[Each letter is written in what at first glance appears to be some form of shorthand but is, in fact, twinspeak. They are mailed promptly to a minor barony south of the Hinterlands.]

6 April

Dearest Sunshine Scheine,

I don’t know how to write this. I don’t know what words to use to ease the ache I’ll bring you, or if your anger at me shall burn brightly enough to preclude response. I’ve put this off for hours, but I have to be out of this inn soon; the sun has already risen. I just… I just thought the longer I waited to write, the longer you’d have to think of yourself as someone who has a little sister.

Now there’s just you and me. I can’t

She did it to herself, Scheine, just like she always has, and I wasn’t there to stop her, just like I never was. She burned it all down and herself with it. Since nobody knew she lived there, everyone thinks it’s me. Keelen and Theobroma, all the people I’ve written about for these past years, they all think I’m the one who died because they never knew. She died a monster and I don’t know if I can

Nel’s gone and I feel so guilty free adrift. There’s nothing left for me here. I suppose there hasn’t been for decades, but then, you tried to tell me. I wish I could say all this to you in person, but I must let this letter, these empty words precede me. I must give you the time I know you’ll need to decide whether or not you’ll forgive me when I come.

I will, you know. I haven’t anywhere else to go.

I love you,

Renny

4 May

Dearest Scheine,

I haven’t seen Stormwind since Father and Uncle Lindisse took us here. Do you recall how primitive we thought it was, with its chunky architecture and chunkier denizens? Do you recall how, on the way back north, we visited Ironforge and had to take back all we’d said about chunky, chunky Stormwind? Next to dwarves, humans are downright svelte. The same can definitely be said for their buildings.

To borrow that word from childhood once more, I must say the Common tongue feels chunky. The vowels are so broad, the consonants so cutting. A Gilnean crabber exhorted me to make a purchase at the market and I froze up. I am rusty, I admit, but I can get by, generally: not in this case, for her accent was so thick as to render her unintelligible to me. Practice, practice. The immersion is bringing it back quickly enough. Perhaps by the time I leave I’ll be able to parse it. The night before I leave I vow to have a crab dinner.

I’ve taken some pains to avoid the other quel’dorei--it hurts to write that; I feel a pretender though I was born one of them--as I don’t want them to make me out. They might know and recall (when so many of the others do not) that not all of the House Brightwarden chose the right side. Or they might see me not meditating as regularly I should. I’d better watch that.

I wish I didn’t bear the taint. I suppose having a skilled magistrix for a sister is the second best thing, though.

The potter’s guild here doesn’t know what to do with me. They have, apparently, no more specialized guild for artisans, at least not that I can find in the limited time I’ve spent in this city. There is a market for dolls, I am certain of it. But I shall need more time (and resources) than I have to set myself up. Which means I’ll be seeking other work in the interval.

I’ll close now. Be well. Sunwell flow through you, sister.

I love you,

Renny

8 June

Dearest Sunshine,


Have you ever gotten over your abhorrence for the Scourge undead? Did I have any doubt, these last few days have shown me I very much have not, regardless of their shape, condition, affiliation, origin, or friendliness. Something in me rebels at their existence. Before, living in Silvermoon afforded me a sort of buffer from most of them; here, that will not be possible. I have met very many. I will have to work very hard to keep my revulsion to myself, for I might have to work with these people.

In general the Servitors are made of many peoples, some alive and others less so. In quick succession I was introduced to some generally less-than-friendly night elves--one of them has a bondmate that was the happy exception; he goes by the name Keedin or Keyden or something to that effect.

I have met a waif of a human with trollish markings down her arms. I cannot guess why a woman who speaks and looks as she does might be so marked (save the obvious) but I have not asked. I do not think she would thank me if I did.

In addition to the krokul of recent mention I have met an undead eredar draenei of all things. She is polite and we have struck up a bit of an acquaintance, but I do wonder how she can stand to remain as she is. To be given immortality... then forced to spend it as a shambler. It must weigh upon her terribly. I wonder if she looks upon every open flame and considers walking into it.

So you see, many types. If I wanted to be unkind I could say they are a pack of mongrels, these Servitors. But even then there’s a sort of... I think Helianthos said it was called ‘hybrid vigor.’

My interview went as expected, I suppose. There were fully a half-dozen people present. Everyone stared at me and my heart was in my throat. By the time it was over my feet had fallen asleep and I nearly measured my length before them.

I have taken many patrol and rover shifts so I might familiarize myself with the keep and surrounding terrain. As it happens, many of these watches happen at night. When I am out of doors there is always ample reason to remain alert, but in the snug quiet of the keep--aside from the hum of the undertown--at night I am alone with my thoughts far too much.

There is a taproom on the main floor. I have thusfar assiduously avoided it. From moonsdark to moonsdark I’ve been sober, now. One month down, the rest of my life to go.

I love you,

Renny

10 June

Dearest Scheine,

Today I wonder if I have made a terrible mistake. I know this is rank hypocrisy, coming from me--just as that bit about the undead was in my last letter, given my connection to the Brittlefrost--but if you intended to point me in the direction of a solid crew, let’s say I have my doubts, sister. I am not yet privy to most things, being merely a peon whatever they call it here, but it sounds as if they took on something they had no business messing with--and only barely came home.

I see now why Cutter Asteris was once counted as such a skilled healer. Did I doubt it after she mended me, I would no longer after seeing the sort of things these Servitors get up to. And they’re so cavalier about it! If the phrase ‘I was dead, but I got better’ came out of someone’s mouth I would not be surprised, not now. Their healers are so skilled because they have to be, in order to maintain any sort of functional outfit. But these people... the more I look, the more none of them seem well at all. (And I do mean mentally. I have heard any number of outlandish tales since I’ve arrived, including one about a night elf who isn’t at all a night elf but is a... well, I’m not sure. The mind rebels, and I’m still not certain whether or not he was joking. It could be some kind of test for new people, perhaps a prank.)

I have followed the recommendations of you and your patron (yes, yes, technically she isn’t your commanding officer and well do I take the point) indeed; the logic is sound. The last place my old ‘friends’ will search for me is in a crew of Alliance sellswords, living in a subterranean dwarven holdfast. But I admit even now part of me longs to be caught, to be given the sharpest of justice. Surely it is no less than I deserve.

On a more constructive note, I have approached a few Servitors to see if they had side jobs for coin, but everyone keeps trying to do me favors. While they might be closed-off to outsiders, it seems even people who are on a trial are offered generosity. Thusfar I have managed to turn all such offers into barter arrangements, but I don’t know these people well enough to tell them what I really need:

I need to earn coin to get by until B comes through for me and I need to keep my hands busy so my addictive nature doesn’t best me. The unit is going on furlough, which is absolutely the last thing I need just now. I am isolated and without work. I will throw myself into exercise, meditation, and pottery with a will, but there are only so many hours in the day I can do either before the arthritis flares up or my mind can no longer be put off.

What a fucking mess we are, Sunshine. Mother’s addiction to power, Dunele and the arcane, me and any wit-dulling substance I can find... and then there’s you. If you ceased practicing magic, would you turn out like us? I pray we never find out. Please keep beating the odds, Scheine. They are stacked mightily against you.

I love you,

Renny

20 June

Dearest Scheine,

I have stumbled into a sort of arrangement with a night elf named Maesaeloria (had to double check the spelling of that one on the duty roster; it’s just as bad as we sin’dorei the blood elves and their high-handed naming conventions) and a dwarf named Brommidor. They make potions, I make containers. It isn’t art, but it is work satisfying enough to keep me occupied when I feel frustrated at my physical development--or lack thereof. It also keeps me in discreet meds for the arthritis.

The fact remains, sister, that we are middle-aged. And while your profession doesn’t exactly require physical fortitude, I don’t bulk up like I used to, even before the accident. Not that I’ve ever been bulky, really. Will I run fast enough, strike hard enough to be counted as useful amongst these frothing mad Servitors? Or did I squander my peak on bloodthistle?

I might travel into the wood in secret, in hopes of finding something magical to destroy, like one of those trollish spellcasters. If I am caught and the Servitors expel me, little lost there; best it happens now, while I’m finding out whether or not I’ve even got the skill when it counts.

The last time I’ve faced a mage was at home in Silvermoon. It was Her. I never told you this, and for that I apologize. It was while we were arguing. Upon learning I was once a spellbreaker She tried for me. (For what magic user doesn’t fear a ‘mage-killer’, truly? Never mind I never harmed a hair on Her head.) As I am writing you this now it shall be clear to you I stopped Her, and handily. But as you saw and I know well, She was no fully-fledged magistrix like yourself.

Only a cipher.

Some nights I wonder if it wouldn’t have been kinder to let Her, than to let Her care and then disappear on Her, even if She is undoubtedly better off. For Dunele’s sake I stayed alive... but in the end, it was for Dunele’s sake that I left.

It was never going to end well, was it?

As you have read my mind is overfull with them both. The Nels, we can call them. But let us put the second aside and move to the first.

There are things I wish to tell you of your sister, how sometimes she knew me, how she would speak in broken phrases of how she missed you. When she was sated she sometimes combed my hair, permitted me to read to her. Once or twice she asked me if we could play cards. Unlike in her adolescence, she never cheated. I always wondered about this last, if the force which warped her limbs and lengthened her teeth also stole her capacity for guile, leaving in its place a sort of low cunning, like that of the mana wyrm.

My friend the money-lender tells me the Guardians determined the fire was started in my flat and not beneath it, meaning her last act was deliberate. Did she mean to free me, or merely herself? Was it an act of desperation or of charity? I will likely never know, and therefore doubt I can find any peace outside of a bottle or pipe--and those options, as you so recently proved to me, are off the table. (My bruised ribs still smart me a little when I exercise.)

But this letter is dark, Scheine. I must apologize. Forgive me. I will try again when things are better.

I love you,

Renny

22 June

Dearest Sunshine,

I have been invited to a social engagement of sorts: a meal at the Commander’s home. As this is, so far, the only time anyone’s expressed a desire to see me socially I am a little anxious. It’s not that I’m assigning any real significance--I’m sure there’s probably some tradition whereby the newest is invited to dine--so much as I’m...

I’m a new man now. Or I should be. I’ve been given a second chance. I think I’d like, this time, to hold fast to the part of me that once reveled in the presence of others, who laughed loudly and often. Do you recall how we used to look forward to parties and social calls, despite mother’s designs? Do you recall Caro and her cousins, the public balls?

I’d like to be that young man again. I’m too old in some ways, but I think in others I could succeed. I’d like to reclaim that, Scheine, only I’m not sure just how to go about it. I suppose I will be charming. I will speak only of light things. If there is anyone present aside from we two I will dance attendance upon them as well. Not for the political gain in it, like our late mother would have expected us to do. Just for the simple joy of being with others, making them smile, finding amusement in being amusing.

In other news, the night elf I wrote of previously--Maesaeloria--is considering a housemate situation with yours truly. Of course, this is a little cart before horse as B still has not yet come through on funds and she herself is trying to put something of her own together, revive her business. And then I’ll have to get into the Servitors on a more permanent basis. But it’s something, isn’t it? Something to look forward to?

I must hold to the little things. They are all I have.

It would be lovely, though, to build a household with someone. And not in the way you’re thinking, either--don’t squint so at the page. (I’ll tell you again here and now, just buy some of those gnomish spectacles for reading.) But since childhood I’ve never lived with another, not outside of a barracks or camp environment. I don’t think I’ll ever wed anyone--who would have your terrible brother, after all?-- but it would be nice to snatch whatever happiness I could have. Just another person in the house, someone to share time and space with. It might feel less lonely.

Of course, this is all speculation. She might not have been serious. It might have been conversation. She’s kind, this I know. But kind people do not always follow through on things. I’m a perfect example of that.

I’d better close now, go for a long run. My phantom toes are paining me; some exercise should do the trick.

I love you,

Renny

23 June

Dearest Scheine,

I’m not willing to say the Alliance you serve is better, though I will concede that so far things are very different. I realized this today after a brief misunderstanding, of which no one but myself is aware.

I was wondering what to expect from a meal with the commanding officer, and so I asked around. As it turned out, I was correct to assume there was some sort of tradition in place. It was explained to me I would be “going for Questions.”

Terror, immediate and unreasoning, seized me. I thought they meant to say, casually, I’d be put to questions in order to ascertain my loyalty. I’m sure my eyes glazed over as they offered me tips, for I was imagining any number of horrors in store for me. Though I know your our the Alliance isn’t exactly a bastion of morality, I have not yet found a populace living in a situation equivalent to what has become our beloved Quel’Thalas.

In Silvermoon you keep your head down if you want to keep it period, particularly if you are neither a mage nor a noble. (Especially if you do not wish to draw attention to the fact that you are a powerful anti-mage, so powerful you are, in fact, forbidden to teach another on pain of death.) You do not laugh when a magister slips and falls in public, or when an errant breeze blows their robes up their thighs. You do not speak anything against the Magistry’s policies. You are always conscious, when in public, of the scrying eye and the roving Arcane Guardians, forever exhorting you to “keep order, citizen.” It is nothing to learn someone has been detained by the City Guardians on some pretense or other--sometimes they do not return. Sometimes they do and it is somehow worse; you find out their minds have scoured by the priests.

In Silvermoon the streets always look clean, because crimson tiles don’t hold bloodstains.

It is my hope you will understand now why I misinterpreted this bit about Questions with the Commander. (I am glad to relate that is not how Etharion Longsight conducts his business.)

Now that I’ve written it all out I can sense, already, the question in your mind. You are quick. By the time you finish this paragraph I know, too, you will grasp the answer, I know your lips will form the phrase ‘boiled frog’.

A fitting ending for this letter. Write me soon, Sunshine.

I love you,

Renny

24 June

Dearest Scheine,

You’ll be cross when you read this one. I’ll jump right in, spare you pleasantries I know you’d skip past anyway.

B still hasn’t come through and I was getting desperate to put something together so I can move on with my life, such as it is. That wasn’t all, though; I needed to fill these furlough days with something that would erase the sadness, if even for a little while. I am an addict, after all. If I can’t turn to pipe or bottle or syringe, I’ll find something.

I didn’t get rid of them completely, the arms father purchased when I passed in review. I took them to the city of dwarves and sought a master. I claimed they were taken off a blood elf and explained I wished them to be reforged into something more suitable for someone of the Alliance. (Strictly speaking, none of that is a lie.) Understandably, this expense, while necessary, has put me completely out of pocket; another reason for my journey to Tirisfal.

I’m ready, at least physically. I’m not as good as I’d wish, but I’m better than I’d hoped. I hid the talisman, packed a flimsy banner, and headed for the dueling circle. It’s next to a tavern in Brill; in that way, at least, I’ve played by the rules of my prospective new unit. (If not a bar fight, it is adjacent to both the idea and the reality.) There I waited, shaking my head as a few people sought me--until I found one who held mastery of flame. Even without the considerable benefits of my old shield, my old sword I can yet be formidable. I will be moreso once I get them back and can practice with them.

She was good, Scheine, strong. I will not go into detail; I know it disturbs you. But I bet on myself, of course. When I beat her it was sweet--and not just for the coin it brought me--for I did beat her. It seems even my flesh can recall its lessons. One of the bettors could not make the fee, and so gave me his bat. I am told it’s called Bitey. I’ll have to think of something else.

Don’t make that face, Sunshine. I knew the danger. I courted it willingly, for it was the best chance I had. I won’t do it again, and not just because of the risk of discovery from either end. I simply can’t, not if I’m to go forward from here. Otherwise, I’m not a defector, an exile. I’m just a man playing both sides. Spare me the lecture, please. I know you would have helped, but you’ve already done more than enough. You pulled me out of my old life and gave me another. Let that be enough between us. Let me have the small victory. I need it.

And look: I’ll have new arms soon. I have a mount, though it is not the conventional type. I have coin enough to find rooms a cottage somewhere, should the Servitors accept me. I might even have a housemate.

I couldn’t have said that a month ago.

I’ll write again soon as I can. And before I forget, thanks for the tea. I’ll see if any of the others like it.

I love you,

Renny

1 July

Dearest Sunshine,

As much as I treasure our more regular correspondence it’s difficult to write, sometimes. You know how I get; always trying to spare someone my misery, even as I wound them in another way.

I’m working on it.

Some of the Servitors are friendly, others less so. They remind me of my years with the Crusade, the squads bound together only through their mutual dislike of the Scourge. Relly certainly didn’t help matters. His lack of affect, the way he always hid the ruin of his face--which precluded him from ever breaking bread with his men. No, our good friend left that duty to me. Good old Quvren, always willing to do the work of being kind.

I don’t much enjoy thinking of Icecrown, but then I don’t think anyone does. Icecrown’s the place I started to disappear. First it was literal pieces: teeth, toes, the odd pound of flesh. Then it was other things: my ability to walk, to fight, my ability to function without the pain-dulling drugs. My name, when I came home to learn I’d been declared dead. (And what an irony, to have been declared dead a second time, and to have a second time survived the declaration.) My dignity, when I took another name and applied to be a tenant, renting out rooms in the manor that was once our birthright. Now I’ve lost other things. My old life is gone completely. Even Dunele.

But it no longer feels like a continuation of the same long, slow slide. I feel, despite how out of place I am here, steady. I don’t know when last I felt this way, either, save it was at a time everyone was alive and my biggest problem was how to tell Caro I loved her.

On a brighter note, my meal with Commander Longsight went well. At least, I think it did. It felt more like a social call than anything, though I admit the politicking Mother instilled in us didn’t permit me to relax as I might have liked. I don’t know whether it was good fortune or acumen on his end, that ensured the table was free of wine... despite the fact his family home boasts a vineyard.

All in all, I’ve spent more fraught hours at the dinner table.

In closing I will say I miss you terribly. I’d love it if you came for a visit. I write this knowing you won’t, but be assured you have not earned my rancor. But promise, Sunshine, to at least consider it.

I love you,

Renny

9 July

Dearest Scheine,

Furlough ended last week, and I am glad of it. This is not because I am as bloodthirsty as some of the Servitors, but rather because sobriety is rough when boredom comes knocking. There was a very tense day last week when I walked through the infirmary once every hour or so. I did it just to look at, out of the corner of my eye, the locked cabinet where the painkillers are kept. I did this for the same reason I used to keep a bottle of rum in the studio; because if I knew it was there and I didn’t go after it, I could conquer the even more accessible temptations with less difficulty. Reminding myself of the medicine cabinet kept me from walking down to the taproom, in other words.

That is, without a doubt, the worst thing about living amongst the Wildhammers, Sunshine. There’s drink to be had just about anywhere. Only two days ago I was looking in a closet for a broom and found a bottle of whiskey someone had apparently forgotten about.

They aren’t all bad days, though I admit today was tough. I write from a place called the Steam Pools in Feralas. Perhaps you’ve seen it, or even scryed me here. The Servitors have an anniversary tradition of coming out here. It is simultaneously beautiful and ugly. For every drop of warm water, there’s something unpleasant lurking just beneath the surface, it seems, all of it lubricated well with coin paid to whatever cartel runs this place. B would know, I’d imagine; I wonder if he’s ever considered opening up shop here. It seems like his kind of place.

The Servitors were full of food by the time I showed my face. I was nervous, up until recently, about my feet--at least until M (that gnome I told you about that one time) patiently pointed out most of them are more maimed than I am.

Ah, but it’s been so long since I even considered that sort of thing. In Silvermoon they don’t like looking at how dearly their security is bought. I was largely beneath notice, unless someone wanted to purchase a doll, and even then I was trotted out like a curiosity, a dragonhawk that had been taught to speak Thalassian. Here, though... here I am, it’s occurring to me, free in more ways than I’ve realized. No one recoils if I’m barefoot. No one looks surprised if my knees pain me. I might not like my body these days, Scheine, but at least I don’t have to carry the weight of everyone else disliking it as well--or worse, pitying me for all that I was (and am no longer, but that goes without saying).

Instead of all that, today I helped Avoriana make a sand castle. I lay on a beach and drew figures. I eschewed the shaved ice, but I did purchase something fruity and too-sweet, and left it next to me until I was tepid enough to enjoy. Later, when I felt bolder, I stripped my clothes off and bathed in the hot pools, soaking up every last memory of heat. Hopefully they’ll warm me when the days shorten in the Hinterlands and I sweat with fear every time I have to fetch the mail or go on patrol.

If I’m still here, that is. I haven’t yet earned my tabard. But I’m patient. I’m feeling out these people, and I’m sure they’re doing the same. I feel that’s a good enough note to end on. This hammock is calling my name, and I intend to answer.

I love you,

Renny

11 July

Dearest Scheine,

Though I’ve only rarely ever siphoned from the fel crystals so commonly seen in Quel’thalas, neither did I repudiate those who (either whole-heartedly or out of desperation) embraced it, no matter what Mother or anyone else had to say to me on the topic. But, Scheine, I admit I did do so, and little good has it done me over the years, going along just enough to save my skin even while drowning my hurts in whatever else was near to hand.

Your brother can be a bit of a coward, for he does love to lie to himself.

I spoke with Cerellean and Skybrooke the other night. They are the seemingly unwelcoming kaldorei I mentioned recently. I am making a dress for the latter, in exchange for a donation of hair. The hair I’ll use to make a doll for a child named Nia’ala, who is the daughter of a woman everyone calls Jo (and with whom I’ve hardly passed more than two minutes since my arrival in the Hinterlands). I’m excited about this commission; I’ll have to learn to articulate a tail, for the child in question is eredar draenei.

I made a book for Nia’ala recently--a picture book outlining the exploits of a unit called the Second Mouser Brigade, composed entirely of very heroic cats. I stayed up all night and worked straight through on the sketches, and a dwarven scribe helped me bind it in exchange for a new dress for his son’s favorite doll.

You could say I’m getting expert at bartering, really. Being low on funds certainly makes one resourceful.

But back to Skybrooke.

She has been markedly kinder to me of late. We originally met under inauspicious circumstances: She in an infirmary bed and I saying thoughtless things. After that flub it was all mistrustful staring and quiet communications out of the corner of my eye. (I have no doubt this occurs behind my back as well.)

I have since learned she is the outfit’s Intelligence Officer, and as much as I’d like to attribute her new, more kindly attitude to her recovery, I feel it is her position that explains her shift toward me. Another man might find offense, but as I am a guilty man, well, she is only doing her duty. It’s my fault we have reason to be at odds in the first place. I only wish I’d earned a sliver of her regard in the traditional way.

Of course, now that I think on it, if I can--by dint of natural charm or guile--win over a xenophobic Intelligence Officer, that would certainly go a long way toward ensuring my future security.

And yes, Scheine, I say ‘xenophobic’ in full knowledge that the blood elves are often little better on that count.

I will close for now. Thank you for the cigarettes; I’ll be sure to stretch them for awhile.

I love you,

Renny

18 July

Dearest Scheine,

I know you will fret. This had to come out eventually. My new friend Skybrooke has pressed most heavily, and while I’d liked to have waited, it’s important to me to exercise choice, to handle things in a manner of my choosing--even when options seem unappetizing. I could not see my way forward otherwise. Hiding Dunele--that was one thing. Hiding myself is far more trying. Editing everything I want to say... the waiting.

Sunwell, the waiting.

And now I’m in for more of it. This is a binary problem, sister. Either she will destroy me or she will not. I made her swear on something dear to her, but that is neither here nor there should she expose me. I won’t draw breath long enough to be disappointed.

Will she or won’t she? Let us hope she is a not a willful child plucking flower petals as you used to do.

I admit, however, to some disappointment regardless. She’s She was the closest thing to a friend I have made thusfar. I am sad to have found it was because she saw a puzzle to solve and not, well, me.

I love you,

Renny

PS - Added 7/19: I am about to mail this to you. I am alive. I am not betrayed, not yet at least.

21 July

Dearest Scheine,

B has finally come through! I got word through the post this morning. He has, of course, taken his cut--he runs a business, not a charity. I’ll be able to find a place of my own now (or with Maesaeloria if she’s still interested), as soon as I get promoted to Initiate at least.

Which, as nobody has come to imprison me or poke me full of holes, looks rather likely now--particularly since I am now proven in combat with these mad, mad Servitors.

I will spare you the gory details and say only that after a 12 hour sleep and a double dose of arthritis medicine I am hale as ever, and that it was a success, though I feel my contributions were uneven. It takes time, after all, to learn how to play to others’ strengths.

An unlooked-for benefit: a handful of Servitors have now seen some of the things a spellbreaker can do, some of the most terrible of our abilities, and yet afterward nobody regarded me with increased fear or hostility... just some curiosity. I can only guess this is due to the fact that the Alliance has never learned to fear people like me. Because there are no people like me, none at all. Human society isn’t a mageocracy, where fear and disgust at spellbreakers was encouraged in propaganda even as they trained us up in the Sanctum.

No, I was met with a couple of interested looks and a question posed in passing. And that was all.

(Not being special has never been more exciting, Sunshine.)

I’d better get this into the postbox. I slept way too long today and if I dither in bed any longer I’ll miss the pick-up.


I love you,

Renny

PS - My hair is singed.

22 July


Dearest Scheine,

The second day after action is always worse, a fact I seem to have forgotten. Maesaeloria’s tincture can’t touch the aching in my joints. It merely draws a veil over the deepest pain, enough so I can get around. The medicine cabinet in the infirmary calls to me once again, so I’ve resolved to stay downstairs, in the common rooms well away from Truk’s taproom. To add to my discomfort, I haven’t done anything like this in years--the last residuals of the energy I stole have only just now left my body, and in its absence another yearning awakens: as I write this I stare at the spelled cool box in the mess, wondering idly whether or not the active enchantment upon it would be worth devouring, as I so often saw Dunele do with the magical trinkets I used to bring her.

Later:

I’m outside. It’s better out here. I’ve meditated.

Skybrooke embraced me the other night. It’s been so long since I’ve been held by anyone other than a sibling--since I left Her, to be precise. Lust has never been all that much of a question with me, but the craving for intimacy? I’d denied it until the first time She put her little hand in mine. Amazing, the job She did on me in half a year, the way I came to desire--to depend upon, really--the uneasy affections of a woman who attempted to kill me these two years past.

Sometimes I wonder what She is doing now. I’ll be shaping clay and remember how She used to perch on the wobbly stool in my studio, chin cupped in Her palm. Or I’ll see a flame and be reminded of Her hair as it trailed over the edge of my bed.

But then I remember where (and who) I am now, and I recall the manic gleam in Her eyes as She declared She’d gladly flood the streets with blood if that’s what it took. I think of Her youth wedded to the Magistry’s propaganda machine, the way Her desire to do right was twisted into zealotry. I think of the time She accused me of being an Alliance sympathizer, of how Her lip curled like I was refuse. (This last bit is just laughable now.) I think of these things and wonder how quickly She’d try to kill me now.

There is a softness in me for Her, I admit. Even now. With time and distance I can see how poor a match we were, how disappearing from Her life was, in fact, the best thing and not merely another lie I told myself. What keeps me coming back to it is, I think, the question of desire. I didn’t desire her, not at first. That’s never happened for me. But later... I did then.

Intimacy is lovely--don’t think I’m ungrateful--but what if that was my only chance to feel passion for someone and have it returned?

Dwelling on this is a lie as well, I’ve just realized. Dunele was my excuse to leave Her. Now Dunele is gone. I can no longer use her as the convenient excuse. Without her to care for I can’t get away from how lonely I’ve let myself become. I find solace in your letters. Keep them coming, my drop of Sunshine. 

Perhaps someday I’ll find solace in the camaraderie of these Servitors as well.


I love you,

Renny