Bee And Foxglove

Foxglove Reaches Out

I am writing this account rather like a metaphorical kamikaze pilot aiming for the eminently sinkable ship of ever getting published; as I adjust my aviation goggles and say my last prayers, metaphorically speaking, it would not seem to make matters worse to editorialise here a little.

The realm of fictionalised media is a realm of – to put it quite frankly – trauma. Children who have been through horrible experiences have been observed to reenact those experiences in their play. It seems clear to me, on reflection, that this is what we, as a society, do through our stories.

There's nothing wrong with that, per se. It's an instinct we have, and it serves a purpose. Yet, I do have one issue with it.

Again and again, the characters we follow go through devastating horrors. Practically never, alas, do we see them getting emotional support afterwards.

Now, I told you some chapters back that our story was set in a world that, in one regard, was fundamentally different to Earth. Phaestos, remember, was a world that had found peace. It no longer reenacted the same horrors, over and over – neither in its stories, nor, indeed, on its long-unbloodied meadows.

Be reassured that this story is still, in a fundamental, deep-rooted and incontrovertible sense, not at all, whatsoever, an epic. It remains a story about lesbians blowing up buildings and getting altogether too serious about ice-cream. But... well. I suppose I can tell you a little about how the people of Phaestos got to where they were.

It started with school.

It's quite possible that you noticed me mention Bee and Foxglove's one-time school and felt it to be an anachronism – jarringly out of place in a medieval world, in other words. Oh ye of little faith! I assure you, my reports are accurate. Near-universal (though not compulsory) schooling was a feature in all large countries in Phaestos.

This movement started about five hundred years before the events of our story, in what is now Frankia. A lot of great words were spoken at this point by a few great individuals. These individuals, by virtue of their charisma and abundant spirit, were able to convince the land of the necessity of change. Words spread; words became books, and organisations, and buildings, and schools.

Peace came, then, as children came to gather in these new schools, and learn. Not about geography and physics, mark you! No, Bee and Foxglove's ancestors studied emotions.

Picture these schools more in the style of a martial art dojo than like any kind of academy. The skills of de-escalation, of empathic listening, of mediation, and of conflict resolution were practiced, played out, and experienced. The knowledge of what to do to cultivate peace when our baser nature screams argue or fight was trained into successive generations of increasingly hopeful and inspired citizens. The abolition of the Kandran aristocracy of +2314 and various large-scale peace movements were among the results of that.

I just couldn't see myself writing about something of that scope, to be honest. I'm a coward. You get lesbians making ice-cream.

Now... back to the lesbians in question.

Bee and Foxglove were, to some extent, not fully appreciative of the hundreds of years of peace work that their culture was built on. We could compare this to how we imagine a fish might regard the concept of water. Bee and Foxglove were experts in peace, but might not have been able to explain what they knew.

What they knew was this. Foxglove was devastated by what had just happened. Even as Bee was recovering, she herself was having a bit of a breakdown.

I mentioned trauma. Here, Foxglove did the exact opposite of what our classical action hero would do after experiencing something devastatingly cinematic. Foxglove did not shrug it off; she did not act tough or devil-may-care; she did not resort to cigarettes, alcohol, or the pleasures of women.

She reached out.

As soon as Foxglove felt the warning signs, she wrote a letter. A few letters in fact.

Foxglove had certain friends in particular who she felt comfortable opening up to. One of these, whose name was Marjoram, came straight over the evening after the de Welltouderes had left.

Marjoram spent some hours together with Foxglove as, in waves, she cried her eyes out.

This was a sacred time, gentle and sweet; there was no thought of solving any problem or hurrying the process along. It simply... took the time it took.

With this support, Foxglove came to feel a great relief and a new clarity, as if a haze was lifting. She began to come to terms with the horrible shock of thinking that her wife might have been about to die. There are no words for that, really.

More help came. Friends took care of household tasks. Bee's good friend Melis came and sat by her bedside, reading her The Knights of the Roses for Unruly Teens and acting out the good bits. A doctor was sent for. The doctor examined Bee thoroughly and admitted that he had no suggestions for her other than rest and the healing balm of good friendship, which, as he could see, was preaching to the choir*.

*Here I worry that my account of a doctor admitting his own ignorance may strain your credulity to breaking point. I swear, however, that I have done nothing to embellish this story. Phaestian culture had simply advanced to a point that was, in some ways, beyond our ability to imagine or understand.

When Bee was a little stronger, she found herself quite naturally opening up to Melis about all the fears and worries and overwhelm that were on her heart.

This all took about ten days. For three of those days, Foxglove left Bee in Melis' care and stayed in Shuringen with her parents. It did her a lot of good; a reset of sorts.

Then Foxglove came back, and they talked.

To start with, things were a little... intense. There was the temptation to blame. It helped a lot to have friends there, friends with the skill to place a ring of protective stones around the fires of difficult emotions.

With care, with love, with support, anger turned to tears, and tears became gentle words; and from gentle words, a loving resolution sprang like a mountain stream.