Welfare and Warfare

Chapter 29

Day: 3232

Days Left: 2248

Lives Saved: 17

Lili was getting through working out the next batch of guard shifts when Corinna burst into her office, her face flushed and sweaty, clearly having run here.

"Corinna!" Lili shot out from her seat, catching the woman in her arms as she stumbled. "Corinna, what's wrong!"

Corinna's arms moved frantically, her signs too quick and lips too wobbly for Lili to fully comprehend.

"It's alright, it's okay," Lili hushed. "Let's start over."

After sitting Corinna down in Lili's comfortable office chair, and Lili on a nearby stool, Corinna explained everything on her whiteboard and through signing.

'If you don't go now, you will miss being able to see your dad', wrote Corinna.

Lili lowered her eyes, then said softly, "I know."

Corinna stared at her in disbelief. 'Did you know?' she mouthed.

"No, I-" Lili swallowed. "After committing treason with Princess Alfreda, I knew that he would never want to see me again. Even if I declared my loyalty to the queen, it will take time to repair that relationship with him, not that we had the best relationship to begin with..." Her father would never let her forget what she had done, no matter how much she extenuated; a traitor was a traitor.

Corinna bit her lip, that guilty look still on her face.

"I do not regret the decisions I made," said Lili as she gazed at Corinna. "I want you to know that and trust me, and I don't care how many times I have to repeat myself..." Lili held Corinna's forearm, her fingers travelled Corinna's arm, to her shoulder, then her neck until Lili was caressing her cheek. "I'm going to stay here with you, Corinna."

Corinna collapsed into Lili's gentle embrace, her head nestling against Lili's shoulder, coiled up into a perfect fit.

It had not been their first conversation concerning Lili being free, and Lili knew it would not be the last even after all this. Before they had started officially dating, Lili had stated that she would not swear allegiance to the queen to be granted freedom, to not uproot her morals even after no longer being Princess Alfreda's bodyguard, but this could not stop Corinna's belief that she was holding Lili prisoner in the Abyss by being in a relationship.

After Corinna's teary eyes had dried, she remained in Lili's arms, sat on her lap as Lili continued her work, occasionally trying to help but Lili stopped her from micromanaging and instead allowed her to organise the contents of drawer and stationary.

Day: 3234

Through being the sole language teacher in the city, Sumit knew almost everyone by name, or at least by face until he could consult his student list. Not everyone in the entire city had signed on to a language but enough for Sumit to have multiple classes each day and work full time. More and more people were beginning to sign up for sign language specifically as it was starting to become the universal one, especially considering as it was not uncommon for prisoners to lose their voice or suffer an injury that affected their ability to talk or hear during their imprisonment. About a sixth of The Warren's population had learned sign language fluently from Sumit because of this, or because their native language was too obscure and had no one else to speak to and needed a way of communicating effectively with others; it was a difficult challenge teaching wise for Sumit if he didn't speak their native language, but rewarding nonetheless.

His class currently were all beginners, Henry's first class, and he had been paired up with another student who was soon going to be moved up tot he intermediate class. Henry was quite amusingly just like Corinna, an avid note taker and asker of questions, an eager learner who would make the whole class sigh with the amount of times he put his hand up. Despite occasionally being annoying and tiresome with his enthusiasm, Henry was a great student to have, his motivation and energy seeming to spread to the rest of the class. Previously quiet students who kept mostly to themselves opened up and joined in on the discussions due to Henry's charm and ability to talk to strangers with ease.