fandomania | The Adventure continues...

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Our hatchlings:

I didn’t get any sleep that night. I spent the night reviewing my own actions and what I should have done as opposed to what I actually did.

Up until I met Donal, my life had been controlled and planned by my father and by my first husband. I didn’t have to make any choices. I just did as I was told to do and accepted the cruelties that they gave me. When my children started arriving, I based my life around them and did my best to protect them from my husband. I endured his abuse because dying wasn’t an option. I had to live for my children. When the Georgists attacked and conquered Freedonia, I had a chance to escape, not only the Georgists but also the horrible life that I was forced to live. For the first time, I was given the chance to make choices, not only for my life but also for my children. The experiences that I had during my flight showed me how unprepared I was for making choices. I made very few and depended so much on the help of others. Without them, I, and my children, wouldn’t have survived as we did. I can see that now.

I was very fortunate when I met Donal. While he always tells me that I was his savior, because I freed him from slavery, the truth of the matter was that he saved me. His love, his help and his support was always there for me and he helped me recover my life and learn to live again. He taught me that there was such as thing as love and how beautiful it was. He made me want to live life, not just for my children, but for him and for me.

And I must not forget Orlando, a dragon who gave up his comfortable life to help me and protect me and guide me in many ways. Without him, I would have died many times. He is the father that my father should have been, but wasn’t. I thank the ghods every day that he agreed to come with me on my journey.

I have grown to love all of Donal’s family. They are the warm and loving family that I should have had. Only my grandmother gave me as much love and happiness. I lost all that when she died. I don’t want to lose this family either.

I realized, as I lay awake that night, what poor choices I had made. Not in doing what I did, but in shutting out my loving husband from them and not sharing them with him. Whether the outcome would have been different, I didn’t know for certain. But I should have included him in the making of those choices. I needed to make amends for that. How I was going to reconcile what the direction of my life was being pushed to go towards and what directions Donal wanted our life to be like, I wasn’t certain. But I needed to talk and share and make decisions with my husband.

When dawn arrived, Donal still hadn’t returned to our bedroom. There were so many things to do. But they could wait. Everything would continue without me. It was more important for me to find Donal and to work on our marriage and our life together. There were so many decisions to make and I just didn’t want to make them alone, despite their importance to me.

I got up. I took a quick bath and got dressed. I knew where to find Donal, where he always retreated when he was upset: his studio.

As I left our bedroom, I could hear the signs of life and people awakening. I could hear Yusaf fussing and wanting his morning feeding, but I decided that the nursery maids would just have to deal with him without me, for once. I slipped out of the house by the back door and went to Donal’s studio. His door was closed, but unlocked, so I entered.

I found Donal sitting on the floor in the corner of the studio. He was nude. He had his genitals cupped in his left hand. In his right hand was a knife. His eyes were closed and the look on his face was that of anguish and self-loathing.

“Oh ghods, no!!!” I screamed and ran to him. “No! Don’t do it!!!” I grabbed his right hand and, after a brief struggle, he gave in and let me have the knife, which I threw away across the room.

When I looked at him, I could see all the pain and anguish he felt. “I don’t know how you can love me or touch me, after the horrible things I did to you last night.” Donal gave an ironic laugh. “Here I railed at you for breaking a promise and I then do worse and hurt you, do you harm and break all the promises that I have given you. I am no man. I am a monster. I don’t deserve to live. I don’t deserve to be a man. I am so, so sorry for what I did to you. Truly I am. And, although it isn’t an excuse, because there is no excuse for my behavior, but I have no idea why I did it. I felt angry and disappointed with you when you came back to bed. I wanted to let you know how much I hurt when you excluded me. But somehow that changed. I literally started seeing red and my anger swiftly became rage and fury. It wasn’t like anything that I have ever experienced before. I don’t know why it happened or what triggered my fury. I just know that it changed and that I had the overwhelming desire to mate with you.”

“I understand, Donal. I do and I forgive you.”

“You do? Why? My actions are truly unconscionable. I am as bad as Jaizel was. How can you forgive me?”

“I do because I know you; because I love you; because I know that you were being coerced into doing what you did.”

“I was? How was I coerced? I don’t understand.”

“Believe me when I say that I have been raped repeatedly by a monster who truly loved what he did. And what you did to me really wasn’t even close to that. I know that rape is less about sex and more about domination and the desire to impose fear and anguish upon another. Sex might be the format that a rapist uses, but it ultimately has nothing to do with sex. You mated with me last might and failed to think of my pleasure. I will give you that, but the desire to impregnate me didn’t come from you. It came from my curse.”

The look of surprise on Donal’s face replaced his anguish and loathing. “How can you know this?”

“Because of the bracelet. If you had really wanted to rape me, you wouldn’t have bothered with removing the bracelet. We have had enough arguments in the past whenever I have gotten pregnant, that I know you truly don’t want more children. For you to suddenly change your mind would be a very radical thing for you to do. When I realized this, I realized that despite the protection that Deivė placed on me, she must have overlooked a loophole that allowed my curse to influence you into accomplishing its purpose. It needed someone to remove the bracelet and get me with child. You were the perfect instrument for it, especially since you were angry with me. It manipulated you. It forced you to act outside your normal parameters. That is why I can forgive you. I am having a harder time forgiving myself for getting cursed in the first place, for being the cause of so much hurt and strife, for overlooking your feelings that got us into this situation.”

“Oh, love, this is all so overwhelming. I guess that we have to learn to forgive each other and also ourselves.”

I took Donal into my arms and held him close. “We are quite the pair, aren’t we? I suppose if you had known how difficult it is to love me, you wouldn’t have begged me to free you…”

“No, love, you are wrong. I would have begged you even harder. Despite all the problems we have had, despite all the anguish and pain we have gone through, I still wouldn’t trade our life and love together for anything else.”

We sat there for hours talking and holding each other. When we realized that we needed to make an appearance to the family and get on with the duties of our lives, we stopped. I still hadn’t told Donal about the crown and what it would mean to us. I wanted to do so when he was less overwhelmed and more ready to understand and contribute to decisions that needed to be made.

While Donal was dressing, I started looking at all the statues that were displayed in the studio. He had been very prolific while I was away. A disturbing amount of them were depictions of me in various poses.

When he was fully dressed, Donal noticed my interest. He said simply, “Pahpey got me an agent who has managed to sell my work to many different people, even overseas. And they are paying good money for my work. It is amazing and humbling at the same time. I am starting to make enough money that I could support you and all our children like I once promised you I would.”

“Do you want to leave here and live on our own?”

“No. Not really. But it is good to know that we could, if we had to.”

“Yes, indeed. I don’t want to leave either. Your family has taken me in and given me love and acceptance the like of which I only felt with my grandmother. I never wish to be isolated and alone again.”

Pahpey walked into the studio just then. “There you two are. I was beginning to wonder what happened to you. It isn’t like you to miss meetings and forget things.”