The World Walkers: Taithmarin: Matt: Arriving (part 3)

[k_a_webb]

Part 1
Part 2

Matt wasn’t sure how to answer the question. Getting home was the only thing he really wanted to do, but if Siobhan was telling the truth… blinking away the tears that threatened to escape he breathed in deeply and did his best to deal with the situation he’d found himself in. Finally he nodded, trying to smile at the girl who was helping him, even though he didn’t think it worked too well. It was a relief when she smiled back, showing that she really did understand the position he was in, and he found himself wondering what it must have been like for the first human to find themselves on Taithmarin.

“Lead on, Siobhan,” he said, pushing that thought aside.

“What you have is a one bedroom flat and I’ll be sleeping in the lounge,” she replied, as she pulled a key out of her pocket. “Normally we only have to deal with one new arrival at a time, but we have had couples before, and once we even ended up with a group of five walking through the door at the same time. Thankfully they were friends who were happy to live together, at least to begin with.”

Siobhan made her way up the corridor, stopping in front of a door that was much closer that Matt expected it to be, even though she’d said it was only a couple of doors away. “What happened when they weren’t happy to live together?” he asked, grateful for a conversation he could use to take his mind off his own situation.

“They petitioned the council for permission to move early.” Siobhan put the key into the door and pushed it open. “Most of the time new arrivals will stay in their first property for a couple of years, to give them time to get used to Taithmarin, and the other races that live here, as well as giving the people here a chance to get used to them. You’ll find that a lot of humans chose to live in the human section of the town, because they aren’t comfortable with the other races. Some do chose to live in the mixed centre, where you’ll find the main market, but there are so many of our race who don’t embrace what’s happened, instead dwelling on, and clinging to, a past they should really let go of.”

“It’s not that simple, though, is it?”

As Matt stepped past Siobhan, into his flat, she shook her head. “Unlike some of the races who’ve been brought here, or are being brought here, we don’t all have lives that we could easily live behind.” She sighed. “I took a long time to come to terms with the choice that had been made for me by a magical door, but once I had I did everything I could to embrace this world. I’m not going to lie to you and say that I don’t think of the people I was forced to leave, because I do, but I’ve accepted that they’re not going to have been affected by what’s happened, which made things a lot easier for me.”

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.