It has been sometime since I wrote of my disappearance, of those lost days, days of wonder and delight, and yet also of fear and despair. Sometime...now there is and under stated claim, it is in point of fact, almost three years.
I was never able to recount the tale at the time, unable, as I was, to reconcile the loss of my good friends, the people of the undersea, with the selfless and daring rescue by my friends from above. Torn between the two I continued to vacillate, working myself into a state of such confusion that I sought the counsel of a doctor; and ultimately, when he was of little solace, I chose to leave my home behind, to travel the new continent and put distance and time between those memories and that confusion. At least that was the intent.
I have been back in New Babbage for a few months now, so much has changed in those years, even with my occasional visits to ensure my affairs were in order, the city has marched ever onwards, expanding along the coastline. Of my loyal friends, only Jed appears to be here. Kaylee's old workshop on the port is no longer hers and the Gangplank has changed hands many times over. Not that I ever venture much outside. In the months since I returned, I have been back on land perhaps a dozen times all counted, preferring instead the solitude and serenity of my undersea home in Ægir's hall. I have my dear companion, Miss Judith, to keep me sane.
Enough though, I digress. I have promised Judith that I would write down this account to get my thoughts and fears in order. To find an answer to those angry questions. To understand why, in the face of the evidence of my friends, in the apparent denial of the facts, in opposition to all that a normal person might hold as reasonable, I still cannot feel any malice towards those beautiful people of the sea.
I know not why, but, I feel such an affinity to those I am told were my abductors, perhaps even more than that, I could go as far as to say I feel an affection for them, their simple lifestyle had an almost childlike innocence and charm. How could one not be drawn to it?
My abductors... Abduction to me suggests being taken and held against my will and this does not sit well with my recollection of events. I will now finally attempt to record some of what happened. Though this journal is private, should you be reading this now, as a friend of mine, please understand that I have tried to accept the Mer as the evil aliens that they have been cast by the broader populace but cannot accept the portrait. Forgive me this fact, and look not upon me as ungrateful I truly hold that my rescue and my rescuers are very dear to me. I do not wish to ever devalue their selfless risk on my behalf. As such, in the hope of closing this saga in my own mind, I present the events as they occurred and pray that they are accepted as being as true an account as I am able to render.
We're moving...
10 years ago