8: Clarity and Confusion

Alexa wasn't sure what took her back to Voldo, but there was something soothing in the matter-of-factness of the gnome’s tones – the casual way she offered tea – the direct questions. Often people left her to make inferences about their behaviour or their words. Voldo, she was delighted to find, did none of this.

Which was fortunate, because she made the journey to the temple of Malpha in the strange place between drunk and hungover. By the end of the discussion it was definitely a sense of hungover given the headache that was forming behind her eyes. As she wondered (stumbled) back to the end, she thought about everything that had been said. About quiet prophecies and quieter adventures. She considered the cart leaving the erupting volcano of her vision, and how she hadn't seen faces. Other than the wall when they’d just met Heofonræsele, there were no faces and she… Shook her head sleepily, wincing as she stepped into broad daylight.

She knew she was missing something - she just didn’t know what.

Was all of it a prophecy? All the stories from Grandmère, all the visions, all the…everything? And the Anvil Heart Company were important here - they were heroes, but…but what stories could be told of a group that didn’t disturb the fabric of the world?

It was as though they were never there.

And yet there was a statue of the great Lucas Edgewater, active at the same time - from the same city…

He’d never come home. They had.
The loud prophecy. Big P. A distraction. A distraction?

And now Lucas was gone.
Alexa put a hand to her head. Not that Lucas. Unless…
La Chanson gave him power. What if it was to distract people from…her?
What if that was the same as before - that La Chanson had taken Lucas because he was needed to distract elsewhere…

The orks had a good relationship with the volcano - the sentient volcano? Why would a hoard of orks rush toward the volcano? The vision made less sense now. If anything, being called to it was something the orks could - should understand. La Chanson had shown her a number of things over her travels, but it never seemed to indicate time. How could someone in a vision from the past be familiar, given how far back it sent her? Why was all this information conflicting?

If La Chanson had called both Lucases, was this why she was travelling with Edgewaters - they were the right age to provide a distraction? Why was the Progress Confederacy where the stories took root? Of course, Grandmère was from the Progress, but…there were only so many stories circulating, or that she circulated, and Spider had said he hadn’t believed much in magic before they’d met. It obviously existed and was manipulatable, but so few people believed she could just use magic given to her. To everyone else it seemed as though magic was philosophical, but to her it was like…breathing.

Alexandrie still didn’t know why La Chanson chose her, but she was beginning to think that it was simply because Grandmère had told her the most stories and she had taken an interest. Something so simple as curiosity? Or was it that she was pliable, having been steeped in them her whole life? The thought brought bile to the back of her throat, so she pushed it away - Chevalier had said once that he would be dismayed to find he was not in control of himself and his decisions. Alexandrie had thought it strange to be unhappy with this - there was something soothing about others making difficult decisions for her - but now, head pounding as she walked through busy streets, she understood.

Mysel said Grandmère had needed to be excited for her. She’d had to be excited. Had she been compelled to tell Alexandrie stories as a child? Had she known what she was doing in telling them, or was she simply trying to indulge the child?

Had the Anvil Heart Company really been here, or was she being told she must stay quiet? Was it a warning? And what stories had Genofeva heard that she knew why they were going to the volcano? How could she know when Alexa hadn’t been told - when Grandmère (if she knew at all) hadn’t been able to tell her? And who was that familiar elf?

Too. much thinking for an exhausted, hungover adolescent half-elf who was apparently taking on more responsibility than she should be.

So what was she supposed to do with this newfound freedom? It was all well and good to tell her she was taking on too much responsibility, but to throw the concerns away was to leave her adrift. Getting drunk had been an attempt to forget, to be the adolescent she was, and all she’d accomplished was more thinking, but painfully. In truth, she didn’t know what she was supposed to do with the information that not everything rested on her shoulders. It wasn’t as though she could dress up and go to balls, or climb trees and play with birds all day. She couldn’t crawl into ponds and gather frog spawn, or read books about other places and other times when a volcano beckoned her closer and a plane hopping confusing woman wanted to slit her throat.

Whatever she was going to do - whether that was what La Chanson wanted or not - she had to do it soon.

Or else go to Genofeva and be done with it.

She still wasn’t sure which was worse.