“And that, my friends, which I am proud to call you now, is why I feel it important that you become part of Pilatu and travel with us not just as yourselves but as a part of our community. There are still those who feel as I once did. Still those who would have us stay separate from the other races—whatever they may be. Perhaps they have learned something from our encounter with the sec force last night. But then again, some attitudes are hardily ingrained. Only a long term process can help that.”
There was a silence after the sec boss had finished. It had been a difficult speech for him to make, as he was a proud man who was admitting to mistakes. But it had been undoubtedly heartfelt.
Sineta added her voice to his before any of the companions had a chance to reply.
“It is not just for this reason that we wish you to become part of us. In the time since I have known Mildred I have come to look upon her as the sister with which I was never blessed, and I value her opinions and counsel. With her greater experience of the world in which we have entered, I would be a fool to wish you a speedy parting. She is of great value to me as baron of Pilatu and also as a person I love deeply.”
Mildred embraced Sineta. “I think of you in the same way, but I don’t know if it would work. We’re not ready to settle down, any of us. We don’t belong anywhere yet.”
“But why not belong here?” Sineta queried, noticing the manner in which Dean looked at the new arrival as Mildred spoke. For a moment the baron was distracted with the feeling of foreboding that the boy’s glance gave her. She wondered if any of the companions had noticed as she continued. “You told me when we on the island that it was the first time you had felt as though you had a sense of belonging for a great amount of time.”
Mildred smiled wryly. “Greater than you’ll ever know. But I was wrong. Part of the belonging was only in my mind. In the real world, in day-to-day terms, this is where I belong…” Mildred looked into the distance, seeing something that no one else could, before continuing in a wistful tone of voice. “You see, the island, and the way you had lived for so many generations, was like a chasm of time, a gap into which you had fallen, where so much had stayed still for so long. You’d been in this chasm, and had preserved so much of the way you had always been, never really changing or having to change. But there does always have to be change, and that was brought home to me when you had to leave the island. There’s so much that you’ve had to face up to and assimilate already since leaving Pilatu, and there’ll be so much more.
“And it wasn’t just the island and the people that were part of that chasm. I had it in me, too. There was something in me that had been cast into that pit so long ago, before I even knew it myself. I had to lose something of myself to fit in, hide some part of my identity to operate in the world as it was. That chasm was a real thing, as well. I lost so many years, lost the world that I used to know, and maybe I lost even more of myself. Then I came to Pilatu and found a part of myself that I didn’t even know was there anymore, and I felt like I’d gone from being blind to being able to see with the clearest, most incredible vision that I’d ever known.
“But it wasn’t focused. I’ve come to realize that the parts of me that I thought were lost were there all the time, but they just weren’t so simply prescribed anymore. They were values that hadn’t been lost, but had been more universally applied. I did belong, I’d just never had time to think about it. I had a family, a tribe, and I don’t know if it’s at all possible for us to fit in with anyone else.”