Chapter Text
When she was young, Ana did not concern herself much with tradition. Her heritage, she always had respect for, and her culture has always shaped her life—she has never attempted to deny that—but still, a younger Ana did not think of things like continuity. Her people’s traditions have existed for as long as anyone can remember, to think that they would die with her generation is laughable. And yet, all things do end, eventually. She doubts very much that the person who last had a loved one mummified knew that that one was to be the last. When things reach a certain age, it becomes easy to believe that they will always exist, for no one can remember what it was like before them, and then no one sees their end coming, because it is too unimaginable, even as it happens.
For Ana, Overwatch ending felt much that way. It was not her whole life, or even her adult life, but so encompassed her, at one point, so defined her being, that she thought that surely, she could not survive it.
(In some ways, she did not. In some ways, Overwatch outlived the woman Ana Amari was. For years, she was not Ana, because Ana was no one if not able to save others. She had to become the Shrike to continue existing. Yet now, both she and it have returned. Some things, once lost, can never be replaced but others, they leave enough of an impression on the collective consciousness that they never truly die, come back in another time in another form. Maybe Ana is not such a one, but Overwatch is, and as much as Jack, as much as Gabriel, as much as anyone, Ana built Overwatch. She may have been no one without it, but Overwatch would have been nothing without her.)
So as she returns, as she enjoys this new oasis in the desert of her life, her mind turns to tradition, to other things she once thought would not, could not die.
As a child, Ana always had respect for her heritage, for her identity, for what it meant to be a bedouin. In fact, she felt a great deal of pride, knowing what a legacy she was to have, and to carry. She pitied the hādir, the fixed lives that they had, their lack of ties to one another, to their families, their history. Her family lived a sedentary existence in the city, it was true, and not a traditional one, but their culture and values were still present, and every year, her father would help to organize festivals for all the bedouin in Cairo, regardless of tribe, so that they could share in their traditions with one another. Many things which her mother expected of Ana, as a woman, Ana did not take to, or spurned, but she learned to dance, properly, even if, at the time, raqs baladī held no appeal to her, and she learned, too, to embroider, learned what was traditional, for their clan, and for her family, and she practiced and practiced and practiced until she was able to do it right.
In the end, it was useful to her, the muscle control required for dance, and the patience needed for embroidery, and although that usefulness was not what her mother would have wanted, or intended, was for warfare, and not something her mother would have considered a woman’s work. Ana was grateful for the lessons nonetheless.
That knowledge was hers by birthright, and so she learned it, cherished it, and has carried it with her all these years.
Yet it is Fareeha’s by birthright, too, and she never taught these things to her daughter. The traditional stories, she told, and the bedouin sense of justice, honor, and dignity were easy to pass on to Fareeha, but leery of being too much like her own mother, when Fareeha said she did not wish to learn to dance, or to embroider, Ana said nothing. Her daughter did not need to do anything to be a good bedouin, or, indeed, a good woman.
That, Ana still believes. Whatever Fareeha likes, whatever she does, she is no less woman for it—as long as she wants to be a woman, she is one, and a good one. There is no right kind of woman, and Fareeha is not wrong for not wanting to learn those things.
(Just as Ana was not wrong to become a soldier, no matter what her mother might have thought. Some part of her still cannot shake that criticism, even now, and she feels she has to assert that she is a woman, to others, so that they remember. She is a soldier just like them, it is true, but she does not want to be thought of as being ‘as good as a man would be,’ in her role, because that very statement implies that to be a man is the default in her profession. Even were that true, it should not be. This form of womanhood is just as good as any other, and does not mean that she cannot be feminine, if she wants to be, cannot be beautiful, cannot be nurturing and kind and vulnerable.)
So, although she did discourage her daughter from joining the military, as she herself had been, Ana otherwise never pushed Fareeha to do any one thing, to be any one thing, not wanting her daughter to feel as if she were somehow at fault for not being interested in those activities. If Fareeha did not want to learn certain traditions, that was fine with Ana.
But now, more than twenty years after Ana first tried to teach Fareeha to embroider, she wonders if she made a mistake, in not pushing Fareeha to learn the art. If she were to actually die, what concrete ties would Fareeha have to their culture remaining? Ana has rarely given her anything that she herself embroidered, knowing that Fareeha does not like that sort of thing, always complained, when visiting Ana’s mother, that she worried that she would wear out the threads on the couch just by sitting on it, and was downright afraid of ruining the thobe she was gifted on her thirteenth birthday, to the point that she never wore it.
Having died, and being again alive, and with her relationship with her daughter beginning to mend, too, Ana finds herself thinking more and more of what will be left of her for Fareeha when she is gone. Yes, Fareeha has her sense of justice, and yes, Fareeha’s career followed in the footsteps of Ana’s own, but Ana betrayed here own morality years ago, with all the killing she was asked to do, and she is not proud of the legacy she has left for her daughter, not proud that Fareeha, like her, became a soldier. Ana killed so that Fareeha would not later have to.
What good thing can she give her daughter? What part of Ana remains unsoiled by war?
Very little, save for the things she learned as a young girl, when what she wanted was only to better the world, before her elder brother died, and she felt it was a sign that she was to be the one to carry on her father’s legacy as a soldier. One of those things, dancing, Ana does not think needs to be passed on. For better or for worse, their traditional dance has been taken up by people around the world, and it has changed, yes, but in some ways, it will live on. Far less likely to continue, however, is bedouin embroidery—that cannot easily be adopted, adapted by outsiders, is far more likely to disappear in coming generations, if they are not careful to preserve it.
Once, Ana thought that her part in the bedouin legacy was to learn the old traditions, to live by their code, and to embrace her identity, and now, having seen how quickly things can disappear, after those who loved them most die, as Overwatch did, Ana is realizing that the most important part of her legacy is not be a bedouin, but to teach her daughter to be one, too. Ana is not continuing the legacy if she does not also contribute to its preservation.
So she has to teach Fareeha, or at least has to try. Although if Fareeha refuses to learn, Ana will relent, she thinks that now, as an adult, her daughter might be more amenable to needlework than she was as a child, and is a good deal more patient besides.
(And, Ana thinks, it could be good for the two of them, too, good for Fareeha to see that there are parts of her mother worth emulating that have naught to do with war, and good for Ana to be able to be seen that way, to feel that her daughter knows the whole of her, and not just the worst. It is an olive branch, of a sort, is something that might, at the very least, bridge a gap in their understanding of one another.)
Since she was young, Fareeha has always been an early riser, and although it was inconvenient to Ana, when Fareeha was a child, made it harder for her to be prepared for the morning before Fareeha awoke, it is a good thing, now, makes it easy for her to seek out Fareeha and speak to her without the worry of anyone else interrupting them. That is important, given that their relationship at present is still somewhat rocky, and she knows that a confrontation in front of the others would set them back a good deal, would make Fareeha feel as if her authority was in question, or she were being treated as a child. Disagreeing in private is not exactly good for them, either, but to disagree in public is surely worse—and even if they did get along perfectly well, it is difficult to be as honest as they would like to be in front of other people. Vulnerability comes easily to neither of them, and is harder still with an audience.
For many reasons, therefore, it pleases Ana when she is able to find Fareeha, one dewy morning before her daughter goes on a run; despite all that has changed between them, Ana still knows her daughter, still understands her better than most anyone else.
And, unlike most everyone else, Fareeha is uniquely able to sense when it is that Ana is approaching, is half turned to face her already before Ana has even opened her mouth. “Mum?” asks she, clearly confused by the interruption in her normal routine, “What are you doing out here?”
It is obvious that, unlike Fareeha, Ana is not prepared to run, given that she has a cup of tea with her, and is wearing sweatpants, a cardigan, and house slippers, and decidedly not wearing a sport hijab.
(Although it is rare to run into anyone besides her daughter, this early in the morning, Ana still covers herself when she leaves her quarters, more out of habit than anything else. The scarf she grabbed this morning, while very soft, and nicely patterned, is decidedly not suitable for running in.)
“I wanted to speak with you,” says she, and adds, “Privately,” although that is likely obvious, given the time and location of this meeting.
Immediately Fareeha’s posture changes. She was relaxed, before, had been stretching before her run, and now she is tense, guarded. Ana hates that she makes her daughter feel this way, hates that conflict has become for Fareeha a foregone conclusion when the two of them speak.
“What about?” Fareeha asks her, with a forced sort of calmness. She is not curious, but rather steeling herself.
Ana decides to cut to the chase, and to explain her reasoning afterwards—this way, Fareeha will be able to relax. Hopefully.
“I want to teach you to embroider,” says she, watching as her daughter’s face changes from carefully blank to confused. Always, Fareeha has been so wonderfully expressive.
“What?”
“It’s something that’s important to me,” she explains, starting with this personal appeal, because she thinks Fareeha will more likely be swayed by how important bedouin identity is to Ana than she will be by an appeal to preserve a culture she has only ever felt an outsider to, as a mixed race person in society that frowns upon such. “It’s a part of our history that I want to last after I’m gone.”
What Ana means, in saying that, is that it is something that predates when the land their people lived on was claimed, when they were forced, increasingly, to settle in cities in order to survive, harkens back to a time when they were free to exist as they wished—and, as a result, were able to develop an artform that told their story, as they saw themselves. But Ana has never been good at saying what she means, and what Fareeha hears is something far more alarming, as she shifts from confusion to concern.
“Is something wrong, Mum?” asks she, putting a hand atop Ana’s shoulder, grip firm but not painful, and looking down at her face intently, as if studying for a sign, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Ana is quick to reassure Fareeha, and to interrupt before she asks any further questions. She brings one of her own hands to rest on the one Fareeha has gripped her shoulder with, and wonders, as she often has, when so much time got away from her, that her daughter is taller than she, now, that those hands, once so tiny, are larger than her own. “There isn’t anything wrong, I promise.”
What she means when she says this is, I won’t leave you again, not ever, not while I still breathe, and Fareeha seems to get the message, relaxing considerably at those words, although Ana knows her well enough, still, that she can see that Fareeha has not fully let go of the suspicion, the worry. There is trust, there, that Ana has yet to earn back.
(Sometimes, she worries that she never will, that there is nothing she can do that can undo what was done to Fareeha when she ‘died,’ and even if she did not intend, then, to mislead Fareeha, even if she had, for a time, no knowledge of whom she was, that does not undo the pain that Fareeha felt. But where they are now is already a place to which Ana feared they would never return, in all those years after her unanswered letter to Fareeha, and so she should not be so quick to dismiss the power of her daughter to forgive, and to love.)
“You’re certain?” Fareeha asks her, needing just a bit more reassurance.
“I’m certain,” Ana promises, and it is nice, to be able to mother her daughter again, in this way, to once again be the one to assuage her fears, even if it is simultaneously painful to know that she is the cause of that same worry.
“Okay,” says Fareeha, and nothing more.
There is a pause, then, when neither one of them knows how to move forwards, how to get back to where they were—an ordinary conversation—before their past intruded into the present, and Ana knows she could wait, and Fareeha would find a way to fill the silence, having always hated the tension in such lapses in conversation, but she knows, too, that there is something that she wants to say, and she cannot always leave the hard work to Fareeha of shoving the past back into its place. Both of them bear some responsibility for where they are now.
“Being back here…” Ana starts, and stops. After a lifetime of wanting to shield her daughter from pain, she has trouble being open with her feelings, for fear of burdening Fareeha with her troubles. Already, her daughter’s life has been made hard enough. But she wants Fareeha to feel to feel that she can be trusted, again, and part of that involves honesty, and she wants, too, to be closer to her daughter, and that will inevitably mean that she has to give of herself. If only Fareeha is ever made to be vulnerable, their relationship will never reach a healthy equilibrium.
(Although as mother and daughter they will never be equals, necessarily having a relationship which requires that they give different things of themselves than they take from the other, Ana can recognize that a lack of openness, on her own part, will push her daughter away. She does not believe that parents owe their children a look into their inner worlds, that they owe them friendship, or a sense of who they truly are, as people, but she knows that what Fareeha wants from her, right now, is not mothering, is proving, as a stranger would, that she can be trustworthy, and so, although Ana does not believe it is normal or necessary for all parents to share much of themselves with their children, she will do it for her daughter, because that is what Fareeha needs. One day, perhaps, things will return to as they were, when Fareeha was younger, but for now, they are reaching for a different sort of equilibrium, and maybe the parent-child relationship Ana envisioned was never meant to be. If it means having Fareeha in her life, then Ana is willing to let go of that notion.)
Doing her best to gather herself, Ana takes a deep breath, and continues, “Readjusting to this hasn’t been easy for me,” she does not know what this quite means, being alive, being here, or being a mother, but all of those things are true. “I’ve had to confront my legacy—all of it—and I don’t know that I’m happy with it.”
The best part of Ana’s legacy is, and always has been, her daughter. That will continue to be so, no matter the outcome of this conversation, but she would like her daughter to carry with her one of the better parts of her own identity.
“And you think me learning to embroider will help?” It is a genuine question, and Ana is not so defensive around her daughter anymore that she assumes otherwise.
“Not necessarily,” a good deed does not undo a bad one, after all, and although she has always thought it necessary, Ana has always regretted that she has killed. “But it’s a part of our heritage that I want you to experience.” She wants Fareeha to know that yes, she has used her hands to kill, but she can still make something that is beautiful, and Fareeha, too, can and will do the same. “I don’t want war to be all that you learned from me.”
“It isn’t,” Fareeha says. “Do you really think that, that that’s all I got from you?”
“I’m sure you learned other things,” even if she is certain, too, that they were not so significant, and her tone communicates that.
“Mum,” Fareeha is capable of such great earnestness, and it is something Ana has always admired in her daughter, the ability to be so truthful. It requires strength to be so open, and a fundamental confidence in oneself—and Ana has long had too much of the former, and not enough of the latter. “You didn’t just teach me—I know so much more than just how to fight. You taught me to protect people, true, but you also taught me that being strong didn’t mean I couldn’t also be gentle, and kind. And you made sure that I knew that who I was—no matter what anyone else thought of me—was good enough. When I—are you crying?”
“No,” says Ana, denying that sort of display of emotion entirely on instinct. And she is not crying, quite, but her good eye is decidedly watery, and there is no denying that when she sniffs, and says, “Maybe a little.”
“You know I love you,” Fareeha says, “I never stopped loving you. Even at the worst of it.”
“I know,” Ana says, and she is surprised to find that in the moment, it feels true. Her daughter has always loved her, just as she has always loved Fareeha, “You got the best parts of your father and I.”
“He never stopped loving you, either.”
That, too, Ana knows, just as she knows, too, that although the woman she was when they married—the woman who spent the week before her wedding putting the finishing touches of red embroidery on a brand new thobe, giddy at the thought of wearing it, of folding over her usaba on her forehead and announcing to everyone that she was married, and happily so—is long gone, some part of the Ana that remains loves him too.
(She embroidered her wedding dress, too, but on the inside, such that when Sam helped her to remove it, he would see not only the henna that covered her body but also the message she had made just for his eyes: I love you, carefully stitched in Tlingit, iýsiýán. It was not a perfect marriage of their cultures, but she never could promise him that—perfection. All she could promise him, even then, was that she would try to find a place for them to fit in each other’s worlds. For a time, she was able to do that.)
“Yes,” Ana says, because she is not going to argue the point, but neither is she going to discuss her own feelings. Some part of Fareeha has always hoped to fix things between her parents, but Ana loves Sam too much to hurt him again. “He does. And one day, when you have someone who loves you that much, you’re going to need to know how to embroider.”
Ana half expects Fareeha to argue that she has already found that person, but that is not the first objection that comes to mind, “Why?”
“You’re not gong to want a new thobe?” Fareeha likes blue, Ana knows, but the three blue garments Ana embroidered for her, all those years ago, are the clothes of a single woman. Fareeha almost never wears them, it is true, but she may want to indicate, in some way, that she is married—after all, Fareeha is never shy about showing her love.
“You can’t make me one?” Fareeha asks, before qualifying, “I know it takes a long time but—as a wedding present?”
“I won’t be here forever, Fareeha,” as much as she would like to promise that she will be here for her daughter always, and that she can give her anything, that is not true. All things end—and one day, Ana herself will fall victim to that fate.
“I know,” Fareeha says, pain evident in her voice. She does know, all too well, that Ana will someday leave her. “But I’d like to think that—I’d prefer you didn’t die anytime soon.”
Certainly, Ana is not going to disagree with that, “I don’t plan on it,” she promises, “I just want you to learn this so that if anything does happen, you’ll still have something from me.” Something better than what Ana has been able to give her thus far.
“Alright,” Fareeha relents, “I’ll try to learn. No promises about the results, though.”
“Good,” Ana says, “We’ll start with red thread.” This way, even if something does go wrong, and she does not have time to finish teaching Fareeha, or if Fareeha is truly unsuited to the task, she will still have a thobe her mother made for her.
“Red?”
“You don’t have to wear it anytime soon,” she reassures Fareeha, “But this way, when you do get married, you won’t have to worry about it. Planning a wedding is stressful enough as it is.”
“And if I never get married?” Fareeha does seem pleased with her current arrangement, as it is, and if she never marries—well, Ana would rather her daughter be happy than married. She is loved, and that is what matters.
“If you never marry, then you’ll still have something I made for you—and the ability to decorate your own thobe in the future.”
One day, the blue threads Ana so carefully embroidered for Fareeha will wear thin. One day, all that work will be gone. What will remain is this: the knowledge that they care for one another, that they worked to repair what once was broken, that they dreamed, together, of a better happier future, and learned to make something new.