#cloudward ho!

Several very smart people in the fandom have noted that it seems probable that Thjazi and Mara accidentally closed the gates to Faerie while trying to accomplish something else, and that fuckup was the subject of the heated conversation Thimble recalled overhearing.

Which would be so, so juicy if true, and again, so reminiscent of Comfrey, who closed the ways to Zood to stop a war and ended up causing a whole other set of problems in the process.

Comfrey was never the cackling supervillain some people in the fandom painted her as, but she absolutely fucked up, and she exacerbated the issue by isolating herself from her loved ones and keeping secrets from them. Sound familiar?

Now, in a world with telepathy, Thjazi absolutely had sound reasons for wanting to compartmentalize information. And I'm sure whatever he and Mara were trying to do was pretty friggin' momentous. But if they really did close the gates to Faerie...man. That was too much problem for him and Mara to handle alone.

Obviously the gates closing screwed over the house Thjazi married into, but it happened post-separation from Aranessa, so he would at least have that excuse for not telling her. But keeping this secret from Thimble, specifically, when she was his partner in crime and this was about her homeland? Continuing to hide it for years as she aged? That hurts.