fate weaver? i barely know her!

Dear Arqwe,

I keep finding new, exciting, even creative ways of blaming you for the mess my life has become. It's a surprisingly easy affair, which is just about the only warning I need that my judgment is skewed and probably flawed, but it's hard to remember details like these when the absurd worms its way into reality. A god gave me a gift, Arqwe. What the fuck?

viessa,

i should be glad for what you've done to me.

not in the sense where i have retained any loyalty for you, but being ruined by the person i trusted the most made me develop a spine of steel. while adventuring, i've witness horrors unlike any other and remained steadfast in my purpose with the watchers. my makeshift, glitchy family - not like the blades, who feared me and kept me at arm's length, and not like you, who fed me your beautiful lies and molded me into a weapon before throwing me into the fire. they care about me. their affection, their loyalty, is not conditional on what i can do for them.

not bad for a ghost, yeah?

still, it has been a testament to how badly i've been scarred - literally, mind you - that i'm being able to go through this mission without any major breakdowns. between finding that horrible dungeon underneath the sumthar manor and uncovering disturbing truths about the twins' father, it made me thankful that i had the world's most twisted mentor to numb me to such affairs. i'll send you flowers, my lady. maybe a fruit basket.

gaelira told me to write these in earnest, but that makes me feel like there are ants crawling under my skin, so i'd rather not. you're not getting an inch of honesty out of me anymore, not until the moment we meet again and i'll make your lord husband's death look like a kindness.

i know little of what lathai is going through because - honestly, having your father gut you and use you as coin to fuel a pact with the goddess of death is a rather unique situation in itself. every time we think his issue with his father seems horrible enough, we find out more sickening details about the nature of their pact and the emotional manipulation connak put him through all these years. he looks like he's dissociating half the time i talk to him and i don't even blame him.

i know damn well how betrayal can fuck with your head. you've made sure of that.

regardless, i cannot wait to get out of this place. i hate what it's doing to my friends and, deep down, i hate what it's doing to me. it's making me think of the people i left behind - you're always on my mind, your whispers present in every action i dare to take, but with little sorn back in the peripherals of my life i'm also thinking about the rest of them. if tuiia's brother harbors such a clear dislike for me - he has all the politeness she lacks and none of her bite but i'm not stupid -, i do wonder if that extends to the rest of the willowdews. how much of it is your influence, my lady? how far does your influence go?

i'm sure whatever you say won't be far from the truth anyway, but it still bothers me. a part of me was glad to leave varre-sai behind, all my haunts and failures sealed tight in a frigid little town in the middle of the mountains. another part of me, significantly smaller, yearns for the ability to speak of a home. i've been travelling with the watches for what seems like a lifetime, and it never stops feeling like i'm running away.

there's no point mourning a past life, or so i tell myself.

it's definitely what i told callith when she mentioned my disguise. it was an interesting conversation - i like talking to her, i like how honest she is and how she's thoughtful with her words at the same time, but the informations i got out of it were not so pleasant.

except getting to know ashana can see people's dreams. that was cool as hell. i know i should be angrier with an invasion of privacy such as this one, but i appreciate the fact she's treating me the exact same way after seeing my fucked up face and my gritty nightmares. luthai always says i should raise my standards.

anyway, what's most on my mind is the fact that adhura intends on running away as soon as we complete our mission to face off against the aberrations that killed her village. it's a suicide mission, and it got me thinking. she should've been able to trust me, trust us, with such a huge undertaking - and she hasn't, she doesn't. i've gotten too used to her playing the big bad wolf, she holds the watchers together in a way that seemed so effortless and practiced, i didn't take the time to realize how much she's been suffering.

i guess selfishness is the one thing we always had in common.

however, i refuse to be associated with anything that calls you to mind. i'll help my friends to the bitter end - i'll be better, faster, stronger and kinder than what you taught me to be.

rot in hell,

what should you do in the wake of destruction?

no one has quite figured out the answer to such a question, i would dare to say. when you look around and all you see are ashes, the seared-through memory of where life used to be, pale dirt underneath so much debris and rubble you can barely see the outline of the ghost you've become, what is the correct path to take? what do you do with the remains of what has been - with the remains of yourself?

you all have learned to walk in the shadows, haven't you? to walk with the forgotten, with the overlooked, with the unloved, with the outcast, with the purged, with all that must be hidden? you know what destruction looks like. you've seen it - and it stared right back at you, beckoning, waiting to be acknowledged.

is it a matter of how one should behave or is it a matter of how one should not behave? what are the limits, the boundaries? how far will you go to restore what is broken, to recover what's gone?

the shadowfell. the plane of shadow, a bleak and desolate echo of the material plane. a scar in the world axis, a reminder that darkness is the inevitable by-product of light. letherna, realm of the raven queen, where the dead seek their judgement and fate. it also happens to be our home.

i still remember all your lessons, you know? they have been coming to mind even more now, given the clusterfuck i stumbled into, in this stupid city. i wonder what you'd have to say about all of this - the sheep, the pact, the nightmares, the blind crows. and, well, my recent communications with "our mistress", as you called her.

nieven, my kin, my old friend, my family. i wish i could reach you; talk to you, partake in your knowledge and wisdom while we stare at a void, lightless sky. but you closed this door long, long ago.

and i, unwillingly and tremendously sorry, must reciprocate.

may the shadows conceal you, always.

i loathe to inform you things have evolved from “complicated” to “a complete shitshow” after our attendance to besdrim sumthar’s wretched ball.

the prospect of attending such an event was already dreadful to me, as anyone could guess. my inaptitude at social settings aside, i’ve been at the sumthar manor a couple times in my life before adventuring, mostly dragged into it by my father, and it’s always been an unpleasant experience. the running waters are supposed to be soothing, but they don’t ever fail in making me feel watched. like the sumthar propaganda has some truth to it, and they have eyes in the water, scrutinizing my every move. 

we soon found out that couldn’t be farther from the truth, though.

at first, we followed our plan. adhura, callith and jullya were the ones sneaking deeper into the building while the rest of us were in charge of mingling with the guests in order to find out useful information and distracting them so the guards wouldn’t come looking for our friends. 

usually, when i’m at a ball, it’s easy to blend into the background and wait until it’s over. people are too busy paying attention to father and lathai, which used to wound me when i was younger and craving much more validation than i do now, but after a certain age i started feeling thankful for it. this time around, though, people were noticing me more often, thanks to fucking ayanda and her godsforsaken machine. 

but i am at a temporary truce with her, despite her lies and scheming, because as the ball progressed we found out besdrim locked her relatives on her mother’s side inside an underground dungeon. the details of our battle are blurry inside my head, but it suffices to say we managed to free them after defeating some unidentified guards attempting to murder us. 

unidentified except for one, that is - andrew. 

it’s odd to think of him as a foe. i would not admit it to anyone out loud, but i always had the hope i would get through to him eventually and find the guy who i remembered from my childhood. funny, sharp, fiercely loyal - now, his only loyalty is to poor caelyn, and i don’t think he’s thought through the consequences of his actions as much as he thinks. nothing was under control; if it was, he wouldn’t have ended up tied in my cellar. 

he did try to kill my friend, though, so that’s enough humanization for him. 

regardless, the feeling of betrayal stings. i couldn’t help but be reminded me of my father, the raven queen pact and lathai, a secret kept for a lifetime without a hitch. andrew was a friend and became a stranger, yet i never thought he would become cold enough be complicit in the forced imprisonment of innocents. lathai was young and father’s influence on him goes farther than mine ever will - i understand that. those two situations are not comparable at all. 

however, i’m growing tired of disappointments. i didn’t want to resent my brother, i wanted us to build a relationship as equals and to shed away from the shadow our upbringing cast upon our lives. he was the one who made the decision to lie to me, over and over. it pisses me off that even sorn seems to be warming up to him. 

everyone warms up to him.

no matter what he does, he seems to shrug off consequences like a snakeskin and it works. it’s maddening. 

anyway, i have bigger fish to fry. for instance, we’re headed to the temple of the elven goddess of war and grief to figure out how besdrim sumthar managed to steal my mother’s soul for his pact. then we’ll later confront my father as to why he hired a trained mercenary to stalk us. 

alguns são óbvios, abertos, sussurros entre corredores que não ousam ser ditos em voz alta, mas são sentidos. em cada gesto, cada suspiro frustrado, cada olhar que repousa numa pessoa específica por mais tempo do que deveria. segredos escondidos atrás de paredes de vidro, translúcidas, que todos fingem que não veem. para seu próprio bem. 

já outros… outros não. outros temem ser descobertos. abafados pela água que nunca para de correr, pelo deslumbrante desabrochar das rosas, pelo tilintar das espadas e pelas sombras dos corvos. independente de sua inclinação política, posso dizer com toda a confiança que todos se beneficiariam da manutenção dos segredos soterrados em lugares escuros e inalcançáveis.

o ponto fraco dos segredos, no entanto, são seus criadores. não importa o quanto tente, os segredos de cada um estão escritos em cada linha torta de seus corpos. mentiras são ilusões que se desmancham enquanto acalentadas seja pela solitude, seja pela parceria. a única maneira de solucionar esses mistérios, mantidos pelo tempo e pelo dever, é saber caminhar no mesmo passo onde andam as coisas escondidas. algo que eu tenho a impressão que vocês sabem fazer. 

i have asked someone of my utmost trust to deliver this letter to you so this missive would not fall on anyone’s hands but yours. i hope it has reached you safely. i apologize right away for my clumsy calligraphy - your last missive to me was quite alarming, shocking indeed and i am finding it hard to write steady. while i may have lacked in openness in our previous conversations, i am going to be as clear as possible when i say this:

you must have a serious fucking death wish. 

a marriage proposal? in front of everyone, nonetheless? are you out of your mind? are those marble masks of yours cutting the circulation to your brain? you cannot be serious. 

ayanda, if you truly get on one knee and ask me to marry you, the white roses are going to slit your throat before you could finish your godsdamned vows. my family has improved its standing, sure, but folks in the council still look at me like they’re half expecting to me to blow up the place. mother has long given up in finding me a match because no one with their wits on them wants to have the drow witch for a wife. 

mind you, this is not a description weaved out of low self-esteem. i will not diminish myself to appease ignorant people and i will continue to be earnest and outspoken about every aspect of my identity. however, you are in a precarious position. you need to solidify your authority, protect your power, not endanger it. they already want to take you out as it is. our union will be the perfect blind spot for them to sink their daggers into.

and goddess above, you ask me if i’d want it? as if it is a matter of want? do my lungs want air? does the sky want stars? there’s no one else for me but you, which is exactly why i will not let them take you away from me. i am not besdrim sumthar - anything happens to you, i’ll burn this wretched hellscape to the ground. they have called me a witch for so long, they’ll have their theory proven right when they see me wicked. 

it is only a matter of luck for them that, unlike the rumors, the darkmaiden does not condone violence. she would be rightfully upset if one of her clerics decided to wipe out an entire town. so, to avoid that, i’d rather things stay as they are. at least for now. please.

but i would appreciate a dance at the ball, if my lady grants it. 

with love (and a giant fucking migraine),

não existe vida sem morte. 

essa é uma das verdades do mundo; uma verdade que engendra a vida de vocês, meus aventureiros, desde o início da nossa jornada. 

alguns de vocês viveram familiares com as sombras projetadas por becos e vielas, com marcas de sangue e rastros de destruição seguindo cada passo seu; apesar disso, fecham os olhos e sua essência é iluminada pelo plano dos sonhos, uma faísca que persiste apesar dos horrores. 

outros, ao contrário, tem o abraço das sombras enquanto parte de sua natureza, o cheiro de cinzas e morte perpetuamente queimando suas narinas, correndo por entre árvores retorcidas, nos caminhos turvos de um céu sem sol; mesmo assim, existiu uma fresta de luz forte o suficiente para que uma mão fosse estendida em companheirismo e irmandade exatamente na sua direção. 

existem alguns que, ainda, seguiram caminhos claros como a neve que cai sobre as montanhas de alvorada, uma vida confortável à beira da lareira, de frente ao craquelar das chamas, cumprindo seus deveres e seguindo seu papel designado. no entanto, são nos momentos quietos que lembramos que a clareza do frio esconde tão bem quanto a escuridão, e o gelo consegue queimar tão fortemente quanto o fogo. 

não é uma dicotomia, mas sim uma simbiose. luz e escuridão. vida e morte. uma coexistência indissociável.

mas o que acontece quando se tenta separar o inseparável? é isso que vocês estão prestes a descobrir, com o plano de fundo da grande cidade de gramacho, o lugar dos “homens livres”. porém, ao som de harpas e liras, vocês estão prestes a descobrir o quão livres podem ser homens que estão acorrentados a seus próprios segredos.

arqwe,

i’m writing to you again. weird, isn’t it? it’s hasn’t even been three days since i wrote the first letter, but i don’t know who to talk to about any of this right now, and the idea of laying everything out to you brings me a small burst of catharsis, even if you will never see it. maybe because you will never see it.

i’ve just returned from baiting out a stalker who was following us, i know now, since we arrived in gramacho. i never thought i’d even think of a sentence like that, but here i am. and it worked surprisingly well, for something that involved someone such as myself taking the lead for reasons that escape me. you know i’m not good at anything action oriented. books and people - well, some people, in some circumstances - i can deal with. cornering a possible stalker with someone i’ve met for, what, eight days? not so much.

but he won’t bother us anymore. it’s funny. if all goes well maybe you will even see him when you go to the manor, though i’m obviously not rooting for you to go anywhere near the manor anytime soon. lathai wanted to kill the guy and jullya obviously did as well, but you know me. it’s hard for me to even think about hurting the monsters we defeated on our way here, the ones hellbent on killing us, let alone a random guy who just got paid to do what seemed to be a simple job. it irks me, their disbelief at my choice for mercy, though i guess it does makes me weak, i suppose. and slow. have you ever killed someone, arqwe? i’d think no, but you are old. maybe you did. maybe i’m just being too naive now, and have been too lucky that my dislike for bloodshed has been a luxury i’ve been able to afford so far. i don’t know. 

connak was the one behind the stalker (that’s the twins’ dad, by the way. i don’t think i introduced anyone in this letter, or the first one - not that it matters. you won’t ever see them) and the twins can’t come up with a good reason as to why. at first glance the answer might seem simple: he’s a control freak who wants to know where his children go and with whom, but still. luthai, as far as i know, never does anything to attract attention or anything that would make his father angry (besides being my friend now, i guess) and while lathai does whatever is on his mind whenever he wants, it’s quite clear he would never truly risk his family or their name. so why the constant vigilance?

moments earlier lathai had commented that my own life at willowdew manor seemed to be borne from control. mother’s need for control, that is. i refuted this idea, but is he right, arqwe? i don’t know. i’ve been thinking about him, and about me, and about our families. connak evraren did something terrible to his sons, especially to lathai, but he did so to save his wife. lathai kept it all a secret to keep his little brother and mother safe. good reasons for choices i now consider bad, or at least wrong in some way. maybe connak’s need for control is an extension of this old decision, a desperate need to keep all of his family where they should be lest an unplanned move send them careening into disaster. maybe, despite it all, he’s doing this for good reasons.

what was mother’s good reason, arqwe? i know my very existence is reason for scandal. i know i was unwanted. but remember that day, years ago, when you found me in the hallway outside mother’s office back at the manor? you know i was listening in. i know you questioned her reasons too. you said i might do well at court. sometimes i think you are right, that i would do well, but then it feels like i’m fooling myself, that i’m only grasping at straws because staying back at the manor was making me lose my mind. maybe you were wrong too. maybe mother knows better than all of us, like she always says.

is there anything else about me that might give others pause, that if showcased to the world could bring our family shame? i’ve been… searching, i guess? for what it could be. i like to think i behave myself pretty well. i know all rules of etiquette, all the ballroom dances, and usually - usually, though, i know, not always - i remember all the names of important families and their duties and personalities. i rarely, if ever, cause offense. i know i’m naive and ignorant and a bit too wide eyed at everything, which could be embarrassing - but arqwe, am i not like this because of how i was raised? would other places, other people, their different ways of speaking and acting, stun me so if i hadn’t been raised away from society? i keep thinking back to my little spat with luthai and how terrible i was at dealing with the hurt and anger i felt. i had no framework to use to guide my decisions. i didn’t even know how to deal with my own emotions. i think - no, i know - that i wouldn’t be so easily spooked, so easily thrown off balance, if i had lived a normal life.

so my naivete can’t be the reason. and that worries me. that makes me want to never talk with lathai again, because talking to him is like looking in a mirror and saying he deserved better, so why didn’t i deserve better too? and then i start digging and digging and my thoughts go back to the stalker, to the changeling callith killed in mato alto, to my own affection for the twins - my weakness, my preciousness with life that now reeks of stupidity. maybe mother saw it in me when you didn’t, and kept me away to stop me from eventually doing something ridiculous that would hurt all of you.

i don’t know. have you ever felt like a house built on top of quicksand, arqwe? that’s how i feel when i decide to keep digging. because if that’s true - if the flaw in me has been this the whole time, i don’t… i don’t know. i don’t know if i can change. i don’t know if i want to change. i don’t know if i should change. 

are you that different from me, arqwe? i know you are better, of course, in just about every single thing i can think of, but i don’t think you would have made different choices from what i did… caring about lathai aside, that is. even i know that’s a bad idea. so where does that leave me? what did i do wrong?

what was mother’s good reason? 

was there a good reason?

i remember what you said in that conversation with mother i overheard. i think… i think i know what you implied. and with what set me off in this foolish adventure, i… have some ideas, all of which sound so impossible i can’t take them seriously. but…

there is a family of half drows here, you know. they are on the council as well, though, as far as i know, their position there is quite recent. i don’t know where they came from, but their leader - or at least the one on the council - seems… nice. she’s a childhood friend of luthai’s, though they haven’t spoken much in recent years (a pattern with the twins, i’ve learned). i’ve been trying to keep a certain distance from them for reasons i don’t quite understand myself - it feels a lot like shame, but i don’t know why. i don’t even know how to feel about them in general. it’s weird, seeing other half drows… but it’s nice too. i don’t want them to think badly of me, and showing just how novel this all is to me would do just that. i think. the point is, i’ve been thinking more about my own father lately, probably because of them. probably because connak evraren looked at me yesterday like i was a particularly offensive piece of furniture and i can’t come up with a reason that doesn’t involve my heritage. what else have i done - that he knows, at least - that would have him disapprove so much of me? among my own party i’m the closest to his children so i understand his scrutiny, but why the disapproval?

luthai and lathai doesn’t seem to care in the least, though, so i’m not sure. and it doesn’t matter either way - it’s not like i want their dad to like me, especially now that i know how much of an asshole he is. what i meant to say is, my father. i thought i had buried him forever back when i was a preteen. it feels so… lame, i guess. cliché even, for a bastard like me to wonder about a father i will never know. i thought i was over all this. but ever since i set foot outside willowdew manor weeks ago his presence has been on my mind. i wish i could remember more. i wish i knew what he would think of all this, if he would know why mother kept me away like the worst guarded secret of her life. 

ugh. none of this matters at the end of the day. we have much to do here in gramacho with our deadline fast approaching. luthai and callith might have just about figured out what the problem with the evraren manor is - something about pacts with gods and someone not paying their due. i admit i find the whole concept beyond baffling -, the ball is tomorrow and we might get a chance soon of finding out what the hell connak evraren wanted when he called his children home. things are happening.

and still. 

i know i will never send this letter. i know you will never read it. maybe that’s why this is easy to write down, easy to ask, it doesn’t matter how long i’ve buried the desire to know deep inside me.

arqwe, what do you know about my father?

much love, despite everything,

—

sister,

one of the most vivid memories i have of our childhood is losing to vali in every single card game ever invented. even though i lost multiple times, not getting even close to winning once, the sting of the latest defeat was just as painful as the first. you used to watch us play, with a soft and amused smile dancing on your lips as my competitiveness and short fuse took over. after my inevitable demise, you would redirect me to look at the bright side and tell me all the improvements i made since the last time: "you predicted a lot of her movements", "you played your cards considering the ones she might still have", "you are starting to recognize her playing patterns". it took me a long time to realize that you were comforting me, without letting me know i was being comforted — you know very well there is nothing i hate more than the pat on the back covered in pity that people tipically offer in those situations.

a few days ago, we found out that the queen is keeping the twins's mother alive, at a cost, of course; there is always a cost, and most times it is far higher than people are actually ready to pay. i hadn't noticed it before, but now i feel her everywhere: in the needles pricking my skin, in the howling of the wind, in the movement of the shadows. even here, in the middle of nowhere in the material plane, i feel the reach of her wings above me. i wonder if there is a corner of this universe that she can't grasp — that i won't be beneath her shadow.

as of right now, we — my party and the twins's party, minus the twins themselves — are the ones paying the price of their mother's undeath with, you guessed it, our own suffering and the tragedies that strangle us every single day. because, you know, having to deal with political scheming on top of a humanitarian crisis, being the only people that can try to right every wrong, was simply not dreadful enough. no — it was also necessary that we had gruesome nightmares about our deepest fears and the worst moments of our lives, of course.

this has been happening for the past two days and the atmosphere in the house is already nothing short of suffocating. our torment is clouding our judgement, and there is a very thin veil of composure separating us from pure hostility. i try my best to hold myself back, to be stable and reliable (on our bond as sisters, do not tell owin about this), but sometimes i just… can't.

(i hope she's fucking happy, even though i have a hard time believing this is all the queen's doing. sometimes, i fear this anger and volatility were part of me all along, festering in the spaces between my bones, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.)

and still, above all else, i worry: like my whole body was woven with it, like it is all i've ever known. i worry about my friends and how they are dealing with this ordeal. i worry about my new friend, adhura, who already had pretty grim nightmares before being subjected to the queen's influence — now, who knows what kind of horrors she is having to endure? —, i worry about my connection to the queen having an impact on the intensity of the situation. i worry i might have harmed people i care about.

and i do care about them, or most of them, at least. i try to be present, constant, reassuring: a solid and study place to land. i've been trying so hard to be everyone's older sister — everyone's "hinari", if you forgive the heresy of implying there could be someone else like you in this universe. but i can't. i'm exhausted, hinari. i feel afraid. lost. pathetic. angry. out of control. but i'm trying, and that has to count for something, right?

just like when we were kids playing cards, after immense loss comes the bright side. you were in my most recent nightmare; while my stomach was turning and my head was pounding, i heard your voice for the first time in what feels like forever. i'm terrified of what might come next. i've been screaming to an empty sky, trying to rearrange the pieces of this rigged puzzle of a mind — but i heard your voice again. and that was worth everything.

today more than yesterday, i miss you fiercely. 

it is not a longing born out of loneliness, though, which feels strange. loneliness has been my most loyal companion ever since i’ve lost you, the one person who hammered through my walls, and its lack registers to me as… odd. rather, i miss you because i think you’d be delighted to know the brand new updates of the roaring dumpster fire that is my life. 

(i miss your laugh. it was a loud, obnoxious thing, much like yourself. the gap you left is ever-aching and unfillable. they say that fey never truly die and i hope this is true so every mote of light that falls upon me has a sparkle of you in it.)

first of all, turns out evraren manor is haunted! can you believe it? it seems like the twins’ dad made a pact with the raven queen to make their sick mom… less sick? keep her alive? the terms of the pact remain a bit blurry to my understanding but what i do know is that the godsforsaken house is feeding on our misery. it’s relishing on what’s already there and lulling it to come out with nightmares. 

in my experience, bloody, vicious dreams aren’t cause for alarm. however, i did notice the voices are becoming louder, feeding into my deepest fears even when i’m awake. last night, it was impossible to close my eyes without hearing whispers, saying things i would rather not register in fear they might return and take root in me. callith found me upstairs and talked to me about her childhood and her friends as i was half-delirious, my thoughts a scattered mess i could not untangle. her stories helped, as much as i loathed getting caught in such a state of disarray, and i could not pull away from her outstretched hand. 

i know i should have. the friend you’ve known would have pulled away in favor of focusing on the mission. but in your absence, i’ve become a clumsy, starving creature. if companionship is a luxury, it is one i’m damned to hunger for. i have not the time nor the disposition to look upon this further, so i won’t. we have a task ahead of us and i can only deal with a crisis at a time. 

and we are certainly not lacking in things to worry about! for instance, there seems to be someone powerful and influential within the city who behind the ogre attacks, puppeteering everything, which makes the local army’s incompetence very suspicious. we headed to their base today to have a chat with their captain, andrew. with we, i mean ashana, jullya, callith and myself. everyone else was helping the twins with whatever they got going on.

although my plan was to use adda’s lilting voice and sweet little face to persuade him into telling us the truth, callith absolutely tore him a new one before i could think of intervening. the aberration flowing in my veins wanted nothing more than to crack his skull open for the way he was talking to her. disrespectful, dishonet and fucking blatant about it. amateur. 

i am proud to announce i did not crack his skull open. however, i almost wish i did, because our interrogation only left us with a migraine and no additional information other than he’s a cunt, as jullya would say. through honey-coated persuasion or sharp blows to his pride, he was unwilling to give us anything of substance. 

after we returned to the manor, we met with sorn and luthai and decided the best way to deal with our grievances at the moment was getting down to the wine cellar and drinking our sorrows away. thankfully, i did a much better job at holding myself together than i did at the tavern, though i cannot say the same for my fellow watchers. luthai took his first drinking session as well as it would’ve been expected and jullya is not used to the effects of fey wine. our conversation revolved around the upcoming ball we’re supposed to attend, to gather information and hopefully swaying people to see our side of the situation. or our employer’s side. our employer, the man who used his own son as a bargain chip in a powerful magical pact. perfect.

and yet, despite our morbid surroundings and chaotic prospects, our impromptu drinking session was… fun. i must admit there are parts of me soothed by the presence of our new traveling companions. when i’m around them, i don’t stick out like a sore thumb as much as i do with the watchers. they are willing to bond with me, for whatever reason, and there’s no pressure for me to act a certain way or adhere to impossible standards. 

i don’t know how long it’ll last. but as i write you, i don’t feel so alone anymore and i’ll attempt to hold onto this feeling and breathe it in without worrying about the aftermath. that’s what you’d want me to do, right?

i love and miss you, always,

dear yesphyra, 

thank you for replying so quickly. i must confess that now i have more questions than answers about jullya, but your words have put most of my worries to rest. i’m still wary of her presence - she is a murderer, after all - but i agree that she is probably not a threat to me or you. i’m still baffled, though. how did she change her appearance? and why go so far as to change her face but not her name?

but in the end none of this is my business. as long as she keeps her distance i’m happy to pretend i don’t know anything about her past.

so much has happened in the past few days. i don’t even know where to begin, and some of it doesn’t concern me so it doesn’t feel fair to share with you, especially through a letter. but don’t worry: i am fine. tired, confused, but fine. i… made a friend, maybe? i’m not sure exactly where we stand right now, but i did trust him with the fact that i am a wild magic sorcerer and his reaction was… normal. i think. well, i’m not quite sure, to be honest. i was too nervous to trust my own perception of said reaction. but there is so much on his mind i doubt my status as a dangerous sorcerer is occupying much of his thoughts, if any at all. 

his brother is going to teach me how to play the lyre. my feelings towards him (the brother) are complicated to say the least, and he (again, the brother) isn’t that fond of me either, so i’m not sure what the hell we are doing. ugh. 

i’m sorry, i know i’m not making much sense. there is just so much on my mind. i’ve been thinking a lot about my life at the manor, in ways that i’m not sure i like. i miss knowing what everything and everyone was like, even if at times i was not happy with their arrangement. there is something very grounding about knowing your place and your role, about knowing what everyone expects of you. and i always believed that.

but i left, didn’t i? i am being a hypocrite by defending the rules and ways of noble society when i chose to leave like a thief in the night for purely selfish reasons. my goal is mediocre in its simplicity. nothing would be gained or lost if i were to succeed, because there is very little on the line besides my own whims. the right decision, i know, it’s to turn back, go back to the manor and to my books, puzzles and crafts. i shouldn’t be here.

but i can’t make myself leave.

don’t worry about me. you know i get melodramatic at times. 

be safe,