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Prompt 2 for the Sedoretu story: Hope. (What is a Sedoretu?)
I didn't mean for these parts to be continuous, and the next few parts probably won't be. I just wanted to write exposition to set up the main issue of the story. This one refers to character death and sacrilegious relationships (in-universe.)
---
That happy wedding day, and all the hope she'd felt, seemed so far away now.
Everything had been good for the first few years. Shirya was still having trouble with immigration; she'd work when she could get her work visas in order, when a restaurant would sponsor her. But they mostly wanted her as a waitress, or at best a line cook, and she wanted more, wanted her own restaurant. She shouldn't complain - at least if she was working things didn't feel quite so mind-crushingly boring as they did when she stayed home - but the work was soul-crushing in its own way, too.
In truth, she hadn't had to work. Rich and Marcus had both had full-time office jobs, Rich as a programmer and Marcus in HR, so they were making enough money and they all had decent benefits. Kris had been part-time, mostly at hourly retail jobs, all the better to focus on their activism.
They'd had arguments sometimes, but in the end... Shirya finally understood why her mother had pushed so hard to accept their arrangements when she'd been younger. Not that she thought she'd be happy with three strangers, but life really was much easier with a full marriage.
In her more cynical moments, she could see the things that were stacked against anyone who didn't want a Sedoretu. She still had letters from her cousin on the other side of the world, pictures of him and his wife and his beautiful children. They allowed foreign marriages there, including same-moiety relationships, although he hadn't been shy about telling her some of the downsides - his wife's inheritance had given them some freedom, but there were still so many places where they couldn't go and so many societies where they would never be welcome, not with any amount of money.
But she was happy with Rich and his wife and husband - her wife and husband now, she sometimes thought, though it didn't feel real. Immigration was pushing things through faster now that she had the marriage certificate with all four of their names on it. Things had started to feel like they might work out exactly the way she'd secretly hoped her life would always go.
And then she'd gotten home from the grocery store one day and walked into Rich's bedroom to find him unresponsive and barely breathing, and everything had changed in an instant.
I didn't mean for these parts to be continuous, and the next few parts probably won't be. I just wanted to write exposition to set up the main issue of the story. This one refers to character death and sacrilegious relationships (in-universe.)
---
That happy wedding day, and all the hope she'd felt, seemed so far away now.
Everything had been good for the first few years. Shirya was still having trouble with immigration; she'd work when she could get her work visas in order, when a restaurant would sponsor her. But they mostly wanted her as a waitress, or at best a line cook, and she wanted more, wanted her own restaurant. She shouldn't complain - at least if she was working things didn't feel quite so mind-crushingly boring as they did when she stayed home - but the work was soul-crushing in its own way, too.
In truth, she hadn't had to work. Rich and Marcus had both had full-time office jobs, Rich as a programmer and Marcus in HR, so they were making enough money and they all had decent benefits. Kris had been part-time, mostly at hourly retail jobs, all the better to focus on their activism.
They'd had arguments sometimes, but in the end... Shirya finally understood why her mother had pushed so hard to accept their arrangements when she'd been younger. Not that she thought she'd be happy with three strangers, but life really was much easier with a full marriage.
In her more cynical moments, she could see the things that were stacked against anyone who didn't want a Sedoretu. She still had letters from her cousin on the other side of the world, pictures of him and his wife and his beautiful children. They allowed foreign marriages there, including same-moiety relationships, although he hadn't been shy about telling her some of the downsides - his wife's inheritance had given them some freedom, but there were still so many places where they couldn't go and so many societies where they would never be welcome, not with any amount of money.
But she was happy with Rich and his wife and husband - her wife and husband now, she sometimes thought, though it didn't feel real. Immigration was pushing things through faster now that she had the marriage certificate with all four of their names on it. Things had started to feel like they might work out exactly the way she'd secretly hoped her life would always go.
And then she'd gotten home from the grocery store one day and walked into Rich's bedroom to find him unresponsive and barely breathing, and everything had changed in an instant.
