Go See the Queen, Princess of Avalon!

Dear Juliet

Okay, if I get the picture correctly, you're probably wavering between feelings of vulnerability, liberation and a probably quite considerable fear of rejection and abandonment.

Well, I'm not going to reject you, I'm chuffed with you. You're free.

So here's what I think you should do:

Take the day off. Take the Metro to Long Beach, find the Lions Lighthouse at ShoreLine Aquatic Park. It gives you a good view of the Queen Mary. Get through a carton of (what else?) Ben 'n Jerry's. Have a good day, watch the children play.

The sky will not fall if you're away for a day!

You could even take the night off as well and go see Avalon. See how you feel.

Dru was scared, too, but she did it.

In Arthur’s day, a princess would have found her way through glimmering waste and weald down to the lonely coast of Lyonesse. But the sinful queen had to make her way alone to the bare coast, to face the steep cliff and coming wave.

Drusilla found herself a long white dress, hid behind a floppy hat and sunglasses, and clutched her handbag in quiet terror as she struggled through the train journey across Los Angeles, down to Long Beach and the ferry to Catalina.

She waited nervously in the queue at the terminal, stumbled through the routine of boarding and triumphantly made her way onto the boat. Xander had called her the bravest of the brave, she thought wryly. Well, scourge of evil vampires she might be, but she was still afraid of toasters, remembering how wary she had been of that strange, fiery machine in the kitchen at Candlewood Drive.

Finally, though, the ferry cleared its moorings, passed under a great green bridge which straddled the harbour like a big bow tie, and left the last of the giant cranes behind. They stood to attention, she thought, like bonnie redcoats with their muskets, fife and drum.

Dru found a shaded corner of the observation deck and tried to busy herself with some needlepoint as the sea mist closed in, but her hands would not stop shaking. She had never been so afraid, and that was saying something. But she was bereft of family, shorn of her sire and sans Miss Edith. Worst of all, she was adrift in the blue expanse, not knowing if she would ever find safe harbour.

Xander was not her Arthur. More a Galahad with a lopsided grin, but she longed to be his lady again, even if only for a short time.

A child played briefly around her ankles and she smiled. Dru felt warm for a moment, but then the fear closed in again. Her hands still ached sometimes from the battle with the first slayer, and she had put herself well and truly through the mill saving people over the past month. It hadn’t been easy fighting streetwise vampires with only half her former strength, but she had managed to prevail. She’d even made a few Buffy-style quips when she dispatched some fledglings…

She really didn’t think she had much left after all that, and although the call from the forest still sounded, she had far less wish to heed its cry.

But she would go on a little longer.

(Drusilla Revenant)

Have a good day, Princess.

Dru's in Avalon, and she is found.

Love,

James