k_a_webb | The World Walkers: Quiar: The Case of the Counterfeit Enchantments (part 10, 7th continuation) (Reply)

Lucille shook her head. She couldn’t truly believe Jarek, but she had seen for herself how much of a difference her being there had made, so she couldn’t disbelieve him either. Life had changed for everyone in Seahorse Port, thanks to the counterfeiters and the Moonjumper who was trying to fix things, and it had changed most for her, as she was beginning to really understand why most of the races looked at all of the Moonjumpers woth suspicion. They’d all been through terrible times that, if a Moonjumper was even there, no one had helped them with, even if they had petitioned the Council for it, which meant the worlds viewed them as being almost entirely useless, thanks to the fae. Hating it wasn’t going to change anything, although the end of the fae hopefully would – then the Moonjumpers would have more control over what they were doing with the abilities they’d been given.

That was if the Moonjumpers wanted that freedom. Lucille knew that many of the people she worked with thought it was right that the Moonjumpers witnessed events instead of becoming involved in them, because becoming involved was something they seemed to believe meant everyone would take sides. Moonjumpers would be fighting Moonjumpers in order to make certain that their faction came out on top. No one she worked with seemed to believe that they’d be able to stay neutral, which was fine in cases like the one she was dealing with, but not when it came to something like the war on Beshaki. Having Moonjumpers take side in that case would have been a disaster.

Sighing, Lucille looked around at the battle again, wishing things were simpler for them all. She hated that people she cared about had been harmed by the counterfeiters and she hated the people she didn’t had as well, even those who viewed her as a nuisance who was causing more harm than good. That was the minority, fortunately, but that was something else the Moonjumpers would have to deal with, if they chose to become something more than the people who recorded events. As she thought things through she came to the realisation that once it was all over she was going to have to help the Moonjumpers she could to prepare for what was coming and that was when she understood the way the leader of the shadow Council did things.

By only having a certain number of people connected to him or her they did make certain they stayed safe from prosecution, but they also took into consideration the way almost everyone worked. Someone would only trust five or ten people, normally, and if they heard about the shadow Council from the person they felt that way about they were more lkely to disbelieve in it than they were to accept that it really did exist. Lucille knew there were about five Moonjumpers within the Council who trusted her with all of their secrets and they were the ones she would tell, who could them pass it on to the people who trusted them. The one person she really wanted to talk to, unfortunately, wasn’t someone she could get to as easily as she would like, so that would have to wait until she had the time to spend a couple of days travelling to his hidden place.

“How long did the battle last?”

“As I had to watch it like this the first time it felt like hours. I wanted to be helping my fellow guards then, but I had no other option if I wanted to be able to help you and helping you really did come first, because that meant you would be able to help them. You were always going to see things differently to me as well, so I was certain this was the best use of my time. Of course I did realise I might be wrong and you might be totally useless – that seemed very unlikely after all the conversations I’d had with Durai about how wonderful you were.”

“Does anyone not talk about me like that?”

“Not the people who’ve met you, no, but those who haven’t, those who see you as nothing more than a meddling Moonjumper, don’t have anything nice to say about you. They truly believe, even after everything you’ve done, that the only reason you’re here is to make things harder for us, no matter what anyone says to them. I don’t think they’ll ever change their mind. People like that are stubborn.”

Lucille nodded. “I’ve dealt with people like them before. They hate all Moonjumpers and want to free the world from our belief that we are the ones who rule the Web. Of course they have no idea that we’re actually doing our best to combat the fae’s terrible rules.”

“My former race, sadly, were never the most logical of people, so when the realised something like the Moonjumpers existed they thought the most sensible thing they could do was try to control them, without stopping to think how best they could use them. They never understood that they could have used the Moonjumpers to control the rest of the Web, which is something I’m actually grateful for, as I dread to think what the Web would be like if they did realise that.”

“When I was talking to Meriwether he said there were a number of other Webs and one of those could easily be somewhere that the fae did that.” Lucille sighed. “There is so much I still need to learn, Jarek, about this Web, about the other Webs… I don’t know that I’m going to be able to do it in this lifetime, even if I do choose to remember the lives I lived before.”

“You don’t have to. Remembering your lives means that they will stay with you throughout the rest of your existance, so anything you learnt in those lives, anything you learn in this one, is with you for good. It can be difficult.” Jarek shrugged. “There have been times when I wished I didn’t remember my past lives, especially when I was a child and having to go through the same lessons I’d been through before, trying to pretend that I knew nothing of what I was being taught. Occasionally I managed to convince my parents that I was better off being homeschooled, as it would make things simpler for me, so I could learn something new. I would focus then on the world I was on – learning as much about its history as I could from their point of view. That was always fascinating.

“When you learn about them from the point of view of someone who doesn’t live on their world it always different to actually coming to understand who they think they are. There are so many differences between the two of them and, as I’d been a part of their creation, I saw how they’d evolved.” He looked around at the battle. “I helped Emrys with Quiar, even though my elder tried to stop me, so I know what these races were like before they came to understand themselves, and it’s wonderful to see how they’ve evolved. Of course there are certain things I wish they hadn’t done, but making mistakes is a part of life. I understand why they did the things they did. I understand why they found themselves in this position.

“Emrys was furious with the fae when they told him he couldn’t come here to help guide his races, because he knew what would happen. He knew that the races would make choices he could never be happy with and he wanted to stop the from happening, but he couldn’t, as the fae didn’t want him to be anywhere near the people he’d created for his worlds. They didn’t want any of the creators near the people they’d created, although I couldn’t understand why they were so against that. I always believed the most logical thing we could have done was to help guide our races, in the hope it would make things easier for them. No one listened to me. As I had been a part of the creation of the Web I wasn’t neutral enough for them to believe what I was saying to them.”

“Life would have been much easier for the races.” Lucille had heard stories about what it had been like for the three races of Athare, who found themselves on infertile continents. “The fae, though…” She shook her head. “I’ve never been able to understand the choices that they made, but then I don’t feel the same fear that they do.” She looked at Jarek. “You were one of them. Can you understand that fear?”

“No. I always thought it was better that we learned to live with what we’d created, because Emrys was certain he was right about how many worlds we needed and I trusted him more than I trusted my elder.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.