I didn’t think I would care so much about it, but the farther away I got, the longer I was out of the army, the worse my time there seemed.

“I mean, they didn’t say we had to.” Anne was holding her uniform too, we both didn’t want to wear it again.

“It’s implied.”

“Is it though? I mean we’re not from the coast, how were we supposed to know?” I laughed, Anne continued, “and it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.”

I looked down at my uniform, folded in the dresser drawer.

“It’s such a little thing to risk, well risk anything over.”

“Doesn’t feel little now though.” Anne sighed.

“Yea.”

“Fuck it,” Anne put her uniform down, “what’s the worst they could do anyway.”

She was right. They wouldn’t start an incident over it, worst case we would be told we had to wear it next time. I don’t know what it was, but I felt tired, worn down in a way, delicate, I couldn’t put up with shit anymore. I tried to worry about it, how apathetic I was to what was expected of me, but of course I couldn’t be bothered to care.

I was thankful Anne didn’t wait for me to decide, or even ask my opinion. We couldn’t wear different things, and I didn’t want the pressure of it on me. I had a new dark blue suit for exactly this sort of thing, and Anne had a matching dress. Tame, meant to blend in without being informal. We still wore our shields and I brought my revolver. I was curious, the King would have let me keep it, would parliament? Seemed unlikely but why not, and I certainly wasn’t going to disarm myself for no reason.

Anne and I were in a good mood all things considered. Parliament sessions were noon to four, so we got to sleep in. Both of us had assumed they worked longer hours, but it seemed their job was easy, though I guess at this point Anne and I couldn’t complain. We were told to attend this session, and while we didn’t know exactly what that meant it was likely just sitting there doing nothing.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Thankfully a guard on the bridge between the hotel and the house recognized us and took us where we needed to be, though he did take my gun.

There was a special viewing area over the speaker of the house. I couldn’t guess why most of the people there got their seats, but some must have been foreign dignitaries. Some had flags on the backs of their chairs, or pins of them on their jackets. The Beauvians stood out. They were the largest group by quite a bit, twenty or so total, and they were front and center, all human, the only white people there, and unlike everyone else they talked only among themselves.

Of course Rebecca and Kate were there, I had only remembered to worry about them a few hours before. I was happy to see Kate had enough sense to sit in one of the two middle seats of the four set aside for us so we could keep Anne and Rebecca as far apart as possible. They were in their uniforms and seemed, fine, exactly how I remembered them. Anne and I were so different now, changed so much, but I couldn’t imagine the same for them. Not that it mattered, not really, for who they were to us, what they did, it had been easy not to think about them. Anne was still pissed of course but I honestly couldn’t give a fuck at this point, couldn’t even be angry. They seemed to be doing their best to ignore us so I did the same. I had Anne to worry about, this was not the time or place to get into a fight.

Admittedly it was more entertaining than I expected, at least at first. Before the session even started the reps were yelling at each other, and the public gallery was encouraging it, taunting them. The parliamentary guards looked like they were ready for a war 200 years ago but they did a good job stopping fights before they started, mostly, a few came to blows but were quickly broken up. It took a few minutes for the speaker to get control of things, and I was worried that this was the state of the people’s representation.

Once things settled down the speaker announced the bill, some military funding thing, and then he went on to us. It was as awful as I had imagined it would be. I didn’t need or want the attention, but a guard made us stand so all eyes were on us. I went through it, I shouldn’t have to listen to it again, especially from someone who had clearly never been in a trench. I focused on my arm around Anne’s waist. She was calm, so I could be calm.

Parliament had no say over what the navy did, but for some reason they spent an hour debating what should be done with a steam engine that was originally intended for a new flagship but now was being considered for other purposes, all so they could have an official recommendation that the navy would ignore. It was fucking insulting to go from the horrors of the trenches, the lack of basic supplies, to that bullshit that didn’t even fucking matter.

I stopped paying attention after that, it was the only protest I could manage. I was glad we didn’t wear our uniforms, not only because of the incompetence, but after Kate and Rebecca were swarmed, but we blended in enough that we were able to slip away back to our room unnoticed.