” Beep. “All stations prepare for FTL engage.” As I hit the control for the FTL drive and said “engaging.”A mildly weird feeling washed over...me as we exited normal space and started to shoot through hyperspace.“All stations report” I ordered.“Conn, Engineering. All systems are GO.”“Conn, Sensors. We have LOS on all contacts. All systems are GO.”Apparently this system worked without a problem too. I was pleased.“All stations set condition Yoke Foxtrot. Secure from FTL insertion.” Beep beep.“One. They called it the Harrowing.The idea was brutally simple.Until the age of eighteen, all members of the tribe were thought of as children. They were protected, cared for – and trained.On their eighteenth birthday, they were sent out into the forest, into the green. Their only provisions were the clothes they stood in, and their knife. Thus the first part of the Harrowing was simply to survive, to demonstrate they could support themselves from what they could harvest and kill, that they could. ”“How totally sexist,” I laughed.“Laugh. But it’s true.”“It probably is. This place is an odd matriarchy. And I don’t mind being a minor accessory as long as you keep me...”“I’ll keep you. You’re very useful,” she smiled.That’s something I’ve been watching – the growing confidence and self-assuredness of Mimi since she’s been here. It took a big leap after her meltdown and subsequent conversation with Mizz Donna, and I really LIKE this version of Mimi. I don’t have to ‘protect’ so much as. She had signed it and added kisses. I still have it now.I turned to her aghast, ”I have always dreamed of a whip scenario but I don’t want to hurt you Judy you’re body is just too lovely and you mean too much to me for me to do what you ask” I whispered. A cloud of disappointment skipped across her face, and she quietly said “that this was what she really wanted, to be hurt and marked so she would remember our whole experience forever” and it was an “ultimate fantasy that it was to be her pupil.