Home Over Heart

Disclaimer: The realm of Annwn, such as it is in this story, and the characters of Maeve, her dad, Thomas, Cordelia, Arwan (sp?) and Morgana, as well as the Annwn place names, belong to Alison Baird. This fanfic was written with her knowledge and consent. The characters not appearing in "The Hidden World" and "The Wolves of Woden" are mine. Nothing else is.

Pronunciation:
Annwn - a-NOON
Mebd - MEYV

Chapter 1 - Banished?
Maeve stared out the window dully as the teacher droned on. She was tuned out completely, only barely on alert for a question aimed to catch her daydreaming.

The view out the window was one she'd seen, yet not. Ever since she and her father had moved to St. John, Maeve had been entranced how it was like, but not like, the way she had seen it before.

Theoretically, the only other time she had seen the Newfoundland city was through a car window on the way to St. Mary's bay. Otherwise it had been Temair, seat of the Gaelic kings in annwn.

Annwn.

It was a world, like and not like Earth, in the same place but on a different plane. It was the world where everything was as it should be, and where Thomas and Arawn and Morgana were, and had been her own private escape from her parent's divorce, and the wretchedness of being Maeve Morgan O'Connor.

She smiled tremblingly, biting her lip to keep the tears in. She'd had to leave, helping Thomas retrieve the Grail, one of the four treasures of Annwn, to help king Arawn fight the Fomori, terrible monsters of the deep. It was on that trip that she had found out that Thom loved her. It was that trip, and the weeks after her banishment from Annwn that she had found out that she loved him.

Too late, too late, a mocking voice sang in her head.

Oh, shut up, she told it, leaning her head against the windowpane, and drowning out her thoughts with the drone of the history teacher.

Lunch was eaten alone, as always. After that she wandered around aimlessly. Finally she picked a tree outside and read under it.

A girl came and sat under a nearby tree, glancing at Maeve. She was new this week, and for a moment Maeve wondered why she wasn't surrounded by the customary group of girls dedicated to show her around and claim her as a friend. Those same girls had rejected Maeve a month before.

The girls caught up with the newcomer son. They stayed on the concrete, but called for her to come. The new girl sighed, slid something off her lap onto the ground, and ran off.

Maeve read studiously until the girls were gone. After that she set her book down and examined the object the girl had left behind. It was a box, with "Maeve" scrawled across the top. Maeve took off the wooden top. Inside was a piece of paper and a piece of jewelery. Maeve picked up the bronze-coloured piece of metal- and nearly dropped it. It was her grandmother's pennanular brooch, which was supposed to be in Annwn. Maeve set down the brooch and picked up the paper with trembling hands. It read:

Medb Morrighan ap Connaught,
I have a letter for you from Thomas Ryan. The brooch was rescued from Morgana's rath.
-Rhiannon.

Maeve leaned against the tree and shut her eyes. This couldn't be happening. This COULD NOT be happening. It wasn't true. She opened her eyes. the box was still there, the note scrawled in untidy printing, the brooch glinting dully in the overcast day.

Thomas.

Maeve's lips quivered with suppressed emotion. She tried to reason it out. The brooch was authentic. Nobody in the Shadow knew who Thom was, aside from herself. Well, her and... Rhiannon, apparently. Her name's derivant was right. Even where the brooch was stored in Annwn was right.

So why did it feel almost wrong?

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Not the end, but write some reviews to show that I'm appreciated, and the next part will come out quicker, and that is an honest-to-god fact. It means that I will consider you a captive audience more demanding than the other fandoms that I write for and give YOU top priority.