It was hard to meet Irvin's eyes. He made no effort to hide the looks of recrimination and betrayal he felt toward me. I understood why he might feel that way, but I agreed with the consensus of the Twelve. His actions had been careening out of control, only getting worse over the years. He was slowly becoming unhinged, and I was worried that he was following Mab into madness.
I wished, not for the first time, that I had that woman before me so I could wring her neck. The damage she had done, would take a millennium to undo. Irvin was not her only victim, just the one I was most intimate with. He had been unable to sleep peacefully, his dreams nightmare as he relived his torture, year after year.
I thought it likely he still woke up screaming in the dead of night, his soul tormented and fragmented by the evils Mab had been allowed to perpetuate. Even twenty years after her fall from power, her reach was still being felt. It was impossible to erase and repair the damages to a society by a Monarch that had ruled for hundreds of thousands of years.
Brigda had been tireless in her efforts to weave a fractured society into something healthy and whole, but the Seelie faction continued to bleed citizens as each year they renounced their ties and joined the Tuatha de Danaan. I was pleasantly surprised at how effective, patient, and compassionate Brigda was as a ruler.
But the Sidhe needed that patience if they were ever to heal and return to the children of Danu that were meant to be.
"I've thought long about where to send you," I said finally beginning a conversation that Irvin and I had both been skirting around. "I don't want to just banish you, brush you off, and send you to another world, letting you become someone else's problem.
"You are a member of House Teigh. The first member of my House. Something that will never change. I know there is nothing I can say that will soften this," I continued.
"Then why bother trying," Irvin said interrupting me. "It's not like I don't understand. I even agree that something inside of me is broken. Let's just get this over with."
"Alright, Irvin," I said soothingly, forcing a calmness to my voice I wasn't feeling.
"I've decided to send you to a planet controlled by the Hindu Pantheon. The healers on Derva they use a more holistic approach to heal the soul. They have perfected a style of meditation and yoga that I hope you will consider. Those methods have helped countless people find their center, to restore balance, and to regain control of the parts of their lives that have spiraled out of control."
"You want me to convert to Hinduism?" Irvin asked aghast at the very idea.
"Of course not," I assured him. "I want you to explore meditation and yoga. You will find that neither practice requires you to worship any of the Gods. The techniques are about stilling the mind, controlling the breath, and finding your center.
"I hope you can piece together those broken bits of yourself that you have lost. Rebuild the chalice of your soul that has shattered so that you can become the person you want to be, that you were meant to be, and not the person Mab created by breaking you."
"Do you think that any attempts to 'quiet' my mind, to center myself and repair my soul will be effective as long as I am reminded daily that Mab destroyed any chance I might have for children?
"When my mind is at rest, when I have those quiet moments to reflect, those moments of solitude and introspection, that is when the pain and humiliation of being castrated become most over-bearing.
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"I can no longer take my Kelpie form because if I do, everyone will see what she did to me," he raged. "I am less. My soul is broken because my body has been ruined."
"That is another reason to go to Derva," I suggested. "There you can change, embrace your Kelpie form once more. There will be no one that understands what was taken from you, there will be no one that is intimate enough with Kelpie anatomy to notice that you have been gelded.
"More importantly, they approach healing differently than the Sidhe. They do use spells, but they augment those spells with acupuncture and breath. I have read and seen case-studies that detail how certain Swamiji have had miraculous results with healing."
"You would have me believe that they could heal what you could not? That you are sending me to this Derva world for my own good?" He asked.
"Yes and no," I answered patiently. "I would have you investigate if what I have read is real, find out the truth of the matter, and if the case-studies that have been documented are true and the Swami are able to work miracles and restore you to full functionality, find a way to have the procedure done.
"But this is also punishment," I warned. "You will have duties to perform, and an office to run. You are the aide-de-camp of Ambassador Clive. He has agreed to allow you to join with the others we will be sending to Derva.
"As a new embassy, the task of setting up and establishing an effective outpost will fall mostly on your shoulders. The Ambassador will be too busy dealing with dignitaries to worry about trivial matters like land lease, building costs, and hiring local staff to supplement the guards and secretaries that will also be joining you."
"So, I will be forced labor, I thought you banished slavery from the Tuatha de Danaan," he sneered, his attempt at confrontation finally evoking a response.
"Slavery?" I demanded my anger so great that even he was shaken from the miasma of self-pity he argued from. He was finally paying attention, engaged in the conversation, aware after the fact of what he had said. The conversation to this point had been perfunctory on his part. Arguing for the sake of arguing, not really caring one way or another what his future might look like.
But this. His accusation of slavery was beyond the pale. I had built my Kingdom making sure that slavery could not and would not gain a foothold. To compare duty and honor with slavery beyond the pale.
"You have enjoyed the fruits of my protection, the benefits that come with being a child of House Teigh," I roared in anger. "Your actions and deeds ignored and excused because of that connection.
"In all this time you have not worked, you have done nothing to earn money, but the House has continued to pay your expenses. A stipend has been paid every month. Money to make sure you could eat, drink, cloth yourself, and travel as you would.
"In all that time, the House has never called upon you. Never demanded you fulfill your duty as a child of House Teigh.
"And now. When your actions have forced the Twelve to intercede, to find a way to save your life, you repay these years of largess that the House has afforded you with slights and insults?" I continued.
"I will not have it!
"Slavery? You will draw a salary during your appointment on Derva. We do not force this position on you. If you find you cannot or do not wish to accede to the Twelves' sentence. Then leave!
"Leave and find your way alone!
"The Universe is vast. The Pantheons control planets past counting. If your duties are so distasteful, go. I will not strike you from the rolls of House Teigh, but I will no longer fund your idiocy or vendetta.
"Be ready to travel to Derva with the Ambassador and his staff tomorrow morning or choose somewhere else. Either way, it will be many years before I welcome you back," I said motioning for my Guards to remove him and stalking from the room to my office in anger.
I know he didn't mean to say what he had, but sometimes you had to pull your pants up and take your medicine. I had coddled him enough. Time for him to leave the nest and either heal or not. Either way, he was responsible for his life, I would stop protecting him, allowing my actions to be guided by the memory of that lost boy broken and bloody that I had rescued from Mab's dungeon.
In the end, I had to realize that I wasn't responsible for what had been done to him, or what he had become. Mab tortured him. He embraced the demons and nightmares that tormented him. It was time, past time that he changes the trajectory of his life. I would see him as a productive member of House Teigh, despite his accusation of slavery.