So, it finally sunk in what y’all readers have known since No Man showed me my bones were on fire.
It took a hideous hot flash that didn’t feel like a hot flash, while standing directly under an air conditioning vent for me for the truth to sink past all my Uncomfortable Thought defenses and Willful Mental Blocks.
Ravenwoman is summoning me.
The way to the Boneyard is open.
I am in no rush to answer it.
This is on my timing, not hers.
My exile from the Boneyard made me confront my relationship with, and perception of, Ravenwoman. I had to confront things about myself I did not want to think about. It was easier to place myself under her aegis and surrender to my new mother master teacher. Easier not to think for myself.
Something happened in the Waking. Not long after there was a reflection of that event in the Dreaming. The task she had me do was unsettling, but I did it. Because I’m her student, and this is what I’m learning, and life is not always sunshine, sushi, and silliness. That wasn’t a problem. The problem was not being able to talk about it. Still.
Then something else happened in the Waking. A few days after, she made a demand of me related to that second event. I refused. She drew the line. I reminded her I was not sworn to her. She threatened to set the ravens on me. She threatened to take the raven-feather cloak from me. She threatened to rip me apart and leave me in Promethean agony.
But what she demanded was not hers. It wasn’t mine to give. It wasn’t mine to consider. And it certainly was not hers to take.
She flat out demanded I choose between her, and the one she wanted me to steal from.
I chose to remain true to the loyalties I had given. I do not betray my own.
She exiled me from the Boneyard and went so far as to remove my access to that world.
So.
Almost a month later, she’s calling me.
“Do not return until I have summoned you.”
She’s summoning.
I’m not so sure I want to go back.
She was a surrogate mother to me. That’s why I allowed her to lord over me without complaint. I have no positive maternal examples in my life. Ravenwoman was the closest I have felt to having someone worth being a daughter to. And I feel used by the sentiment. She was one of the few remaining that I followed blindly. She is the master of her domain, who am I to question? Right?
I’m questioning.
What is she to me?
Cut off from her and the Boneyard, I have done certain things by my power. If the Boneyard was my source of power for these things, I would have been made impotent. I daresay, I have increased in my exile.
I have taken on more of the Raven during the exile, than during the years before it. Is it because I have changed that much? Or was she intentionally blocking me so I would feel dependent on her?
Loki made many demands of me when I was enthralled to him. But he never mocked me for the loyalty certain others have earned from me. He had always respected that, and even shut me down to prevent me from attacking one of them for his attack on Loki. “I don’t want you to have to choose. Either way, you will harm yourself.”
What Ravenwoman demanded from me still rings in my ears.
I have chosen to walk with certain folk. They have accepted me for all the batshit quirkiness that I am. Together, we increase each other. I have given them my word and my blood. I will not betray them.
Even if it means my bones smoulder forever.
I will not betray them.
Ravenwoman is calling.
~summons ice~
I’m letting it go to voicemail for now. I need to think things through.