36. Why Should We?

It’s been a while since we gathered in Evelyn’s dream sanctum. The idyllic little courtyard is usually quite comforting, but tonight the dark skies and pouring rain reflect both the real world weather and our sullen moods. Allie’s buffet table is covered to protect it from the rain, while ever-practical Violet has simply elected not to bother conjuring her usual notes and whiteboards. Maggie, meanwhile, avoids thinking about her problems by burying herself in her studies.

Evelyn sighs and casts a sidelong glance at River, who twirls happily with her arms outstretched and mouth open, allowing droplets of rain to splash on her tongue. At least someone is enjoying herself.

“I didn’t call us all here just so that we could all mope in our own private corners,” Evie complains.

“You didn’t exactly give us a choice,” Maggie grumbles. “Just dragged us all in here for whatever the fuck this is.”

Despite her peevish tone, there’s no malice behind the words. Maggie knows what this is about, and even appreciates Eve’s initiative, but that doesn’t make her any happier to be here.

“What is this about?” Allison asks. “And did you have to make it rain? I don’t know how to just magically stay dry like you and Mags do.”

“The rain isn’t hers,” River points out.

All of us wait for further elaboration, but once it’s clear that none is coming, Violet clears her throat to break the silence.

“It seems obvious enough to me why Eva would call a meeting between us,” she says, wiping a rain-soaked lock of hair out of her eyes. “If anything, this might be overdue.”

Allie huffs irritably and tries to shelter herself from the rain by ducking beneath a tree.

“Well it’s not obvious to me,” she complains. “So maybe just stop beating around the fricking bush already.”

This isn’t quite how Evelyn hoped it would go, but it’s also not as bad as she feared it might be. Or at least, not yet anyway. The setting really isn’t what she would have preferred, but like River said, the rain isn’t her choice.

“Allie, you’ve been fuming for days about Violet and Maggie’s decisions,” she says. “You’ll barely talk to them. We can’t go on like this, especially when we’re about to start our voyage.”

Allison frowns for a moment, but then runs a hand through her wet hair and sighs.

“You’re right,” she concedes. “We’re running out of time to fix things.”

Evie winces at her words. When sharing dreams, it’s difficult to hide our thoughts and feelings from each other. Not quite to the point of perfect mind reading, but enough to tell that Allie does not think she carries any blame for our current predicament.

“Fix things?!” Maggie snaps. “Allie, you can’t just throw a fucking tantrum every time you don’t get your way!”

“You don’t even know what my way is!” she retorts. “Neither you nor Vi even bothered asking me. In fact, you outright ignored me when I was trying to help you!”

“Maybe I just didn’t want your fucking help, Allie!”

Before they can escalate any further, Evelyn steps between them and holds her hands up in what she hopes is a placating gesture.

“Hold on, please,” she interjects. “We can discuss the specifics in due time but first—”

“Why should we?” Vi cuts in.

All eyes fall on her, sitting in the muddy grass and soaked to the bone, but entirely unbothered by it. She looks up with a blank expression and shrugs.

“Normally I would agree that we should consult each other about major decisions,” she continues. “But that’s not what you’re asking for. You want us to consult you, Allie. I didn’t see you going out of your way to ask us about going to the Blessed Lands.”

“None of you argued, either,” Allison points out.

“Does the fact that we agreed excuse the fact that the decision was made for us?” Violet asks.

“It’s not the same!” Allie argues. “You could have raised objections at any time and I would have listened.”

“Sure,” Maggie grumbles. “Then come up with a million reasons for why we’re wrong and stupid and talk us back around to your way.”

“That’s not fair!”

“It sure fucking isn’t!”

This is falling apart at an alarming rate. Evelyn is on the verge of panic as our argument grows more heated. It’s about so much more than just a few disagreements or decisions. There’s an entire lifetime of built-up resentment weighing down on us, and Ev feels like an outsider in her own sanctuary.

The dream starts to flicker and break apart until Reverie puts a gentle hand on Ev’s shoulder and offers an encouraging smile. She returns the smile gratefully and takes a deep breath.

“Stop!” Evelyn shouts, cutting through the rest of our arguing. “This is going nowhere because none of you are addressing the actual problem!”

Maggie crosses her arms and sneers at her, the earlier appreciation drowned by her rising ire. “And what the fuck would that be, huh?”

Evelyn clenches her fists in a vain effort to hide her shaking hands. It seems unfair that she’d be subject to such physical responses in a dream.

“That you all want the same thing,” she says. “It just has a different shape for each of you. No, for each of us.”

This isn’t the first time we’ve had this kind of argument, and it probably won’t be the last. If we don’t prepare ourselves to deal with disagreements like this gracefully, then they’ll only get worse and worse.

“Independence,” Evelyn continues. “All of us want to be able to make our own decisions. To do the things that make us happy. To find, as Msshi’s people describe it, our own paths. That was what our journey with Lady Talla was about.”

“Yeah, obviously,” Allie agrees. “But that has nothing to do with selling out Jira’s tribe to Shaa, or encouraging Talla to tactlessly destroy her family’s reputation on some insane power trip!”

Vi and Maggie bristle at the one-sided framing of their decisions, but Evelyn preempts them.

“Doesn’t it?” she asks. “However you may feel about those decisions, Violet and Magdalena made them independently. And therein lies the heart of our conflict.”

How can any of us have independence when any decision we make is also made on behalf of the rest? It’s an impossible problem—a paradox. A puzzle without a solution, and not even the bizarre and twisted minds of Maggie or River can answer it. But to Evie, a woman who was raised to put her faith before everything else, the solution is simple, familiar, and utterly terrifying.

“We are not just multiple people sharing a body,” she says. “Nor are we simply a single person with multiple minds. We are both. I am Evelyn Clanless—we are Maev. The two are inseparable, and any act I make as one is also made as the others.”

Allie crosses her arms and frowns. “Isn’t that exactly my point though?” she argues. “Vi and Maggie weren’t just acting on their own behalf. Their choices affect all of us!”

Eva shrugs. “So do yours, and mine, and even River’s—when she cares to make them. If any of us are to have any freedom at all, then we must be allowed to make those decisions, even if the others disagree.”

“That’s not very practical,” Vi notes. “Sometimes we’re going to have mutually exclusive pursuits, which is the exact problem we’re facing now.”

“I’m not saying that we should abandon all discussion and cooperation,” Evelyn says. “But we must allow ourselves to be more flexible. To...’go with the flow’ as River likes to say. Trust each other to make decisions—even on our behalf—and find ways to reconcile those with our wants and needs as a collective.”

It’s an odd thing, to realize how little we trust ourselves. Trusting a stranger isn’t so difficult when it’s expected that one can’t always know the inner workings of their mind. But those same barriers become fearsome hurdles when found within. We share more than any true strangers ever could, which makes every uncertainty so much more glaring. Evelyn has struggled greatly with uncertainty lately, but as ever her shield against that uncertainty remains the same—faint and flickering as it may be.

Faith. A belief, beyond mere knowing, in something greater. That the Goddess has a plan for her, that her existence has meaning, and that no matter how strongly we may disagree with our other selves, we work together—as one and as many.

“That’s a nice sentiment, Evie,” Allie says, “but are you really saying that you’re going to trust Maggie to make decisions for you?”

Even Mags raises an eyebrow at that, not bothering to take offense to the obvious implications behind Allie’s words.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Evelyn replies with a bitter smile. “Magdalena has always been considerate of me, even when the rest of us—myself included—were not. There’s nobody else I would trust more to act on my behalf.”

Maggie blinks and looks away, failing to hide her embarrassment from the rest of us.

“It’s the decisions she makes on her own behalf that I’d call into question,” Eve adds.

“Y-yeah, well, uh...” Maggie stammers. “Fuck you too!”

Eloquent as always. While that was clearly not the response anybody expected, Allison isn’t quite deterred just yet.

“That still doesn’t excuse what they’ve done,” she insists. “The consequences of what we do here could go way beyond just us.”

That much is certainly true. None of us are happy about giving Shaa a win of any kind, and the war looming on the horizon is a terrifying thing.

“Allie, do you think that Lady Talla is such a fool that she would act exactly as recklessly as Maggie suggested?” Evie asks.

“Well, no, she’s smarter than that,” Allison admits.

“And do you believe that Violet’s advice to Degala’s elders is in the best interests of the tribe?”

“I mean, probably,” she huffs. “But there’s got to be a better way!”

It sounds weak, even to Allie’s own ears. A half-hearted plea rather than a reasoned argument.

“There isn’t,” Violet sighs. “Not unless you want to start the war early, right here in Degala’s land. They’re not strong enough to oppose Shaa directly. Honestly, the sabotage plan isn’t a bad idea.”

“You don’t know that!”

It’s an argument they’ve already had, but Evelyn steps in again before they can get too far into it.

“It doesn’t matter, Allie,” she interrupts. “She made the best decision she could in the moment. You are allowed to disagree, but what right do you have to overrule her?”

Allison still forgets sometimes that she is not the “first” among us. Not as a host, a leader, or the “original.” She is one voice among many, no lesser or greater than the rest of us. She gets a say, of course—we all do—but she doesn’t have authority over us.

“I’m not trying to overrule her!” she insists. “But shouldn’t a decision like that at least be put to a vote or something?”

“Does that not imply that every important decision must still involve you?” Evelyn points out.

“That’s not—I’m not—oh, gosh dang it...” Allie sighs. “Am I really doing it again? I’ve been trying not to!”

But she does have to try. It is an effort, and not always a successful one. Her reflex is still to put herself first, to think of herself as the center—not just of us, but of everything. It hurts to be reminded of that.

“It’s your nature to be assertive,” Evelyn replies gently. “To take control and be decisive where the rest of us might falter or dither. That’s a strength, not a weakness, but it must be tempered just as much as Maggie’s ambition or Violet’s pragmatism.”

Or...or perhaps Evelyn’s faith, though she hesitates to speak as much out loud. We all share the understanding, however. It’s not enough to just cover each other’s weaknesses—we also check each other’s strengths.

“I’m sorry,” Allison sighs, slumping against her tree in defeat. “I still don’t think you made the right calls, and I wish you would have asked me first but...Evie’s right—you’re not obligated to. And it was wrong of me to hold it against you.”

The pouring rain lets up slightly as the clouds above begin to part. Allison looks up and smiles sadly.

“Can you all forgive me?”

“Fuck no!” Maggie sneers. “Ask again after I’ve had, like, at least a week or two to hold this one over your head.”

Allie chuckles weakly and shakes her head. “Yeah, fair enough. I guess I asked for that.”