From: prauda@dol-guldur.hut.fi (Kristiina Prauda)
Subject: Castle (Kathrea): Small Joys of Life, part I
Organization: Helsinki University, Finland
Date: 15 Sep 92 14:22:51


This is the first part of two (only two, no more this time, 
believe it or not :-)).
Next part will be posted as soon as I get it ready. 


Kristiina
Official FireDancer of the RFA
prauda@dol-guldur.hut.fi

******************************************************************


Kathrea had received a room looking to the north, and so she was
able to sleep just as long in the morning as she wanted to - which 
really was rather long. She had always liked sleeping late, as well 
as staying up late. On her first morning back at the Castle she did
wake up at a reasonable time, but after first opening her eyes she
shut them again and lay a long time in her bed, enjoying the peace 
of the morning. It was good to be back, good to have the small things 
in life to enjoy - such as the feeling of shoft sheets on her skin, 
a good mattress under her, a serenely quiet room all around her, the 
pale golden light of the northern sky... It had been a while since 
she had enjoyed these things last, since for the last two weeks she 
had been wandering on dark roads that had as little to do with the 
pleasures of the senses and the real life as death itself. 

She had slept first, slept those weeks after the battle, as her mind
tried to cope with what she had done and seen and what the battle 
had forced her to remember. Then, as her unconscious had finally 
come to some sort of terms with it all, she had woken up. However, 
her unconscious may have been coping, but that was no indication
that her waking mind would be. It wasn't. Every waking moment was
agony, a looming black abyss just waiting for her to fall into it... 
just as it had been before she came to the Castle. 

She had killed again. She had caused death to both friend and foe,
and the fact that Shadow had miraculously survived did not help in
the least. She had gone out of control, let her power be loosened
through her emotions, and she had killed. She had seen death, felt
death, smelled death... feared death. Not her own death, for it 
still eluded her, as it had done for all these endless years, but
the death of those she loved. Death through her own failure, and 
not just one death, but many. 

She had remembered. 

She had remembered everything.

And so she had left the Castle, for unless she could somehow heal
her mind - or if not heal, at least clear it - she would finally
go mad. And even though the idea seemed perversely attractive -
was it not to be almost dead, if one were not to be oneself any 
longer? - she still resisted. There was still in her a deep need
to fight anything that tried to subjugate her under another order
than her own. She was almost ashamed of that need, for it was so
near to a need to cling to this meaningless life... but she held
onto it anyway. She was going to fight herself back into control 
and sanity, no matter what it would take. And the only way to achieve 
control over her nightmares was to embrace them first, to walk into
them and through them. 

She left, after having first asked back the brooch of the Three and
with that, having accepted back her memories. She walked and walked 
without food or sleep on winding roads of the Land of Romance that 
she did not know, until she finally passed onto different roads in 
a different world, the shadow-world between worlds, a dimension of 
the mind where memories and hopes and dreams and nightmares were 
alive and real. And she toiled the roads of that unmapped landscape 
for uncounted moments, for there is no time in that Land of Memory 
and Pain, and she fought her own fears and guilts and nightmares, 
until they fled her or submitted to her. Killed they could not be, for 
fears and agonies never truly die, but she could drive them away or 
learn to master them. And in the end, because she really had no other
choice, she did master them. 

She was not yet healthy, by no means, but she was again sane, and
moreover, as she began the long road back to the waking world, she
also began a road towards true healing. She did not know it yet;
did not want to know; but perhaps some part of her being did know. 
Perhaps... 

After that, she had been able come back to the Castle - where else 
would she have gone? The roads between worlds were yet dark, and
she could neither find the way back to her own nor muster the magic
to traverse it. The only home and the only security she knew at 
present was in the Castle. And in that place of happiness and joy
and love were the only people she could call friends in this time
and age - she did not even know how it related to the world she 
came from, and even if she did, was there anything in that world to 
go back to? No, her ties to what had been were severed. She was 
completely alone, and her only hope of changing that was in the 
Castle.

And so she had come back, to the people she only just dared to call 
friends, to seek help for her loneliness. Or so she tried to think, 
for she was still hanging in some kind of a half-state between life
and death - fluctuating between the need for one, then the other. 
Every moment was still an everchanging dance between light and 
darkness, peace and pain; her mood swings were even more violent 
than before the Battle of the ARCland... but at least she was strong
enough to grit her teeth and bear them. This was all the home she
had - and she was damn well going to behave herself there! 

But was she ever going to feel like home? Could she ever really 
trust and feel trusted here? Or would she live always under the
weight and shadow of the memory? Would her secret be an unbreakable
wall between her and these people? She did not yet know - she was
not yet quite prepared to face the possibility of shedding her 
secrets... not to these people whose love and acceptance she so
much craved. 

And yet it might turn out to be necessary: if not for her, then 
for others. Kathrea saw in her mind the expression in Silverwind's 
bright blue eyes upon her arrival the previous day. 

She had felt bad for being so harsh on him... but what else could
she have done? She didn't want even to think about it. Luckily, 
they had had a chance to exchange a couple of words before the 
dinner, and it seemed everything was all right, after all. They 
had both apologized, and moved on to chat about other matters, 
and she had felt again the comfortable warmth of talking to him. 
At least for her, it was not a romantic feeling, but one of true 
friendship and almost... family. 

It had felt much the same to her during the dinner feast, only in 
a more general sense. The food, carefully seasoned by Lady Elaine, 
was - naturally - a celebration in itself, the great hall was 
bright with candles and fires, and the people were happy and 
merry and dressed in beautiful, colourful clothes. When the 
dancing began, the whole of the huge grey stone floor seemed to
be bursting forth flowers of all colours. Kathrea didn't feel 
like dancing then, she simply sat and enjoyed the laughter and
warmth and caring around her. She had been starved of that kind
of pleasure for far too long. And as to dancing... well, there 
would be other dances... perhaps when she got a suitable dress
for it. 

The tunes of the dances played in her head and made her finally 
feel so energetic that she just had to get up. Kathrea opened
her eyes, stretched her limbs and then jumped on her feet in one 
fluid movement. This morning, the years were gone, washed away
in the pale light, and she was just a young girl again, with no
worries in the world. It would not last long, she knew it all too
well, but she was going to enjoy it as long as it did. 

The thought of dressing into the same gown she had worn on her 
travels made her wrinkle her nose in distaste, but then she noticed
another dress on a chair next to her bed. She had been too tired to
notice it last night, when she had finally got into her room. There
was a note attached to it, and it said: 

"Kathrea, 

We hope you will like this dress; it was made for Lady Elizabeth
but by mistake became too short. It would be a shame to see it
wasted, and we think the colour would be very beautiful on you. 
Lady Elaine has corrected it yet a little, so we hope it will fit
you well now. Please accept it? 

					Elaine & Elizabeth"


"Ohh... they are ANGELS!" Kathrea exclaimed, feeling tears gather
in her eyes in front of this unexpected kindness. It was exactly
like Elaine to notice things like that! She picked the dress up and
held it in front of herself as she looked into the mirror. It was
lovely, absolutely lovely with its wide hem and laced-up bodice... 
it was, well, it was just so very RED... She couldn't remember when
she would have worn pure deep red before - she must have, for it 
suited her very well (her hair, though reddish, was dark enough, and 
her skin was pale)... but not for ages and ages again. Somehow red
was a young and happy and carefree colour - but wasn't that exactly
how she felt this morning? 

Kathrea got herself into the dress and sat down to brush her hair,
all the time humming merrily. It seemed that there still were these
rare little moments that made life worth living for. 






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