The Characterisation of Annabelle le Roux

Chapters Twenty-Eight: Never meet your heroes

Little Larry and Ferne' were deep in conversation when Annabelle walked in. He looked up and upon seeing Annabelle said, "Oh it's you" he said "I can't believe that you were so easy to capture. The Mamlish didn't even need to try. They came to the door, and said, "Hey we want to arrest Annabelle" and you were like "Sure, that sounds like a golly good time" and then you went. No plan, no resistance nothing"

"It wasn't like that," said Annabelle.

"Yes, it was!" said Little Larry. "Ferne' was there. He heard everything you said. Then the burly guard who arrested you wrote an account of what happened, and it was posted on the columns. And everything he said aligned with what Ferne said"

"I was drugged by Madame Green," said Annabelle. "I don't know why none of you are listening to my warnings about Madame Green"

"Madame Green is wise" said Little Larry "But you have shown yourself to be foolish. I can't believe I once admired you. I now look up to Ferne', he hasn't let me down, yet"

Annabelle felt an irresistible urge to defend herself but instead said "Well Ferne' has many strong qualities, which makes him worthy of your admiration. I hope that he will continue to prove his character when put into difficult situation. Time can only show whether or not he is genuine and not just puffed up words"

Annabelle walked away and she realised that she had lost a lot in the Mamlish's last attack. She needed to prove herself again. The strength potion had worked, but not as well as before. After all the time she had spent with the Mamlish, their worries became hers. "Can the shepherdless govern themselves? They just wanted to be left alone, but if they are left alone, they would still have each other, and they didn't always get along."

The Mamlish had systems, bureaucracies and all sorts of things she had never thought of. They had protocols about how decisions were made, who made the decisions and what criteria were used to make the decision. Afterwards they had review boards to determine whether or not the decisions were good ones.

It was better than anything that the citizens of Zilby had – an old lady handing out potions and then deciding the leader based on who didn't die. It had its advantages to be sure, but it seemed a little bit wasteful to her.

Would a democratic system be better, it seemed better, but the people of the island were misinformed and did not understand how the power structures work, that made them very easy to lie to.

She watched Little Larry talking to Ferne'. Ferne' could answers all his hesitations without ambiguity. Confidence was a good thing, but so was admitting your limitations. Annabelle had never felt more uncertain in her life.

It was right that Little Larry had turned on her, he made some good points, she had had run ins with Madame Green before and Madame Green had told her that she was missing the point and didn't understand what she was doing. Madame Green had told her that she was not right for the job. Madame Green had said that she wanted somebody else to lead the armies, all this she had heard and yet she still accepted the drink from Madame Green. And even now she was with people who wanted to keep Madame Green in the loop. If that wasn't foolishness then he didn't know what was.

As she was thinking things over Madame Green came to Annabelle. "You feel betrayed" she said "I can understand that"

"What do you mean "I feel betrayed?" said Annabelle "I was betrayed. You drugged me and then handed me over to the enemy"

"But you're fine now" said Madame Green perhaps a little bit quickly. "Water under the bridge"

Annabelle paused before saying "You had no way of knowing that I would be fine now. In fact, the most plausible outcome from the series of actions that you took would be for to be dead now"