From: prauda@dol-guldur.hut.fi (Kristiina Prauda)
Newsgroups: alt.romance.chat
Subject: Castle: KATHREA'S STORY (PART 4)
Date: 12 Oct 92 22:21:09 GMT
Organization: Helsinki University, Finland




How did I expect to accomplish it - loving two men equally? How
could I ever give them as much as I was receiving? But I believed
I could, I truly did believe so. Of course there would be pain -
that was inevitable - pain for both of them, and for me, there 
between the two, unable to decide, unable to let go... But I was 
willing to take the pain. It was just part of the necessary payment 
for having it all, for learning to love and cope and have the 
happiness I craved. And I believe it might even have succeeded for 
us - if only I had ever been satisfied with what I was freely given. 

That, I believe, was my true sin: not loving two men and wanting
to have them both, but always wanting more, always demanding them
to stretch their own limits and restrictions to suit my dream. My 
fantasy of a private heaven on earth... to have my beloved ones
always around me, sharing the love, being happy with that to make 
*me* happy. And now I think I wanted that perfection also to prove 
that I was not wrong and evil to want them both. 

I must explain to those of you who may not know this that in my
world, we believe in one God, the One who has created everything
<i]and is above everything in his creation, yet is able to love each
and every part of His creation individually. I was a religious
young girl, and I felt confused, even horrified by everything that 
was happening to me and inside me. I tried praying for guidance, but 
I felt that there was no answer, so I had nothing except my own
judgement to use. I thought that if I proved that we were happy as 
it were, it would be perfectly right. 

And so I demanded even more. I wanted them to stay friends and
become even better friends than before me, so that I could enjoy
their company at the same time. And not all my motives were 
selfish: I felt that Soron needed close friends - for he had none,
being such a lone wolf, unsecure of his place among the life at 
court and of people's motives at the Academy. I saw Ywarin would
have liked to be his friend still, even though he was very jealous 
by nature (Soron never was, nor could understand that emotion at 
all). He must have cared for Soron very much. But wizards in 
general tend to be a solitary lot, and Ywarin was short of friends, 
too. 

So I wished we could all three be together, and at least for the
time being, share our life - united by friendship even more than
by their love to me. 

Though to me, the difference between love and friendship has never
been clear. 

And as for them - it seemed I truly wanted too much this time. All 
they could agree on any more was that they loved me. There was never 
any doubt of that. But Soron did not want to trust Ywarin - not that 
he ever trusted people - and said that my temperament was quite enough, 
he could not deal with another stormily emotional person. And Ywarin, 
though he agreed with my wishes, was torn between several connected 
and yet separate emotions: bouts of irrational dark jealousy, stings 
of conscience for coming between his friends, and his resentment of
Soron's "coldness" towards me. In this web of conflicts and needs
and fears I tossed around and around, unable to reach the peace and
happiness that I was supposedly trying to create. 

I could handle Ywarin. Always could - that was why it was so easy
to be with him in the first place. He often stormed away in tears,
announcing that he could not take it anymore, but always he came
back, either because I fought him back with my words, or because
I waited, until he gave up and came by himself. I knew his game, 
his frame of world, and was able to play it, even to win in it. But
Soron was another matter. I had to keep fighting, reasoning, begging, 
pushing, cajoling, to get him do as I wanted - stay with me, stay 
with us, love me, be happy, come back again, like Ywarin, like me, 
love me, love me... He fought back with equal persistence, but his
love for me still kept him from leaving. His nature was too unselfish
to just walk away, if he could in any way be of help to me. But he
was suffering, probably the most of us, since ours was a world he
was not prepared to face: that of raw, naked, unsweetened emotion.

We did spend a lot of time together, most of the time that Soron
was at the Academy. It was as if there was no other alternative, as
if the pain was what life was supposed to be. At that time we also 
learned to share our minds in telepathy, so Ywarin and I could talk 
to Soron even when he was again back at court. It was a very tentative 
mindlink, restricted only to thoughts that we specifically wanted to 
transmit, so it did not breed much trust between us - quite the 
contrary, since we all knew we were hiding a lot and wondered what 
it was, then, that the others needed to hide...


This went on for some months. None of us knew what to do or how to 
break the vicious circle. The tension between us mounted, until 
people at the Academy began to avoid each one of us for no apparent 
reason: they could feel the furious energy packed inside us, fueled 
by our torment and anger and confusion. Soron appeared to be drawn 
behind a wall of stone into which I hammered my fists in vain. Ywarin 
was spiteful, even venomous, so much so that even his teachers 
avoided discussions with him. And I was like a huge misconstructed 
fireball, cracking and flaring and threatening to burst in every 
direction. My powers were in full use now, but I was not yet adept 
at controlling them, and since my magic has always been so 
fundamentally connected to my emotions, the dangers of the situation 
were indeed very grave. I am certain that the elders of the Academy 
of Wizardry sensed this, but they either could not determine the cause 
of the danger, or did not consider it a serious threat. Or perhaps, 
just perhaps, they may have thought that we would have to learn to 
deal with our crises on our own.

I do not know if they should have done something. I do not know
if anyone *could* have done anything. I still cling to the thought
that something might have been done, that the catastrophe could
have been avoided, but... I cannot be sure. 
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