Chapter 11: Free, But Not Quite
“If we had to vote on going back home,” Anemo suddenly said as he handed 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 and archaic place? Are you joking? Just breathing in this air... which isn't exactly pleasant, is enough, let alone thinking about all the other things we're missing...”
“Keep it down, Mistral!” Aeolus interrupted. “Can't you see the ‘communication connection’ is broken? Wait until he takes Siro-Sirocco in his arms again, and then we'll vote!”
Mistral rolled his eyes, annoyed. He took his piece of chocolate between his teeth and jumped onto the bunk where Sirocco was, nudging him.
“Stay close to Anemo, kiddo! Do you remember how quiet Miss Remi used to stay 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 a good idea to play with it before eating it anymore. Then he jumped onto the knees of Anemo, who had just sat down on the bunk, and held onto him tightly with both hands.
“Let’s vote then!” Remi said, smiling at the instant family scene—a family where Anemo was a caring and responsible father.
“Hand or paw up if you want to leave right now!”
Everyone voted immediately to go back home, except for Sirocco, who didn't let go of 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 ‘tranform’ like this... whenever I want.”
“That's a fair point,” interrupted Aeolus, who hadn't even tasted his chocolate yet. He was just smelling it with his eyes closed, as if inhaling the most expensive and finest perfume of all time. “Don't you miss Fleur? I thought she was your favourite...”
“Oh, Tufty!” the redhead sighed. “I'll go back to her after I play with Boo a bit more!”
“We voted to go home, kiddo,” Anemo continued. “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 ‘tranformation’—I mean, the departure with the retina or... what are we supposed to practise, Aeolus?”
“Kiddo!” Aeolus replied like a wise man, while still keeping his eyes closed and inhaling the cocoa aroma. “First of all, it's pronounced transformation, not tranformation like you say. And secondly, it wasn't about a departure with the retina... that wouldn't make any sense. 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 don't have internet! What do we do? Which images are we supposed to...”
“Use your imagination, mon frère!”
“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 fatherly. “Let's pack up! My tablet still has battery life 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 move! Anemo, put the kid in the sling carrier where you had Remi, put Aeolus in your pocket, and once we're in the cave, we'd 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 reality of the fort hit her right in the face without any warning.
The fort—which to their ears had just been background noise 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 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 gods.
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 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're not correct...”
“Shut up, Aeolus! The man isn't speaking from books or from a historical point of view right now! These people... clearly we didn't see them properly at the wedding yesterday, but they look like ghosts! Look at them!” Mistral cut him off instantly, stopping a potential speech in its tracks.
A woman with a face lined with deep wrinkles threw herself face down 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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