This all feels strangely familiar.

The thought had been in Alejandra's mind for the last twenty minutes, ever since the fairy-in-a-sword had started walking them through the details of the System–or the new system, or the deep system, or whatever it was that was giving them their powers right now. And it still lingered on the edges of her awareness even now that she'd gotten her own powers nailed down.

"So okay," Olivia was saying. "We've got primary damage dealers in Mom and Bel. Dad's our Tank. Luc's our Healer. And Dinah's our Controller. Mom has some Control abilities as well, but we all know her primary role is gonna be front-line fighter, right?"

There was a general wave of acceptance of that fact, not the least of which from Alejandra herself. Yes, she was most definitely going to be on the front line. Like her Calling said, she was the sharp end of the spear.

"Okay, so what we're lacking is a good focused support class. Someone to buff our allies and throw debuffs on our enemies. So that's what I'm gonna do."

"I thought you said you were gonna be controlling," Luc called out from on top of his elephant–and wasn't that a strange sentence to think. Alejandra had to fight to keep from shaking her head. She was going to have to have a talk with her son about proper care for his new… Pet? Familiar? War Companion? Whatever it was, he was going to have to take proper care of it, that was for certain.

"I was talking about controlling the battlefield, not being a pure Control class," Olivia shot back, glaring at her brother. "Because look, if we're gonna fight together–"

"A foregone conclusion," Bel said with a snort.

"Not like that you nerd!" Olivia scowled at her big sister. "I mean if we're going to engage in combat side-by-side, then we need to have all our bases covered. And since I've got Fantasy Wikipedia in my head, it should synergize perfectly with classes and professions that focus on buffing and debuffing. I can figure out which enemies are the weakest, which are the strongest, and who in our party needs to be helped out."

Alejandra rolled her eyes and gave Matty's hand one more quick squeeze before she started circling around towards where Bel was sitting. Olivia and Lucas continued to bicker back and forth without really imparting new information, and Harry the Elephant glanced at Alejandra and gave her a look of such long-suffering that she immediately felt a kinship with the alien pachyderm.

She finally plopped down beside Isabel after a few more seconds of sidling. Matty, she saw, was making his way towards Olivia, probably intent on riding herd on the young ones and get them back on track.

"How are you holding up?" Alejandra asked her eldest daughter, nudging her with her shoulder.

"Meh," Isabel waggled her hand, not looking at Alejandra. "I'm still figuring stuff out, y'know?" Then she did glance over, and her eyes narrowed. "Why do you ask? You worried about me?"

"Of course," Alejandra said, staring right into those narrowed eyes. "You are my daughter and I love you. After everything that has happened, I think 'worry' is the appropriate emotion to be feeling right now, no?"

"I'm fine," Isabel said, crossing her arms and looking away. "I'm dealing."

Alejandra winced at the tone in her daughter's voice. Go away and leave me alone it said. Even after fighting side-by-side, even after everything that had happened the past few days, there was still a gulf between them.

One that had been there for far longer than she had realized, now that she thought on it.

"Isabel," Alejandra started quietly, but then let herself be cut off by Isabel's raised hand.

"I'm fine Mom," her daughter ground out between clenched teeth. "And I don't wanna talk. So just let it drop, okay?"

"No," Alejandra said, and the crack in her voice finally made her daughter's head turn and her eyes widen. "I will not let it drop. You have been angry at me since before the storm that brought us here. I have seen it. I have felt it. And now I am saying to you, we will talk and resolve this issue right now, because we do not have the luxury of carrying grudges right now. Not when doing so could get us killed. Tu comprende?"

Isabel's jaw set mulishly and her eyes blazed in defiance. The words of the others around them died away as Alejandra met her daughter's gaze with her own stony glare. The air between them crackled, and Alejandra felt herself tense up, wondering if her daughter was going to haul off and try to pop her one in the nose.

It didn't happen that way, thank God. Isabel's shoulders slumped, though her glare didn't lessen.

"You've never said 'sorry'. Not once."

Alejandra blinked. "What? What are you–"

"For leaving us. For going to leave us. For making everything suck for so fucking long–"

"Language," Alejandra said automatically.

"No, not this time." Isabel's glare intensified. "You wanna talk it out? Fine. I'm gonna use the words I need to use. You hurt us mom. Every fucking one of us. You were gonna divorce dad. You both took us to church every fucking sunday and you were gonna divorce him instead of trying to work it out like Pastor John said you should.

"Okay I get it. The war fucked you up. Bad. And it hurt you. And it was hard. But you were gonna leave us instead of fighting for us. How the hell am I supposed to feel about that? That you'd rather give up and leave us instead of fighting to keep us?"

There were unshed tears shining in Isabel's eyes now as her words pummeled against Alejandra. They were artless words, and they didn't take into account the realities of the situation, and she obviously didn't know everything that had happened… But…

But they were the words of her child, still in pain, from the decisions she had made. Or been about to make. And that made them important words.

"It was never because I didn't love you," she said quietly, not looking away. "Or that I didn't love your father. I did. More than life itself. And I am sorry. I thought what I was doing was for the best."

"Leaving us and breaking your marriage vows was for the best?" Isabel scoffed. "Pull the other one, Mom, it has bells on it."

"I hurt Matty."

The words were out before Alejandra could stop them, and they smacked into the middle of the conversation like a grenade with the pin pulled. Isabel's face transformed from hurt anger to shock in an eyeblink, and Alejandra felt her own face seize up.

She hadn't meant to say that.

"What?" Isabel asked after a long silent second.

Alejandra let out a long sigh. Well. It was out there now. Might as well finish it.

"It was right after I got home from the last tour. We were in bed together–"

"Oh I swear to god Mom if this is some weird kind of sex story, I'm going to jump off a cliff."

Alejandra snorted, then reached over and cuffed Isabel lightly on the back of the head. "I am still tu madre, nina. Be respectful."

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"I'm just saying."

"No. We were just laying there. We were on the yacht. We had stolen a weekend for ourselves. Tu papa was holding me, and…" she sucked in a breath. "And I had a flashback."

Mud and rain ripping down from the sky, mixing with blood and sweat rolling down her face. Explosions all around her. Bodies, friend and foe alike, struggling in ugly close quarters combat. Her knife was in her hand. Her gun was somewhere behind her. Arms wrapped around her from behind. Took the knife. She turned. Lashed out. Feet, elbows, knuckles, nails. She found something soft and gouged. She found something squishy and wrenched. Her fists found something yielding and pummeled it…

"When I came out of it, I was on top of tu papa. He had my wrists in his hands. His eyes were black and his lip was split and…"

And the memory still came to her at night. Her first love, the father of her children, his eyes half-lidded and his hands wrapped around her wrists, struggling, trying to keep her from hurting him, all without hurting her.

He had never once hurt her.

Alejandra swallowed against the lump forming in her throat. "That was when we started sleeping in separate beds. Because I could not trust myself alone with him. Because… Because the War was still with me. And I could not get it out. That was when tu papa started trying to fix me. And… I suppose he was not wrong in trying."

"He was just a man about it," Isabel said, her eyes wide and staring. "Yeah, I get that." She breathed in deep and let it out slow. "Mom, we didn't know. None of us did. Why didn't you tell us?"

"To what end? We were trying to make it work. Neither of us wanted to burden you kids with it–"

"Oh for fuck's sake Mom!" Isabel exploded. "You thought it was better to just keep us in the dark and pretend like–

"Isabel Grace Albright!"

Isabel shut up instantly, eyes going wide as Alejandra finally used her Mother voice. It was different from her Sergeant voice, and even from her Mom voice.

This was the one she used when she'd had enough.

"I have hurt tu y mi familia," Alejandra said quietly, meeting Isabel's gaze with her own harder stare. "But you are still my daughter and I am your mother, which means you will show me respect. I have allowed otherwise out of love, patience, and a desire for peace. But you will not use that language when addressing me, you will speak quietly and respectfully, or we will have a problem and it will not matter that we are on an alien world. Comprende?"

Isabel deflated.

"Si mama," she said quietly. "Lo siento."

"It is forgiven," Alejandra said in a gentler tone.

The eldest Albright daughter took in a long breath and let it out. "Okay I get it. I get why you did it. We… we're kids, maybe we're kinda dumb sometimes, but like… You just said it. We're family Mom, We could have helped! We could have—" she cut off and turned her head away, glaring at the unlit campfire in the center of everything, and ignoring the stares that were suddenly coming her way from the rest of the family.

"Okay. No. Past is past. We're here now, we're all together, we're all on the same side." She said it like she was talking to herself. And when Isabel turned back to Alejandra, there was a new emotion shining in her eyes.

"Okay. New rule. If you're hurting–" she turned and glared out at everyone else, because the entire clearing appeared focused on her now. "If anyone here is hurting, or in trouble, or dealing with shit, we talk about it. Got it?" she turned back to Alejandra. "No more of this 'one woman alone' bullsh–stuff. No more 'keeping it between us'. No more. Because in case you all haven't noticed, we're all we've got right now!"

Alejandra felt a warm glow start in her chest, and she found herself grinning just a little.

"What? What's so funny," Isabel asked, glaring again.

"I was just wondering, who is this wonderful mature young woman in front of me and what has she done with my daughter?" Alejandra smiled.

Isabel huffed and looked away. "Yeah well… I guess I kinda got a new perspective on stuff after the fight. I still hate this stupid place, but like… I guess I can't be too mad at it, if it's forcing us to figure our own stupid selves out like this."

"Truly God does move in mysterious ways," Alejandra agreed.

"So uh… Is everything okay over there?" Olivia asked, eyes wide and shifting back and forth between Alejandra and Isabel.

"Si," Alejandra said, holding out a hand to her oldest daughter. "I think we are okay."

Isabel peered at the hand for a second before huffing again and taking it. "Yeah, I guess so. At least we're gonna get there, anyway."

"Okay great," Olivia said, looking back and forth between them one more time. "Because um, I'm gonna choose my class and profession now. That cool?"

"By all means, mija," Alejandra said, squeezing Isabel's hand before letting it go and turning to Olivia. "What have you chosen?"

"Okay, so, I found a Class and a Profession that work perfectly with my Consul stuff." Olivia clapped her hands, grinning now that she was back to the center of attention.

"First, I'm gonna take Stage Manager as my class. It doesn't have any direct-combat abilities at all, but it's got some really nifty buff/debuff options. Best part is, they're not static buffs like 'Plus Two to Armor' or whatever. They change based on the 'players' and the environment we're in. So like, with my [Find Your Face] Art, I can give one of my party members a buff based on what we're fighting and the environment we're fighting in. It's… Kinda unspecific, but Toraline says that it's potentially almost a cheat power, so I'm going for it."

Alejandra frowned slightly as Olivia kept talking about how she also got arts and skills that could affect the enemy and the environment around them. Not because she disagreed with her daughter's choice… Truth be told, Olivia was far more knowledgeable about this kind of thing than she was. She was more frowning at… Well, at the name of the class.

"And for my profession, I'm taking 'Licensed Therapist'. It's a non-combat class, but it has an art I can use to heal any lingering debuffs that are on us, and Toraline thinks it can even be used against curses. Also just having me in the party will make certain debuffs ineffective against all of us!"

Another strange name for the profession. Or, well, not 'strange' perhaps. The word she was looking for was 'modern'. It was at odds with the other classes the others had chosen… Or at least, at odds with many of them. It did not fit the theme, as it were.

Well. Something she could ask about later, she supposed. Right now, there were more important things to look after. Like, and her stomach chose this moment to let out a deep rumbling growl, getting food for her family.

"Alright then," she stood up, clapping her hands together and all business. "We've all got ourselves together then?"

There was a chorus of affirmatives, as well as a soft trumpet from the alien elephant. And it was then that Alejandra came full circle and realized why it felt so familiar to her.

This was exactly the feeling she'd had in the command center back in the Desert, prepping her squad for their patrols. Setting goals, choosing loadouts, and delivering expectations. Only instead of trained soldiers, she was doing it now with her family.

It should have shaken her. It should have made her more cautious or even worried. She was about to take her family on patrol.

But she looked back at Isabel, and saw raw determination and courage there. She looked at Olivia and Lucas, and saw children, yes, but children who had survived combat and come out on top. And she looked at Matty, and saw her partner in crime, ready and willing to do whatever it took to get everyone home safely. Even Dinah, the newcomer, was standing with the rest, her rifle carried easily in her hands and an air of quiet competence about her.

We're all we've got.

Alejandra felt a fierce grin stretch across her face.

"Then let's get moving," she said. "We've got grub to get!"

The others let out a cheer, and if it wasn't the disciplined acknowledgements of her soldiers back in the War, it made up for it in exuberance and commitment.

She was taking her family into the jungle.

And right now? She felt sorry for the jungle.

Watch out world, the Albrights are on the war path!

===============

The Record of Consul Alejandra Duarte Morales Albright, Imperator

Thou hast been Called as a Harbinger Of The Consuming Flame.

Thou hast achieved the first rank in thy calling.

Thou art a Mother Superior of the 1st Rank

Thou art a Nature Guide of the 1st Rank

Thy Condition is: Healthy

Thy overall rank is: Peasant

Thy Achievements are:

"Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator"

The Arts available to thee are:

- MAKE A HOLE(Harbinger)

- Set Them Up, Knock Them Down (Harbinger)

- Savor The Chaos (Harbinger)

- Envision The Ruler (Mother Superior)

- Across The Knuckles (Mother Superior)

- Address The Penitent (Mother Superior)

- Forage (Nature Guide)

The Skills available to thee are:

- This Is My Rifle (Harbinger)

- What's Yours Is Mine (Harbinger)

- Comfort The Bereaved (Mother Superior)

- Eyes Of The Brush (Nature Guide)

The Powers available to you as Consul are:

Conquer Territory

Bolster The Legion

Endless March

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