![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
k_a_webbLucille nodded, even though Kester couldn’t see her. “His name’s Meriwether and from what he said he worked with the World Creation Council when the fae first arrived on Athare.”
“I’ve heard of Meriwether,” Kester replied. “Before Riordan came to Athare Meriwether was just a member of another branch of the family, but once they came here and the Blue family started working together to make the worlds things changed a lot for everyone. They became good friends because they were spending a lot of time together. Later, when the World Walkers Council took over, they found themselves living very different lives, especially as Riordan was so focused on the Council and the Walkers, and they drifted away from each other. Riordan told me one of the things he was trying to do was get back in contact with all the reincarnated fae, so he could write their stories.”
“That sounds like it would be a wonderful read, if he does manage to do it.” Lucille bit her lip. “I’ve been asked to write a book, because the Quiarans want to learn about the Web, and they have no other way of getting the information they want. Obviously I’d use a different name, but I thought it would be a good idea.” She ran a hand through her hair. “It’s something I think a lot of the worlds could use, really, so they have a better understanding of their position within the Web, as it is now, rather than how the fae envisioned it.”
“Lucille, that doesn’t surprise me. The thing I’ve come to understand since I took over the Council is how little the worlds really know about each other.” Kester sighed. “Athare is the exception to the rule, because I don’t think there’s anyone here who doesn’t know about the Web and the other worlds, but it’s only the settlements closest to the doors that really even know the other worlds exist.”
“From what I’ve heard there are settlements of unwilling travellers around the city I’m in, some who don’t want to have anything to do with the races of this world and other who’ve accepted that their lives have changed.” Lucille shook her head. “I think it would be a lot easier for all of those travellers if they’d had a better understanding of the worlds before they accidentally stepped through a door.”
“You’re right about that, but one of the main problems you’ll find is that very few people believe that the Web even exists, even though the Walkers spend their time travelling the worlds.”
“We can’t go everywhere.” Lucille thought for a moment, as she tried to work out exactly how to put what she thought into words. “Once you’ve been a Walker for long enough you come to understand that there are places we can’t go and places we shouldn’t go. If you’ve ever seen a map of the natural doors it becomes more obvious, because there are natural doors that lead to a lot of places the created doors don’t lead to, for one reason or another.”
“There are the hidden places, obviously. I’ve read about them, but I’ve never been able to reach one, because I’m not a natural Walker. As the leader of the Council I had to pass all 34 exams, even though my position is inherited, and I was given the tattoos to prove I had a place among you, so I thought that would mean I could use the natural doors like all the other created Walkers I’ve met could. When I tried I failed.” Kester sounded sad about it. “I don’t know why.”
“There’s a reason for everything, Kester.” Lucille sympathised and wanted to make him feel better about what had happened. “Especially for someone like you.”
“Your grandmother said exactly the same thing when I told her about it, and I know there must be a reason I can’t use the natural doors, but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing.”
“Even I can’t use the natural doors to get to a couple of the hidden places,” Lucille admitted. “I’m sure there’s a reason I can’t, but I was disappointed as well, because I’d read interesting things about them.” She smiled. “Then I remembered the lost worlds. All the doors chose who can walk through them. Some people can get to the lost worlds while others can’t and I’ve been lucky enough to travel to one of them, so I can’t feel bad that there are some places I can’t get to. Did you ever try to use one of the other natural doors?”
“A couple of people tried to convince me that I should, but…” Kester sighed again, this one deeper and it sounded like he was trying to push his emotions away. “It was too hard to push aside the feeling that I wasn’t good enough to be the leader of the Council.”
“Kester wasn’t meant to inherit the position originally,” Lucille’s grandmother said and Lucille was glad she was still there. “He had an older sister and when she disappeared Kester stepped into the breach.”
“It was a week before my father retired,” Kester continued. “She went to the market and never came back. Everyone hears stories about the people who disappear, but we never believed it would happen to us, especially not as she was about to become the leader of the Council. We knew she wasn’t a natural Walker, so it wouldn’t even be easy for her to return, and our only option was to send some family members out looking for her, even though we didn’t think they’d find her. The Web’s so vast…”
“Add into that the time possibility of her time travelling,” Lucille said, wondering how she would have coped in the same situation. “Nothing about travelling the Web, especially by accident, is easy.”
“My father stayed on as leader for an extra month, always hoping, which gave me time to learn some of what my sister had already been taught, but eventually he had no choice but to stand down. He was ill and had been looking forward to retiring from a position he’d never wanted to begin with. From the day my sister realised that she was going to follow in my father’s footsteps she wanted to be the leader of the Council.”
“There’s a chance she still could, Kester. If Emrys has been travelling through time because Athare knew when he was going to be most needed it’s possible the same thing happen to your sister.” Lucille lent back in her chair. “What you need to do is try one of the other doors. There is going to be a reason you were chosen by Athare to be the current leader of the Council, so let that be your guide, rather than any feeling that the position isn’t truly yours.”
“You may not have believed you were meant to be the leader of the Council, but someone else did, and you’ve done so much good since you took over.” Lucille’s grandmother sounded as though she had a soft spot for Kester and Lucille couldn’t help thinking that there might have something between the two of them. “I know you keep saying you were just following in the footsteps of the leaders before you, but you didn’t have to. Being the leader of the Council, especially during a time when it’s obvious that things are changing, isn’t easy, and I wouldn’t have wanted to work with anyone else.”
“Jacinth…” It was easy to hear the embarrassment in his voice. “You never met my sister, so you can’t know that you wouldn’t have preferred to work with her.”
“Maybe, on another Athare, she did,” Lucille said. “There are multiples of every world and I don’t doubt that on at least one of them Grandmother worked with your sister.”
“I did and I have met her, Kess, so I know I prefer you as the leader of the Council.”
“How?”
“There are nights when I dream of one of the other Athares, one where I’m working with your sister in the same way I work with you, and I know it’s Athare showing me how different things could have been. You were the right person to take charge of the Council when you did. She… I never wanted to talk to you about this, because I know how much your sister meant to you, but if she’d been the one to take over things would have been very different.” Lucille heard her grandmother make a snuffling noise that she recognised, because she made exactly the same noise when she was upset. “She made mistakes that you didn’t make.”
“Why didn’t you want to tell me, Jac?”
“It’s obvious how much you miss her whenever you talk about her and the last thing I wanted to do was change the way you viewed her. She was a lovely person, but she went about things in a very different way to you.”
Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.