Advent Story 2014: The Magi: Silvana: The Winter Solstice (part 2)

[k_a_webb]

A.N. Wrist still bad. Software arrival anticipated tomorrow or the next day.

Part 1

Kerilyn nodded, sobering. Even though the Magi were better than the Carne with healing magic it didn’t make what they were choosing to do easy – people were used to relying on the Carne. Going to the Magi with their weird salves and tinctures… Silvana knew it might never work, but she had to try, because that was the only way they were going to survive. It was easy to be self-sufficient, if you had the right skills, and that was something they had in abundance. Wasting those skills was what had annoyed the people who followed her so much. The Carne, had they actually thought things through, could have stopped the Magi from leaving, because it had been one of the hardest things they’d ever done. Being slaves didn’t change the fact they’d put down roots and Silvana had left behind people she cared deeply about.

“This is going to work.”

Silvana nodded. “I keep telling myself that and I believe it is, but there’s still this niggling doubt that we made a terrible decision when we left the Carne.” She shrugged. “I still don’t understand why you came with me. I know you say you love me. I thought you loved your family as much, if not more, as you loved me.”

“I did.” Kerilyn lent on the shovel. “The problem I had was them. They didn’t understand me. They couldn’t accept how different I was to them, because they viewed slavery very differently to me, and I was one of the people arguing that it was probably time we started thinking of you as something more than we were, otherwise we were going to end up loosing you entirely. I wasn’t wrong about that. I also wasn’t wrong when I assumed that you’d be the one they all turned to.”

“No, you weren’t. How did you know?”

“You were… dynamic. There was always something about you that I trusted and I knew if I wanted something done, and done right, then you were the person I needed to talk to. I wish I could have made you more than a slave, but that was something I wasn’t permitted to do. Loving you made everything harder, because I knew this would never happen there, and I was hoping this would work out for us.” Kerilyn smiled. “It did. That is something I am so grateful for.” She rubbed her distended stomach, which held the baby they were going to raise. “When I told you about my child I was worried you’d walk away.”

“Loving someone means sticking around when things difficult and I knew I loved you for a long time. I just wasn’t going to tell you, not when I knew we could never be together. Being a part of your life was more than enough for me, even when I found out you were getting married, and then you found out what we were planning. You have no idea how terrified I was at that moment, Keri.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.