I Wish

Chapter 36

That day was super easy. That was the day she tried to woo me with the benefits of being the Queen of Spring's best girl. Amazing food, quality service, and the creepy kind of being waited on. I know that it’s pretty rude to complain about the people who were serving you, even in the privacy of your own head, but they might as well have been robots. They didn’t speak unless spoken to, and wouldn’t look anyone in the eyes. Slave robots, or really oppressed ghosts, either way or any other for that matter it was still incredibly creepy. If you could overlook how unsettling all that was, then it was probably the closest to laying around and chilling out as we could get. Which was good, because I was still out of it.  I don’t know what kind of drugs they had on Nim, but I’m pretty sure I was never going back there again. I was still feeling the after effects, and it sucked.

The next day she dragged me through the admittedly beautiful nature, and pointed out anything my gaze lingered on for even a second, with the promise that if I was hers then everything I could see was mine. There was a waterfall that, in her exact words, birthed rainbows. The view was spectacular, the lit up the whole place, and then danced away in curling ribbons of light to wherever they were needed. The waterfall itself hit the river so hard that the air was filled with mist that sparkled in a sheen of colours. The river ran in from the Winter Court’s territory, and I was warned pretty strenuously not to go there. I still giggled everytime I recalled the tone she’d said ‘Birthed rainbows’. Everytime. She sounded so self-important and magnanimous, all formal and prideful dignity. It was ruined by the fact that I could see it for exactly what it was. A chance to say: See, look at what I’ve got. Look, look… Do you want to shaaaaare? Everything we did seemed to be geared towards showing me what I could have. One night we’d just sat and talked about where I came from. 

“So this pandemic, how deadly are we talking about?” she’d asked me curiously, and it was nice to know what she’d been pussyfooting around. We’d been talking in circles for about fourteen minutes now. My initial reaction to this question was ahhh? Yes. No… I have no f*****g idea.

“I guess it really depends on who you ask,” I replied to her humming, “It's… a hot mess really, and I haven’t been close enough to tell you what’s going on.” She shifted so we could get a better look at the moon, and it was easier to lean back against her. An arm wrapped solidly around my waist.

“Because you live so far away from other people,” she confirmed and I nodded, “So is there medicine for this thing?” Again: Yes. No. I have no clue. 

“There are drugs in other countries, and vaccines here,” I said, trying to stick to keeping any bias out. I’m fairly sure in Australia it was vaccinated or you’re scum who doesn’t deserve to be in public, at least that was the official line anyway. Whatever happened to medical treatment being between a person and their doctors? It was easier than you would imagine to keep my feelings out of it, because I still couldn’t form an opinion one way or the other. You’d have to have credible information that you could trust to do that.

“Do they work?” Ivy asked curiously. I thought of all the numbers I’d been sent, and all the different sides of the story I’d looked at from one extreme end of the spectrum to the other. Everyone in the world had an opinion, or at least enough of them that when they all shouted their conflicting opinions it was deafening. From the deeply crazy conspiracy theorists, to the fanatically obsessed with dictating other peoples medical treatment, to the wait-and-see crowd and anything in between. 

“There are lots of arguments that they do, and just as many that they don’t, but unfortunately all these people cherry-pick the information that supports there argument and tries to suppress or just downright trash the other person's response,” I explained with a sigh, “Or even more common the other person themselves. It makes it hard to figure out what’s real and what’s not. It’s all moot point anyway.” I considered explaining about posting and social media, and mainstream media but considering I hadn’t seen anything even remotely resembling media of any kind I wasn’t even sure where to start. Scrapping the idea before even opening my mouth. 

“You know that it isn’t here,” she said in an overly casual voice, “Anything that you’re restricted from, or stifled by, isn’t here. You could stay, and live a life where the pandemic is irrelevant.” There was a tiny part of me, screaming their head off like a bloody lunatic, that says HELL YES! In all the variations it can be said, and at the greatest volume. Ivy really had been on her best behaviour, and other than the small lack of wi-fi this place was amazing. And yes, I know that being so hopeful just because we were working things out right now wasn’t optimistic, it was stupid. I knew that, it was just like I said… things were working really well right now.

“I have a family,” I told her gently, and I was ashamed to say that it was probably my only objection right now. Things were going well, and I was allowing myself to get optimistic about the what if’s of a decision that I’d already made. She gave a gentle squeeze, without any further argument.

“Okay,” she said, and an alarm flew through me like a wildfire. In the back of my head that irritating song that was everywhere on tick toc started to play in the back of my head. ‘Oh no. Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no.’

“I just dropped terms didn’t I?” I groaned, mind racing a mile a minute, and a headache began to form, “That was me setting terms and conditions… No killing my family. No making anyone forget me, or me forget them. No inducing illness and hoping for the best, or unexplainable accidents.” I tried to think about anything else harmful that she could do to pull this off. Any loopholes that Ivy could take advantage of to do something potentially devastating to make me come and stay with her. On the account of having nothing to leave behind anymore.

“Do you really think I’d do that?” she asked, her tone dripping with hurt and offense. I snorted.

“If it got me living here with you? Absolutely,” I replied and I could feel her pouting, “Stop acting like this is unreasonable. I love my family. Hell you’d probably like them, if you gave them half a chance.” She doubted that, and as I considered what it would be like if she interacted with any of my family. I explained about Jeremy, and how he was just beginning to throw away the concept of gender appropriate. Throwing out all the crazy things we could do, and how Mark was a horror movie junkie. The more thrilling and full of gore the better he thought. I described the ways she would gang up on me with my mum, and how she might be the only person who was able to keep up with dad while he fluttered around the house. 

“And all these people have embarrassing stories and blackmail that they’d be happy to share with me, because they’re going to love whoever you love?” she clarified, tipping my chin up so she could look me in the eyes. The green of hers sparkling with so much excitement at the prospect it was hard to focus on answering her.

“Yep. They’ll think it’s fun, and they’ll definitely love you,” I assured her, and I was surprised at how quickly I promised her this. I didn’t have a guarantee. I just wasn’t going to doubt them after they were so great about Jeremy and myself. Seriously, that could have gone so badly, we are very privileged even if it should be a right. “So do you have any fairy family that I need to freak out about meeting?” I said keep the conversation going.

“I can still hear you spelling it wrong,” she grumbled, “Faerie. F-A-E-R-I-E. The difference between that and  F-A-I-R-Y is night and day. The latter needs the word tales after it for one. We’re fae, not whatever misinformation makes it into those human stories. It’s all propaganda and stereotypes.” Damn, so I guess it happened everywhere. I was hoping that no media made it harder to perpetuate things like stereotypes.

“I still don’t know anything about most of this. There are courts, four of them, and the group up in teams of two to… what exactly?”

“Winter and Autumn are in an alliance and Summer and Spring hold another, forming the Unseelie and Seelie Fae. In as much as the enemy of my enemy is my friend. If either one became victorious over the other then they’d turn on each other quicker than you could blink,” Ivy said after a moment to gather her thoughts, “They all have their own function and help their season to guard.” My first thought was that it sounded a lot like gang fights.

“So you’re all technically at war with each other?” I tried to clarify, because that was what it sounded like to me. The giggle she gave in response to that was patronising. Almost enough for me to pull away and get my own seat, but I wasn’t willing to be that b***h. The one who withdrew affection and attention because they’ve been offended. So I just sort of bit my tongue and let her find a way to answer that.

“No, we’re all perfectly polite, and working to run a circular system because the whole world spinning correctly is more important than our petty squabbles and wanting to be the ultimate ruler or power.” she said brightly, as if the very idea was funny.

“I thought you said you couldn’t lie?” I threw out confused, because there was no way that could be true.

“Nope. We’re perfectly polite at formal functions. We work together. The system is circular, and it is agreed that everything running is more important. That does not mean that being the ultimate ruler of the dominant power isn’t a priority. It’s all backstabbing, espionage, and denying affiliations when things get sticky. Which is hard considering we can’t lie, but it makes it that much more dangerous. Don’t ever assume that just because someone is being truthful with you that they’re not misleading you,” Ivy warns, resting her head comfortingly on the top of my head. I was glad, the bottom of my stomach felt like it had dropped out.

“That… frightening,” I said hesitantly. Trying to figure out how it was even possible to pull off what she was describing. It was… utterly terrifying to speculate about. Backstabbing and what sounded like schoolyard tactics, sure. Being able to pull it off while being forced to tell the truth? I’m starting to think that anyone that could pull that off long term was a proper sociopath. 

“Good,” she said firmly, “At least this time you’ll take me seriously.” Oh look at that, speaking of ridiculous to speculate about, we were back to the name thing. Only the memory of how bad Isaac had hurt me stopped me from arguing on principle. 

“Leave my learning curve alone,” I muttered embarrassed at just how wrong I had been.

“Huh… I’d never thought about it like that,” she murmured in response, and if only I knew the trouble that would cause. This woman was on a mission, and chillingly it was me. “You’re good now, right? No more terrible things that have to happen for you to learn… whatever you seem to think about what’s happening that you seem to find so unbelievable?” she tacked on louder, like I wasn’t a part of the conversation for her last comment. 

“You make it sound like it’s unforeseeable that I would have a problem with any of the new things being thrown at me, all of which I previously believed to be impossible,” I said, hating how I felt like an i***t because I’d had reasonable doubts. 

“It is,” she confirmed, and leavered us both up. Yeah, this whole conversation was going to be nothing but trouble later.