Chapter 11: Free, But Not Quite
“If we had to vote on going back home,” Anemo suddenly said, handing everyone a square of chocolate, “how would you vote?”
“What do you mean, ‘how would we vote’? We are going home, Anemo!” Mistral replied instantly. “Spend more time in... in this barbaric, archaic place? Are you joking? Just breathing this air—which is far from pleasant, I might add—is quite enough, let alone thinking about all the other privations...”
“Keep your voice down, Mistral!” Aeolus interrupted. “Can you not see the ‘communication connection’ is broken? Wait until he takes Siro-Sirocco in his arms again, and then we shall vote!”
Mistral rolled his eyes, thoroughly annoyed. He caught his piece of chocolate between his teeth, leaped onto the bunk where Sirocco was sitting, and nudged him.
“Stay close to Anemo, kiddo! Do you remember how quiet Miss Remi used to keep next to Anemo when she was a cat and we had things to discuss?”
“Yep!” Sirocco replied in his high-pitched child’s voice.
“That’s what I like to hear!”
Sirocco popped the square of chocolate into his mouth. Suddenly, it didn't seem like such a brilliant idea to play with it before eating it anymore. He then scrambled onto the lap of Anemo, who had just sat down on the bunk, and clung to him tightly with both hands.
“Let’s vote then!” Remi said, smiling at the instant family scene—a family where Anemo looked every bit the caring, responsible father. “Hand or paw up if you want to leave right now!”
Everyone raised a hand or paw immediately to go back home, except for Sirocco, who refused to loosen his hug.
“Sirocco, aren't you voting?” Anemo asked him gently.
“I want to stay a bit longer! I want to play with Boo! If we go home, I won't be able to... ‘traform’ like this... whenever I want.”
“That is also a point of view,” interrupted Aeolus, who had not even tasted his chocolate yet. He was merely sniffing it with his eyes closed, inhaling the aroma as though it were the most expensive, finest perfume of all time. “Do you not miss Fleur? I thought she was your favourite...”
“Oh, Tufty!” the redhead sighed. “I’ll go back to her after I’ve played with Boo just a little bit more!”
“We voted to go home, kiddo,” Anemo continued softly. “You can choose to stay here with Boo or come with us. What do you choose?”
“Okay, I’ll come with you... but didn't you guys say we have to practise the ‘traformation’—I mean, the departure with the retina? Or... what exactly are we supposed to practise, Aeolus?”
“Kiddo!” Aeolus replied like a wise man, his eyes still closed as he inhaled the cocoa aroma. “First of all, it is pronounced transformation, not ‘traformation’ as you say. And secondly, it was not about a departure with the retina... that would make no sense whatsoever. Remi and Anemo told us about printing the image onto the retina. Do you understand?”
“Oh, mon Dieu! Now I realise that in this barbaric reality, we have no internet!” Mistral gasped. “What do we do? Which images are we supposed to...”
“Use your imagination, mon frère!” Aeolus chided.
“Aeolus! Are you turning French on us now, too?” Remi asked. “Let Mistral be our only Parisian... born in Dublin!”
“Never mind, we’ll practise inside, in the cave,” Anemo whispered, rubbing Sirocco’s back in a fatherly gesture. “Let’s pack up! My tablet still has some battery left, and I have a few images of the cave from our times saved on it...”
“The important thing is to step outside this room without raising any suspicion.”
Mistral snapped back to attention.
“How lucky that we have images, ma belle! Grab your gear and let’s scarper! Anemo, put the kid in the sling carrier where you used to have Remi, stuff Aeolus into your pocket, and once we're in the cave, we had better tie ourselves to one another. Right?”
***
Remi, leading the line and dressed in the clothes Eithne had brought the night before, slowly opened the heavy door of the flesch, hoping for a discreet getaway. But the raw reality of the fort hit her right in the face without any warning.
The fort—which to their ears had been mere background noise, filled with all the usual sounds of the inhabitants' daily lives—completely rushed in on them... No, not with weapons, nor with hostility, but with offerings, each one stranger than the last.
Everyone wanted to get on the good side of the cave gods—or rather, to avoid getting on the bad side of capricious and vengeful deities.
Remi immediately grabbed Anemo’s hand and, without taking her eyes off the crowd waiting for them, stood up a little on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear:
“What do we do now?”
In front of them, in a messy line, stood people—local inhabitants with pale, earthy faces, looking like clay statues in shabby clothes, each clutching to their chest some of the little they had to offer as gifts to the “gods”.
“Brr, the Famine Memorial from Dublin has just materialised right in front of us,” Anemo whispered, almost hypnotised.
“From a historical point of view, you are not correct—” Aeolus began.
“Shut up, Aeolus! The man is not speaking from books or from a historical point of view right now!” Mistral cut him off instantly, stopping a potential speech in its tracks. “These people... clearly we didn't see them properly at the wedding yesterday, but they look like ghosts! Look at them!”
A woman with a face lined with deep wrinkles threw herself prostrate on the ground at Remi’s feet. Her bare arms shook, stretched out as far as they could go in front of her, clutching tightly between her knotty fingers a honeycomb from which thick drops of honey had begun to trickle, like amber tears.
The woman was murmuring something almost mumbled, but Remi understood that she was waiting for a blessing.
“What do I do now, Aeolus? From a historical point of view... am I allowed to refuse?”
“Heaven forbid! It would mean you are angry with them.”
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