[Child of the 7th Age]

Helen's Post

Phura came softly to Gamba's side and whispered, "I hear you've got quite a headache."

"Yeah, " Gamba whispered with an effort. Talking hurt.

"Sorry, " Phura said, gently laying his hand on his brother's arm.

"Yeah."

"What did you go and do that for?"

Gamba grimaced. "I thought... I wanted to see the place. I thought I wanted to find out what this new world of men was like. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about."

"Did you? What's it like?"

There was a long pause. Phura waited.

"I'm never going back."

Phura waited again.

"I hate it."

Phura waited some more.

"Seven of those horrible walls. I should have known."

"What? The circular walls?"

Gamba rolled over, and Phura heard him weeping. "They're all the same. All of them. Bird is right. One way or the other, we mean nothing to them. They either cheat us or they beat us up or tie us up or they sacrifice us. The round walls should have been a warning to me, and I was too stupid to see it."

Phura watched him quietly, and thought how much he had changed since Levanto's arrival at the tunnels-- and how little. "Mistress Nitir tried to tell you to stay put."

"She lived there. She said she liked it. That's why I wanted to see it, because she said it was a good place. But it's not. It's awful. And-- and if she was wrong about the city, then ... then what about the elves? "

Phura's eyebrows went way up. "The elves?"

"After what she did to us, I'm not sure I can ever trust an elf again. She worked so hard to free us. And then she tied us up again. And she was so mean to... to my mom."

"Come on, be fair. Remember what all the elves have done to help us. There's a whole fleet of them out there that have done nothing but help us for weeks and weeks. We can't blame them all for... for the ... for what she did to you."

"Bird says they're all the same. All the big people. So any elf would do it. Any of them would have tied us up. It's just what they do."

"I don't think Nitir believes that."

"Yeah, well, look what it got her."

Phura frowned, looking down at his brother, whose framework of belief had suddenly crumbled, and struggled to find something to say. Gamba no longer trusted men, elves, Piosenniel. And now he even doublted Nitir's judgement-- his own mother, Phura realised with a sinking heart. What did the boy have left?

Phura bit his lip, and suddenly his efforts to convince Gamba to follow the loves of his heart-- the elves, the forest-- did not seem so wise, and he wished desperately that his brother had become a hobbrim so that Phura could look after him. But it was too late. Had he been a fool?

He tried to think what Loremaster would have said, and something came immediately to mind. "Why is it that you could trust Nitir's love for the city and want to understand that, but you cound't trust her or try to understand her when she gave you a simple command, not to leave the ship?"

"Oh, stop talking like Loremaster, " Gamba said. But he wept miserably as he said it; and then he sat up painfully and slowly, and with an effort, threw his arms around his brother's neck.

Phura worked hard at his own self-control, and succeeded in hiding his own tears from his brother. But he was deeply shaken, and wondered if there was any way that he could possibly bring Gamba back to Meneltarma. He did not think there was, but he spent the rest of the day trying to think of one.

[ December 14, 2002: Message edited by: Helen (in the guise of Child of the 7th Age )]

[ December 16, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]