The World Walkers: Athare: Ianto: Talking to Mab (part 2)

[k_a_webb]

Part 1

“I know it’s not going to be easy, but you need to let go of the past. You can’t change what happened. The choices you made were based on the information you were given by people that you trusted.” Ianto felt the urge to reach out and squeeze Mab’s hand, to support her, but he didn’t think that would be appreciated. “Willow was young. Even though she did turn out to be right, in the end, there was a chance she might simply have been reacting to circumstances that she didn’t truly understand. Like the elders told you we had been through the same sort of thing in the past and the same thing could have happened.”

“Maybe.” Mab bit her lip. “Honestly, Ianto, I keep going over it in my mind, wishing that I’d listened to Willow, or accepted that the Griffins leaving meant something, or listened to my people rather than my elders. You were all certain that the world was ending…”

“We’d dealt with a lot, Your Majesty. Every day we were losing someone for no reason that we could understand and when we came to you, in the hope of learning why, all you did was send us away, telling us that everything would be all right. Then Willow’s fae left, so we knew something was wrong, but you kept insisting that there wasn’t a problem.”

“That was what I was being told. I was beginning to doubt them and Mother told me, more than once, that I should always listen to my elders. When I was running for election if was something I had drilled into me by both Mother and Grandmother, because they’d been Queen before, so even when they died it was something I couldn’t let go of, no matter how much I wanted to. Honestly, it was when I started losing my elders that I realised it was time, but I should have come to that conclusion much sooner than I did.”

“Do you think it would be easier for us if we were on Earth?”

“Yes and no. Having another race there, a race we know produces magic in such a way that we can use it, is a huge advantage, but here we have the freedom to do what we think is right. Of course there is a chance we’re making a mistake by creating the Web.” Mab studied him. “What are your thoughts?”

“About the Web?” Mab nodded. “I’ve spoken to Emrys, who believes that we are making the right decision, and I’ve listened to my parents talk in the evening about how worried they are about the choices that we’ve made. To me it sounds like they’re worried because they don’t understand what it is we’re doing or why we’re making more than five worlds, even though I’ve tried to explain it to them more than once. For some reason they’re more inclined to believe what they’re being told by the elders than they are anything I might tell them. It doesn’t matter that I’m actually creating some of the worlds – I can’t possibly understand what I’m talking about.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

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