Chapter Text
It’s a bad day to be Pyrrha. Which feels selfish because Aunt Louanne is dead. Louanne Dve was a bad stereotype, the epitome of the Second House crazy cat lady memaw, but damn it she was their crazy cat lady. 89 is good innings, Pyrrha thinks, too bad about the details. Louanne was kind of a difficult woman. Pessimistic? Aggressive? Pyrrha knew she was lonely. They all did. She just processed it badly. They all tried to check on Aunt Louanne from time to time but even though she was almost ninety, she was still sharp as a tack, which gave them something of a false confidence. Besides, Pyrrha and her cousins are all busy people now. Moira just had a baby girl with her hubby and Samel has been on deployment. All this to say, Aunt Louanne was dead so long before they found out that her cats…. Well, Louanne would’ve wanted to go that way anyhow, it just meant it had to be a closed casket funeral.
The problem is how everyone is looking at Pyrrha as she drifts around the wake. She’s got a nice cold glass of scotch. Aunt Sue made chocolate chip cookies. Pyrrha keeps trying not to show she knows everyone is staring at her.
Pyrrha finds Moira struggling with the baby and offers to hold Judith. Judy is a cute kid already, but she takes after her papa with a very serious little face. Pyrrha hopes she grows into her pronounced forehead. “How’s Dueteros?” Pyrrha asks, bouncing the baby.
“Good, good, he’s here somewhere.” Moira says. “He thinks we should adopt one of the cats.”
“Well, they gotta go somewhere,” Pyrrha says, holding back a joke about how they might’ve developed a taste for long-pig. She’s trying to be tactful.
“Haven’t had a big funeral since–”
“Yeah, Dad.” Pyrrha sighs. “One every ten years is pretty good, eh? How’s your Mom?”
“I’m worried she’s got dementia?”
“Oh shit.” Pyrrha says. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Moira shrugs, tucking her cardigan around herself. “How you are you? I know you retired from the airforce.”
“Three years now,” Pyrrha says, “still in engineering though.” Most Second House families are in the military. Trentham is more a naval base than a city.
“Still single?” Moira asks, smiling. The smile is puckered and pained at the corners.
“Yep.” Pyrrha says, trying to hold her own smile. Look, she gets it, she’s thirty-three. The eldest of the cousins and the last of them to settle down and start a family. She doesn’t want to be single. She didn’t plan it that way. It’s not like she’s procrastinating, guys. She just can’t make a woman fall out of the sky. If she could– Well, it’d be a great day.
“It doesn’t matter,” Moira assures them both, “so long as you’re happy.” She says, trying to be encouraging, but making it clear she expects Pyrrha’s already given up or, worse, she thinks Pyrrha’s pickings are slim at this stage. Which, they probably are. At least in Trentham.
The problem, the real problem, is that, chewing the inside of her cheek, Pyrrha crystalizes into the realization that she’s not happy.
She looks around the dour backyard where they’re all commemorating a woman who- probably through plenty of faults of her curmudgeonly personality- died single and childless. Sure, marriage and kids aren’t the singular road to happiness but Pyrrha would like both if she could snap her fingers and make a wish. Is she going to end up like Aunt Louanne? Is that the fate she’s doomed to?
“Any pets?” Moira asks suddenly.
“Huh?” Pyrrha startles back into the present. “Uh, no.”
“Well, there’s twelve cats looking for a home.” Moira jokes.
Pyrrha remembers the closed casket and swallows.
Pyrrha realizes, quite despairingly, that she’s got very few attachments. Her dad is dead, her mom was never around, her friends are still in the military eleven months of the year, her extended family are busy with kids, she’s renting near the bay, she doesn’t have any pets and she’s good at her job but her career is not a passion.
It occurs to Pyrrha however, after a moment of self pity, that this could be a benefit to her. She’s got good savings and more in her retirement. The military will pay her a pension for the rest of her life. That income alone is pretty stable if she’s frugal. She can quickly break her lease and engineering is in high demand across the world. If Pyrrha wanted to she could start fresh somewhere, anywhere really. Maybe what Pyrrha needs is a change of scenery? A different lifestyle? Even if she didn’t come to any especially deep revelations just a couple of months of novelty might do her good. Put things in perspective.
Thumbing her phone Pyrrha starts to ask herself, where would she like to go?
The United Kingdom of Dominicus is broken up into nine provinces, or Houses. They were roped together into a united entity over a couple of centuries of fighting on the continent so while they all share the same government, religion and language all nine Houses have fairly distinct personalities and someone is always threatening to secede in another referendum. The First House is basically just the capital, Canaan, which is a metropolis but also a fucking nightmare. Unless you’re part of the monarchy, or working for them, you’ll be paying through the nose to live in a shoebox. Pyrrha’s seen most of Dominicus through holidays across her childhood and while she’s never been north to Ura and Drearburh the Eight and Ninth are famously fucking freezing. Sure, in the Ninth you might get Aurora Borealis but they also go thirty days a year without sunlight. Pyrrha’s heard things are expensive up there too, due to shipping.
Considering it again, Pyrrha wants something really different. So, international?
Pyrrha looks over flight listings, visa requirements and airbnb listings. She’s in the privileged position of having quite a desirable skill set and a favored country of origin so her options are considerable.
The Tolk-Lew Union are a cluster of small nations consisting of countries like Gondor, Mordor and Narnia. They have open borders, universal healthcare and are very progressive but while the language is an obvious hurdle Pyrrha’s more off put by the frigid winters. For nine months of the year the temperature looks unbearable to Pyrrha from the meteorology websites. Even if she goes as far south as Mordor.
Falcrest is a rich nation with incredible tech and a fascinating history. However as much as Pyrrha loves F-Idols, animatronics and themed restaurants Falcrest is famously lonely for foreigners. Most Falcrest born are known to be polite but distant with immigrants. Most businesses won’t hire foreigners and most rentals won’t accept foreign applications. Likewise, while they no longer carry out the eugenic practices that dominated their culture before the last world war, it is still also a very conservative country.
Pyrrha thinks about Essos but almost immediately disregards it. Essos has great food and incredible movies and music but Pyrrha was stationed there briefly and just underneath the luxury resorts and the designer stores there lies a caste system that still traps most of the population in a kind of modern slavery.
There’s Westeros but Pyrrha cannot imagine living there. She was stationed there too, for a little longer as part of an alliance that involved sharing experts across joint projects. Westeros is very… Pyrrha did once hear a Westerosi mega preacher say, sincerely, that “God created the AK47 so mankind could kill the dinosaurs.” And after the last election they seem to be slipping further and further towards far-right extremism.
That feasibly leaves one option, the option that would, typically, be at the bottom of the list if you wanted a nice vacation; Eden. The Dominicus travel bureau advises explicitly against travelling to Eden. It cites the high crime rate, linking to a recent article from 2023 that lists New Rho as the ‘murder capital of the world’. However the exchange rate is great, the sites and food look amazing, and next to Essos, Eden boasts the highest average temperature per day of any country on the planet.
Pyrrha thinks, maybe, she’ll just go for three months and see what she thinks? Her budget will definitely easily stretch to that in Eden. Why not? She’s a tough girl, she’s street smart. She’ll be fine if she’s sensible. Right?