5: Tired

Alexandrie was so tired.

It had been a long day and she’d created Scramble and Oat and they were in the room making the noises they always did, but

She couldn't hear them.
She couldn't hear anything. Not right now.

Sitting cross-legged on her bed, her fingers ached from how tightly she’d been holding Mysel’s hand.
If she stopped to think about it, she might have considered that maybe she’d broken a bone she was squeezing so tight.
Maybe she should apologise

And she
She hadn’t wanted to think of Grandmère up so late.

Bringing memories to Mysel hurt.
Not physically, but…
But she spent a lot of time avoiding certain memories to function, and
and here they were.

So even before she saw Grandmère her heart ached, her homesickness grew

Extreme as she focused deeply on important thoughts and memories. Mysel said he needed to be familiar with Grandmère to find her, so she’d done what she could to think of times she had been most… Grandmère.

And then he did find her and it was
It was
Was it Grandmère?

Was that her grandmother, in a room she knew with a cabinet she’d never seen open filled with weapons and repaired armour that
Armour that

Alexandrie was so tired.

She’d asked to see home.
She’d asked to see someone she’d honestly doubted she would see – someone who she presumed would be peacefully sleeping.
She’d asked to see someone she realised she knew nothing about.

Why hadn't Grandmère shown her the weapons?
Why not tell her?
Why not prepare her?
Why hide the truth of her journey?

Why lie?

Her mind’s eye couldn't help but trace across the patches on the armour. How worn it was. How destroyed the body it protected must've been. It wasn't until she got up to sit on her bed, not crawling under but sitting on top of sheets (despite saying she was going to sleep) that Mysel released his hand. Hers let his go only reluctantly.

Alexandrie was so tired 
and so young 
and so ill-equipped to do…
anything.

What had she done? 

Leaving home to follow something she didn’t know to she didn’t know where, leaving she didn’t know
who behind. 

How was she supposed to reconcile the stories she had been told with the things in that room? How was she supposed to trust that Grandmère had her interests at heart - that anyone did? Or maybe, how was she to know that she was doing the right thing? Or the wrong thing? There was no one to explain to her what to do and knowing that her grandmother had made one decision meant

Nothing
Now.

Somehow.

Knowing the same question would be asked again and she would have to answer it, or the same task would be expected or the same…something. 

Her eyes flickered across the wall before her as if words were written there, directions, guidance, hidden from the eye and if she just looked hard enough - but they were plain walls and she was no better off. The wall said nothing. It didn’t melt, there were no visions, no clarification and everything she learned made less sense than what she learned before. 

She wanted, so desperately, to say no. No more and sit here, trapped in her own mind forever to let her thoughts repeat and fold in on themselves over and over and over and even that felt wrong. 
But did it feel wrong because it was wrong or did the music in her head tell her it was wrong? How much of her thoughts, how much of what she felt, or saw or believed was based on the words of a woman trying to impress a child?

Alexandrie hated her thoughts as she sat crosslegged on the bed, one robin sitting in her cupped palms, one on her shoulder, whispering nothing she could hear into her ear and playing with her hair.

She hated the feeling of betrayal creeping up through her stomach to push at her eyelids. 

Alexandrie was so tired.