Leilan eyes the others present before thinking of what he wants to say. He smiles mischievously at the spotted Knabstrüber mare, and he finally knows her name, now that she has stepped forward to proclaim her attendance. She knows him then, too, but he supposes that should she have had the nerve to ask Scorch about her family in a general way, she would have known before him. The debate round proves a challenge for Leilan. He just argued for allowing women to earn their rank in Ischia earlier, and now he’s supposed to go against all that. This is why he needs time to think, but eventually he figures that he can make some arguments up. ”Of those who remember me back then, I suppose you’ve always thought of me as a pain in the neck to have around the Amazons. Or perhaps a pain in general, please, I won’t differentiate there. I know how some of you respond to my presence. I have a twin sister, and Wrynn is everything sweet in the world - but most of all, she was the girl and I was the boy. Unfortunately this always meant I was the lesser of her, at least in the eyes of an Amazon. Never able or allowed to achieve a rank. To feel that - you just have to be the exception for a time, I guess. It’s a tension not easily explained. Be it the stallion or colt in the women’s club as I was, or the filly or mare in the Brotherhood - really it just doesn’t work. You’ll always feel like you have to try harder than the ones around you to achieve the same level. I’m not saying that one is the lesser of the other. I’m just trying to tell you that however much one can try, if you don’t fit in in the first place, that means that you never will. Not fully. Instead of recruiting for ourselves, we should be convincing a male that his place is with his brothers, and a female that her place is with her sisters. We are sister kingdoms - again, thinking of it, that is a female word that you’ve chosen to use there - and we should be able to recruit for both kingdoms, not trying to take in everybody who wants to sway some way or another. We are a sisterhood and a brotherhood, not two mixes in different percentages. If we take in both sexes, there would be nothing that differentiaties us from any other kingdom in the Beqannan lands, and you know it as well as I.“ He pauses to breathe, fully aware that playing the devil’s advocate could suddenly convince someone of a thing he does not stand for, and hoping that his mother and his Nerinian sisters don’t take him too literally. He’s not one to turn anyone away himself - but he has one last argument to add. ”To take in females in a men’s group also means that she will always have to work harder than the rest. We are not equally built. Men are naturally muscled, where women are not. Of course they can achieve such a feat, but with an equal amount of training a man may eventually be stronger than a woman, and a woman may naturally be more cunning in his stead. But since we are not equally built, we should not pretend to be. We have different kingdoms where one can reside and train in for this very reason - we are different, we have unsimilar fighting styles, and we should stop pretending. Separate what is naturally estranged. We are equal, but not alike.” He inhales sharply then, ears twitching, simply hoping not to be lynched for this. |
Total debating words: 438
Total words including preamble: 620
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
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