Children
Recording by Scribe Ellison
Two kids dash past us, see me, and stop to stare. They're better fed than the adults and dressed in cutoff leathers. The boy is maybe fifteen and snowy blond, the girl a few years younger with dark brown skin.
"There are children here."
"Just five." Em tells me, "The others are at school in Diamond City, or on Spectacle Island. Sanctuary is home, but Spectacle Island is better defended."
The boy says, "We're going down to the farm to see the kittens. Chores are done!" Both children pull pistols from their belts and load them, their small hands practiced. They also both have knives in leather sheathes.
My hostess smiles and waves them on with a cheerful, "Have fun!" I ask where the children came from.
"Jimmy arrived with his mother, she was… dying." A half shrug. "It wasn't radiation; best the docs could figure she walked through a pocket of something, some gas left over from the war. She couldn't even tell us where they'd come from.
"I found Kayna in a raider camp, Libertalia they called it. We'd gotten a message that the raiders wanted to trade with us so I went to talk terms. But maybe there was a change of leadership on the barges because I had to fight my way out. I tried to just get away but they kept coming at me. Ended up wiping out most of the camp—and there was Kayna, hiding under a bed. She shot at me too but Dogmeat grabbed her and we hauled her home. Once she calmed down and realized she was in a place where people would keep their hands off it got better."
I knew in an intellectual way that there are female raiders, but I'd never give much thought about how they got there. Or what their life might be like before they grew old enough to defend themselves from the unwanted attentions of male raiders.
"Who are the other children?" I ask, to end that unsavory train of thought. And because they've come into view, three kids working, digging out a new garden plot. Two children of twelve or so and a very little girl who wobbles around on a prosthetic leg.
"That's Maya Long, she was born here. Lost her leg in a synth attack. The other two are mine. Shaun! Shiloh!"
Near identical children, both black haired and dusky skinned like their mother. They're dressed in cut-down settler's rags wrapped with leather strips around the knees and wrists. I'm faintly relieved to see that they aren't carrying guns. The two of them are turning soil in a garden bed, mixing in brahmin dung. They come over to us when their mother calls, towing the toddler between them.
"This is Scribe Ellison from the Capitol. He's going to send messages back and forth so we can trade with the capitol for things we need. Like apples, I hope. And we'll give them some mutfruit."
The children size me up. The boy asks, "Do you have power armor too?"
"I do, but I left it back home. I couldn't wear it and keep up with the caravan. My job is to learn things and write them down so other people can learn them too. I came here to learn what all of you here have discovered that my friends in the capitol don't know about, like farming. The Brotherhood has lots of guns and flying machines but we can't feed civilians with those.'
"You could by shooting deathclaws from your vertibird!"
"I suppose you could." I concede. "But sooner or later people need vegetables." With that sentence I can see young Shaun decide that I am terminally boring. His mother chuckles behind her hand.
Shiloh asks, "Are you secretly here to steal synths? A bunch of other Brotherhood were."
"No. Just here to learn. The Institute can keep its synths." The girl is giving me a suspicious stare. I wonder why she cares.
Em puts her arm around Shiloh's shoulders. "The Brotherhood agreed to leave synths alone. If they break that agreement the Institute will be free to attack Brotherhood soldiers and that'll be more trouble for the Brotherhood. And how angry do you thing Maxson and Danse would be about that?"
Shiloh nods and seems reassured as to my intentions. And for the record, at this time I know nothing about any Brotherhood plans to disrupt the truce and would be most strongly against such plans if they did exist. The Commonwealth is almost a stable source of food exports, something not worth risking no matter how much my fellow scribes want to steal the Institute's technology.