was silent and caught up in her own thoughts, and Tresit somehow sensed that she didn’t want to talk.

Kes had to think what a wonder it was, and what a gift… that someone like Anara, who had suffered so much in her life, had given her such faith and opened her heart to her the way she was doing.

The other part… The part about… claiming her… In essence, what Anara had done was to ask her to be her wife.

Unfortunately, Kes knew, it wasn’t as simple as that. She knew from what she’d gathered from Anara’s mind what that meant… what the word ’claim’ meant. It was how Kazon were married. A man would seek out a woman and gain assent from her family (assuming she had one). If a male from the woman’s family didn’t challenge and defeat him in a fight, he would give her a token (usually a family heirloom) for her to wear on her body. Then, if no other man challenged his declaration of intent towards her and defeated him in a fight in two days time, the man could claim the woman (or bed her, in other words) and they were married. A woman… To one extent or another, I was seen as a sign of weakness if he took a man took a wife who wasn’t willing… but it also wasn’t seen as a crime if he did… And, because of the Kazon’s taboos about men or women being unmarried past a certain age, there was a lot at stake for a woman if she said no too many times…

Marriage among the Kazon, it didn’t mean the same thing as it did for her people. In Kazon society, a woman was, in large part, considered like property – subservient to their husband’s will and desires. That’s what Anara had offered her… ownership of her. Hopefully, what Anara had meant wasn’t as bad as some of the worst of the ways it could be taken… Kes really didn’t think Anara had meant it that way. But still, she knew Anara had been raised as a kazon and thought of things in those terms, and that’s why Kes had felt she had to offer to let her claim her in return, to let Anara know that she didn’t want to own her, that she wanted to be her wife – with the meaning that would have in Ocampa society, not in Kazon society.