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kajones_writing“Things are going to change,” Meriwether said, and Lucille could tell from the uncertainty his voice that he didn’t truly believe what Quiar had told her. Considering how long he’d lived she could understand why. “In the end they’re going to have to, because the fae should never have been in control of the Web in the first place. None of the elders were comfortable with the choices we were making and the general populace… well, they weren’t happy with the old elders, the ones who died on Kalinia, and they believed that the new, young, elders were doing the right thing, at least until the first of the fae were lost on Kankirin. Even though they still thought that creating the Web was the only real option we had they were becoming less understanding of the choices we were making. If we hadn’t made such magical worlds then maybe there wouldn’t have been a problem.” He sighed. “They didn’t realise that in order to keep Athare strong we needed to create magical worlds, otherwise there would be nothing for Athare to take from the others. We’d just have the same problem all over again.”
“I take it the elders didn’t explain this to the rest of the fae.”
Meriwether shook his head. “No, they spread discord instead, because they were scared of being hated. They were doing everything they could to stop us, but we knew what had to be done, so we ignored them and carried on with the job they’d given us, which made the rest of the fae feel we were in the wrong. It was good for the elders, as it gave them the freedom to go to their people and tell them that we were simply making the Web as an experiment. We could have done with knowing then that Athare had been working on the Web for centuries by that point, trying to create the right one with the help of her counterparts, who’d all been through the creation process before – well, apart from the Athare where the vote went against the elders and the Web was never created.”
“Would they have believed you if you told them?”
“I doubt it, Lucy, but it might have made some of the fae doubt what their elders were telling them. That was really all I wanted. For my people to think, rather than take what they were told at face value, the way they had when we were on Kalinia, but all they wanted was for the elders to take control again. Even though the elders weren’t actually old, due to the way the system worked.”
“Bloodline instead of age. That never made much sense to me, because I always thought the whole point of having elders was to have someone with experience guide their people, but then I didn’t think there were many fae left above the age of 400.”
“Kalinia had taken with her the young, the old, and the magically strong. I think Mab may well have been the eldest of her family to have survived, but she was never magically strong, so she was more likely to survive, even at her age.” Meriwether rubbed his antler. “When I look back it’s strange not to think of Mab as old. I reached 700 before I died my first death and with every year that passes it seems like the fae live a little longer. Fortunately, even though the fae’s urge to procreate is much the same as it was before the end of Kalinia, there do appear to be less children born to purely fae families. Mixed families are a different matter.” He smiled. “Personally I much prefer mixed families. I think it’s important that the fae get to know the races that we created and the races that have evolved over the years, but they, obviously, disagreed. They were much happier in their settlements hiding away from everything that happened, because, in the end, the elders convinced our people that we were the ones in the wrong. Even though they had agreed to the creation of the worlds they had never wanted the Web and their attempts to stop us from going against their orders had failed, because we thought we were better than the rest of the fae. Apparently. Yet my mother still tried to convince me to live within one of the settlements, even when I was viewed as one of the enemy, and I will never understand why she did that.”
“She loved you?”
“Maybe, but she never showed how she felt about me before. For a long time I thought she hated me, because I was born during one of her unhappiest handfastings, and then I became a part of the World Creation Council, I started working with Riordan and Emrys, and once that happened the way she treated me changed. At least until the elders started speaking against us. When that happened she stopped talking to me for a long time. I don’t know what it was that made her feel I should follow her into one of the settlements, when it was obvious that I was hated by everyone who had accepted what the elders told them as the truth.”
“Mother never loved me. I don’t think she loved any of us. The only reason she had children was because she thought it was the right thing to do and when she did she realised she’d made a huge mistake but didn’t know how to tell Father. Fortunately Father was a much better parent, then there were others in the community who did their bit to look after us, and in the end I think we were better off without Mother really being a part of the process of raising us. It was just strange, because all of the other children had two parents, and I really wanted her to love me, which was part of the reason I chose to become a Moonjumper.” Lucille smiled. “There were lots of reasons behind my choice, really, but all I knew at the time was that Mother had been a Moonjumper. She’d passed all the exams. Yet she wasn’t a Moonjumper when I was a child. She spent her days at the Council building, doing something, but I knew she didn’t travel the worlds and it didn’t make sense. So, the first time I entered the building, all I was aiming to do was solve the mystery of what Mother did for a job. Back then I had no idea how many people they needed to be able to keep things running smoothly.
“The entrance hall was deserted. Later I found out the entrance hall is normally that way, because it puts people off who shouldn’t be applying to become a Moonjumper in the first place. If they can’t bring themselves to explore further then they wouldn’t be comfortable exploring the worlds, as there’s still more for us to learn. We have the maps from when the worlds were first created, we have information from Moonjumpers who have travelled there before, but the worlds can change in a year and there aren’t enough of us to explore all the worlds, as we have other jobs to be doing.” She shook her head. “Some Moonjumpers are naturally explorers. Like me, I guess. Others prefer to watch, to not be involved, and I’m sure part of their reasoning is to do with the first rule. If they only watch they can’t get too involved with the races of the worlds they’ve travelled to.
“One of the real problems we have is the doors. Council Moonjumpers with tattoos can only, legally, use the fae created doors. As it seems you were never planning on travelling to the worlds it makes things very difficult if you do want to explore a world, because you put the doors in what seem to be really stupid places. I’m sure they weren’t at the time, but now… The only known door that leads to Quiar comes out at Sheepshank. None of the previous Council Moonjumpers who’ve visited this world have explored further than Sheepshank, because they’re scared of the races of Quiar. You’re walking talking animals and you terrify most people, for reasons I haven’t yet had explained to me to my satisfaction, so as far as I’m concerned they’re all idiots, and I am really glad they haven’t realised there are animal races on a lot of the other worlds. Often ones that look more like animals that you.”
“I’m sure they’ve evolved, because I know we didn’t put animal races on the other worlds.” Meriwether rubbed his antler again. “To be honest I’m not surprised that it’s happened. All of the magic we used in the creation process was going to have to go somewhere and I know there were enough failures when we were creating the races that there would have been quite a lot of magic floating about. It seems likely that the worlds wanted to be a part of what we were doing too, as they were sentient… and I still can’t believe how blind we were.”
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.
