“I already know what your message will be, but leave it anyway.” Do you have any idea how much that annoys me? Of course you do. Not nearly as much as the fact that you so rarely return them.
I already know what you will say, and I don’t have to look into the future to know. You’ll say, “If you would just take a house in the capital, you could message me any time that you wanted.”
And I’ll tell you that I can’t take a house in the capital because I couldn’t stand to live under a roof. And I have so much work to do with the young ones when they make the grand jeté.
And you’ll know that although it’s true, it’s a lie. I’d move into the capital if I thought you would answer when I call. But we both know that you wouldn’t. At least this way, I can pretend that my timing was bad. How odd that it was better before, under the 5th Matriarch, when I dared not contact you. How odd that the last 17 years, since the Great Reveal, have been more empty than the thousand years that preceded them. 17 years of having to face the truth.
Her Eminence insulted me, or tried to, by saying I bore no fruit. I should have responded in the way I always have in the past – the Cu’ensali will never fruit, and the Cu’enmerengi will never have more than one trunk, and I must understand the ways of all of the Cu’endhari, not just my own people, in order to teach them. But I flew off in a furious rage, more at myself than at her. I flew off in a rage because she defended him. Because she loves him more than she loves Gyre.
I know that I resent him because of that. I try to keep it in mind when making my judgments. Those years I allowed him to represent Apple and Rose, I kept that in mind. But this time, I don’t think I was out of line.
This isn’t a social call, Elma. I really need your advice. What do you see? Will there be trouble? Was it right to bring the K’ntasari into the Convocation? I don’t think they’re Nau’gsh. I think they’re murdering animals from another planet. And I can’t believe Ashtara’s hubris in creating them.
I can’t believe his hubris in trying to alter the evolution our entire species. Two trees? And will others try the same experiment? I can’t believe that no young fool will follow. That young fool Ashpremma followed him into space.
Don’t say it. Don’t say my n’aashet n’aaverti isn’t strong enough to follow you into space. I just can’t. I’m not strong enough.
Not that you have ever asked me.
What is it that the Gyre shows you? What is it that entrances you so much I can’t hope to become it, duplicate it, mimic it? Or is your mind so destroyed from centuries of drug use that I can’t even sense your dreams anymore? Is it for the best that we’re apart, that the compass of my life remains the dream of a young girl, a dream that dissolved so many years ago?
Here’s what I’d like to think: you stay away from me because you know I’d follow you into madness. You think you’re protecting me. But I’d gladly follow you into madness.
Ashtara has gone mad at least once. He has more than one emanation of dubious stability. And Her Eminence grants them the title of prince, and brings them with her on affairs of state despite the ridiculous provocation of the media which ensues. She married him. She insisted that her marriage applied to that obscene second tree. Elma, I can’t be objective.
Most Cu’enashti would rather die than raise the subject of marriage. I can be so brazen because I know it isn’t even in the question. I’m not begging. I’m stating a fact. I can’t be objective.
At the very least, just tell me what to do.