Lady Gavin, she, she's the wife of the commander of the garrison in Kabul. She plays the Great Game. She and Dr. Stein, my teacher... they didn't want to let me, but they know what I'm good at. They know.
[Kesara is, alas, very good at detecting sore spots. She fights to keep her voice hushed, keep the interest out of it.]
They've only begun. They only just said I may. But, Lady Gavin taught me Russian, and Dr. Stein teaches me to take measurements of my paces, and draw sketches, and they said Dr. Stein's Afghani subaltern, Ali, will teach me how to shoot a gun. They say... they say they hardly need to teach me to lie. And others will do it better anyway.
[Natasha is quiet for a moment, then she exhales slowly. She doesn't talk about this, not really, but she's made exceptions before, exceptions for girls like Yelena. Like Kesara.]
I started young, around your age. It was easier for them to mold me into what they wanted that way. From the beginning, everything I did was monitored, controlled. They made me loyal, and they trusted me, but I was never a person to them. I was an asset, a weapon, something to be used. Spies do not have lives, Kesara, or friends, or loved ones. There were people I cared for, people I loved, and my handlers took them away from me. We have missions and loyalties and assignments, and anything else you carry with you is a liability.
[She knows it's real - she knows spies lie, Natasha must be very good at lying, but part of what Kesara knows would make her a good spy is that she hears lies. It's the truth, and a truth that Natasha is at pains for her to understand.]
I know how it is in the Game, [she answers very quietly.] Lives aren't the currency of the Game. Lord Gavin said so, when he - when he would have his men shoot me, when I was a hostage. But that was my own fault. He wouldn't have, if I hadn't failed.
I was meant to... [she hesitates. These are secrets, her greatest secrets, and secrets are all she has in trade. But the secrets Natasha must have...]
I was meant to fool a smuggler into revealing where she got a very great and rare treasure. Not gold - something much more important. They thought I could fool her into thinking I was not an agent of the Crown, since, my colour and my age... but she could tell. She took me hostage and used me to escape. Lord Gavin would've had me shot, to stop her, but - I convinced him to let her take me away instead so I could spy on her. [She's more than a little proud of that narrow escape. Remembering it lets her take a deep breath.] And I did do that, I did very well.
But that's the Game. [And although the stakes are higher, it isn't truly different from her life as a whole. She doesn't know another way.] It's better than never being valuable at all, isn't it? If this is what I'm good at, then that's how I'm going to get - well - oah, anything.
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From who?
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[Surprise! This is a sore spot for Natasha.]
What are they teaching you?
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They've only begun. They only just said I may. But, Lady Gavin taught me Russian, and Dr. Stein teaches me to take measurements of my paces, and draw sketches, and they said Dr. Stein's Afghani subaltern, Ali, will teach me how to shoot a gun. They say... they say they hardly need to teach me to lie. And others will do it better anyway.
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You do not want to be a tool, Kesara, and that is what a spy is.
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[She's never heard this story before. Not this one.]
Tell me?
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I started young, around your age. It was easier for them to mold me into what they wanted that way. From the beginning, everything I did was monitored, controlled. They made me loyal, and they trusted me, but I was never a person to them. I was an asset, a weapon, something to be used. Spies do not have lives, Kesara, or friends, or loved ones. There were people I cared for, people I loved, and my handlers took them away from me. We have missions and loyalties and assignments, and anything else you carry with you is a liability.
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I know how it is in the Game, [she answers very quietly.] Lives aren't the currency of the Game. Lord Gavin said so, when he - when he would have his men shoot me, when I was a hostage. But that was my own fault. He wouldn't have, if I hadn't failed.
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How did you fail?
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I was meant to fool a smuggler into revealing where she got a very great and rare treasure. Not gold - something much more important. They thought I could fool her into thinking I was not an agent of the Crown, since, my colour and my age... but she could tell. She took me hostage and used me to escape. Lord Gavin would've had me shot, to stop her, but - I convinced him to let her take me away instead so I could spy on her. [She's more than a little proud of that narrow escape. Remembering it lets her take a deep breath.] And I did do that, I did very well.
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That was very clever of you, but you see what I mean. You are valuable and useful, until you aren't.
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[She hesitates.]
But I'm much older than I look. Things weren't always that way.
cw discussing misogyny
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