Going back to Arcadia

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

"I have made a decision," Carin said. "If Doug has to go back to Arcadia, then I am going with him."

There was silence for a few moments. None of the motley spoke immediately.

Then Rea said "if you go, we all go. Motley sticks together."

The train journey to Inverness was a long one. It had never occured to Rosie that this 'England' place could be so big, or have so much in it. There was rolling green hills, and then patchwork fields (although the fields would have been prettier were there more variation in colour). Then there were jagged cliffs, and crashing waves that made Rosie yearn for the sea.

She changed at Edinburgh, where the train pulled into a station which huddled below a looming grey castle. Smoke and steam rose up through the twisted wrought iron above the train,and for a moment Rosie felt as if she were back in Arcadia. She bought a tiny cup of oily black coffee in a stand at the station, and sipped it cautiously, whilst trying to understand the new voices and accents around her.

Rosie had not really been on her own since she came back from Arcadia, so this was a glorious adventure for her, and for a moment, it wiped away that nervous sick feeling in her belly.

"I don't want to go back to Arcadia," Doug said, and wrapped himself around Rosie's legs. Rosie stroked the bushy mass of curls that covered Doug's head.

"I know you don't," she said. "That's because I took the desire away,"

It was only when she got back on the train that the sick nervous feeling returned. She was only a few hours away from Inverness, and a few hours away from talking to Cormac. She would have to explain everything, and in explaining it, she would make it real.

She would have to explain Doug's ill thought out deal with Tommy Two-Times, which had condemned him to servitude at the hands of something called 'the Corsair'.

"It was a fair deal," Rosie said out loud. Every time she said this, her Motley looked at her as if she'd made one of her outrageous statements. But it was true. As far as anyone knew, the Corsair (whatever he was), had made a fair deal with Tommy Two Times. And Tommy had got Doug to agree (of Doug's own free will) to take on the debt. So, the Corsair was in the right. He wasn't stealing children, or torturing changelings. He just wanted to collect the payment he had been promised. Only the payment was Doug.

The Hedge was cold and wintery, reaching out to grab at the little group of changelings with spindley twig-like fingers. Doug's face was twisted and afraid.

"I have to go through that door," he said.

Rosie wrapped her arms around herself. She felt slightly sick, and she felt worse for her close proximity to Doug's desires. She could feel that, tugging at her own belly. She could feel his longing to go through that door, like a fishing hook caught round some soft and fleshy part of herself.

Aidan, Rea and Carin were all clustered around Doug, all tense and ready for a fight.

And then Rosie closed her eyes and pulled the fishing hook out of herself, and out of Doug at the same time. She closed her fist around it (even though there was nothing there) and put it in her pocket.

"It was a fair deal," Rosie said again. "And I...I didn't do the right thing."

It wasn't right to take someone's desires away. And it wasn't right to gainsay one who was collecting that which was rightfully owed. You had to pay your debts. That was how it worked. She was sure of it.

Rosie pulled her knees up to her chest.

Some of what she was thinking, she knew, came from the part of her brain which everyone said was broken. Everything she had learned about such things came from Arcadia, where she had watched the Lord of Darken Fel ply his trade across the Arcadian skies.

Rosie sighed and stared out of the train window. The sky here always looked grey to her. It wasn't that crazy kaleidoscope of colours she had seen when she hung at the prow of her Lord's ship.

She missed those skies.

Yet strangely she missed them less than she had used to. And that was another thing that was running through her mind, heavy in her skull. She didn't want to go back to Arcadia any more.

She didn't want to feel that way. A large part of her was terrified at these vile and treacherous thoughts which kept crawling into her head. She had learned her lessons well in Arcadia. You don't try and escape. You don't think about escaping. You don't let bad thoughts into your brain, unless you want your Lord to carve them out with a dagger, and force them down your ungrateful throat. You love your Lord. You love them with all your heart, and they will be gentle and treat you well. Rebellious thoughts could lead to rebellious action, and that hurts. It hurts more than anything.

When Rosie had first found herself loose, and away from Arcadia, she had clung to her love for her Lord like a life raft. He would come for her. She was sure of that. The Lord of Darken Fel never let his treasure fall into the hands of another, no matter what that treasure might be. And if he found this piece of his treasure waiting for him, loving him, with a padlock wrapped round her own wrist as a mark of his ownership, then he wouldn't be angry with her. He wouldn't break her. He'd just take her back, and put her back in her place, where she was meant to be.

So she had kept loving him. She had kept waiting for him to come, and prove that she was doing the right thing.

And now...

Rosie stared out at the skies again. They were very grey and it looked as if there was rain coming.

She didn't like the skies here.

But there was so much she did like.

She liked the house where she lived with Carin, with the nooks and crannies she had found which were hers, and no one elses. She liked her motley - the people who clustered around her, and protected her, and listened to her. She liked her new job, surrounded by all the flowers in Amen's flower shop, and she loved the idea that she would soon have money of her own, that she could spend as she wishes.

She liked the days out with Aria, Dey, Toad and sometimes Opal. She loved the warmth, the chattering, and the brightly coloured daydreams the little group had spun. She adored the amazing things that Opal had produced, and treasured the tiny stone animal that Opal had given her more than anything.

She found herself feeling slightly breathless and apprehensive at the prospect of being courted. She was sure it would go wrong, but if it didn't...

Rosie had a suspicion she might have rather taken to Drago, although she wasn't sure yet. He had made her smile, and had been so very easy to chatter at.

Rosie liked being alive. She liked being free. She liked all these big open horizons, and the beginnings of warm feelings that were running all over her.

She wasn't ready to go back to Arcadia yet.

"I've got a plan," Carin said. "I shall go to the Corsair and ask him to release Doug from this deal. We'll try and strike some kind of bargain."

"And if he doesn't want to?" someone else said.

"Well," Carin said. "I'm not leaving Doug. If he goes, I go."

"Then we all go," Rea said. "We stick together."

And the sick feeling rose up again in Rosie's stomach.

"I don't want to go home," she said out loud, and hugged her knees tightly to her chest. "I want to be alive."