Emmy, fifteen years before Azran Legacy.
Author's note: I think a lot about what life must have been like for little!Emmy. (Unexpectedly angsty, as it turns out.) The writing style for this chapter was inspired by that of the lovely ink-splotch on Tumblr. Definitely go check them out; they're awesome.
Imagine ten-year-old Emmy Altava.
She's been wearing her hair in pigtails since reading Pippi Longstocking, but it's only just gotten long enough to braid. Bronev encourages the misconception that Grouse's wife has been helping out on more than an archeological level, though in truth he's not about to distract the brightest mind on his team (though he dares not acknowledge that, either) and has, with gritted teeth, been braiding Emmeline's hair himself. In another year he will talk her into cutting it short; more practical, he will say, since she'll be going into full training soon. But for now he deigns to tease her curls into obedience.
She's beginning to notice that he locks her in her room at night and the knowledge irks her. Uncle Leon's always going out at night; she can hear his footsteps, in and out of their new quarters. Why can't she go, too?
She misses the building they lived in before he got promoted. Here, way at the top of the Nest in every possible sense, she's beginning to feel like Rapunzel in the tower. She's big enough now to cook dinner by herself, but it's no fun when she keeps having to shove his half of it in the fridge. Sometimes he eats it when he comes back at night; sometimes it starts to smell funny and she throws it in the rubbish bin.
He's told her not to wander around alone but she sneaks out sometimes, during the day, when he hasn't locked all the doors. She starts climbing on rooftops to avoid being spotted. She plays pranks on the lower officers; moving keys, tipping coffee cups over on papers, one time pilfering a set of lock picks and, later, trying them out on her own door. She stops only when she realizes that, no matter how long she is gone, her uncle doesn't seem to notice her absence.
Then she starts walking the streets openly, throwing snowballs at the recruits who sneer as she passes. She is generally rewarded with several bruises, then delivered home in a sulking heap. Well, Uncle Leon notices that.
She has yet to be deemed ready for recruit training; instead, Bronev starts to train her himself. ("If you're determined to seek out trouble, Emmeline, you ought to be able to deal with it.") She's been learning martial arts since she was five but he starts in on rougher, dirtier tactics now. There are other lessons too: codes, cover stories. She memorizes the fake names and histories but stumbles when it's time to spit them out on cue. She has never been a good liar, she never will be, and they both know it.
He drills her anyway, and she tries. And if, once in a while, Emmeline practices under her breath until she can claim (with a mostly-straight face) that she's been studying Azran runes instead of reading the Agatha Christie novel she "borrowed" from Mr. Swift's office, well, she won't get shouted down unless he guesses. Until he guesses.
Fifteen years later, Emmy will look at herself in a dingy hotel room mirror and reach for the scissors. "Long hair's just not practical," she'll tell her new coworkers, and she won't know whether to remember or forget.