I write this diary not out of fear of what might come to pass but to have something unknown - something which is mine and mine alone. All that I am, I am giving to them - to my husbands, to my kingdom, to my people, and not least of all to my as yet unborn sons. If I do not keep this back, I will lose myself, and in the losing, they will lose me as well.

That sounds entirely too selfless. I'm not that selfless; it's that I don't want to be lost. I need something, a way to keep my balance. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Everyone says they know this and not to worry and how well I'm doing, but if they know I don't know, then how can they say I'm doing well? And if they're just saying it, then I can't trust anything they say about the job I do.

Okay. That isn't making much sense. I need to slow down. I need to back up. The beginning? No, that's too far - I know that, even if I don't understand it.

I'm here, in this - place. My kingdom. Queendom. Whatever - this place, and I'm in charge when I'm here and Huw and Hwyll are whenever I'm not. And when I'm here, they do what I say and they smile and they smile and I wonder how much of what I say actually affects other people, how much actually gets relayed, turned into orders. I don't know what would scare me more, being a puppet or not being a puppet. But I have to assume I'm not.

The more I get into my pregnancy, the more paranoid I am. I know it's the hormones, but it isn't just the hormones. It's that I'm stuck like this. I can't move. I can't go anywhere. I hate this. I can't do things for myself and I can't get my hands dirty.

Rhodri's here, and I love him for it, but I also hate him for it, a bit. It makes me feel so much more trapped. It makes me want to run, but I weigh a thousand stone. I can't run. I can barely walk. And with him, I always feel a little bit like running away. I don't know why...

The book is closed, the queen rises to her feet with difficulty - unassisted, for she has stolen a few minutes of precious time alone. The book is locked - with magic as well as a key, and the youngest queen of all peers around with a narrowed frown. Where to hide, that a thief will not find, will not read?

"If I put it anywhere obvious, he'll find it. If I put it anywhere devious, his mind will lead him to it by instinct."

In the end, there is only one place where it can be put, at least in Fiona's own devious mind. "Pistachio!" She summons her 'daughter', the first of her living creations, and to her she entrusts the book.

"I want you to take it to my throneroom. Let noone see that you have it - you will place it in the very center of the cushion I sit upon. Close it up so that noone can tell that it's been opened, and I will reward you."

"Yes, mother, your majesty." The slip of a girl curtseys and takes the book stolidly, without a change to her expression or to her nut-green eyes. And then she is gone, and Fiona turns to her other tasks...

Posted by Maire at October 15, 2005 11:34 PM