”Fine, I don’t know it won’t.” Tresit admitted. He usually did let Lanam have her way for things like this, Kes had noticed. As long as there wasn’t a good reason not to, anyway.

Kes had to smile. Lanam really could be clever sometimes, and she was flattered that she would want her and Anara to stay together, even if her father came back. It made her feel so good to know that she’d accepted her as her parent so much already. It could have easily gone the other way and Lanam could have wished her to be with her uncle Ralka instead. She sighed and looked over at Tresit, smiling as Lanam tackled him and they wrestled in bed a little (not seriously at all of course).

Her and her wife’s eyes met then, and Anara smiled shyly to her, getting up from their children’s cot and walking over to her. She knew Anara could only see her as an indistinct shape, but, even so, Anara had been able to tell that she was awake and looking at her. Kes realized it was because their mental bond was still there, just a little. It had been, even while she’d been sleeping. She remembered it, just vaguely, that Anara had been there with her even when she’d been sleeping.

As Anara knelt down by the cot beside her, Kes strengthened their bond a little more, and mentally spoke to her. –Good morning, inraya… I love you.– Kes told her, reaching out to touch her face in a soft caress. ’Inraya’ was the Kazon word that meant approximately ’one whom I honor above all, to whom I will always belong’. It was a term of endearment that a wife would traditionally use towards her husband, who would, if he were so inclined, reply by addressing her as ’omraya’, which meant approximately ’one who belongs only to me, to whom I will always give my protection’. Kes supposed she could use ’omraya’ herself, but that just didn’t feel right to her. She knew she would protect Anara with all that she had in her if needed, but she didn’t like that using the other word would imply some kind of superiority on her part, even ownership, because she’d seen for herself what a typical Kazon male probably thought of as ’belongs to’ and she in no way wanted to imply to her wife that she had any feelings remotely like that towards her. Using ’inraya’, to Kes, was a symbol that they would always belong to one another, equally, and that was what she wanted their relationship to always be.