A/N: I haven't started working on the ninth chapter of Hopes of the High Entia, but that doesn't mean it's slipped my mind. I thought I'd try writing letters in order to get more into Kallian and Melia's characters, and eventually decided to post them. I hope you guys find them alright. This first chapter is a letter from Kallian to Melia.

Melia-

It is lonely here in the Imperial Palace. Father is gone and you have left, though that is not your fault. We should have given you more opportunities to travel over the Bionis and even to Sword Valley. An understanding of our world's geography is important for many things, especially for deciding strategic locations in this time of war. Though I have to attend more ministers' meetings, the bare, cold interaction amongst them cannot replicate the presence of family.

Here in Alcamoth, all of us are considerably occupied. Lorithia and the Ministry of Research are upgrading the design of the Havres and they should be ready for construction soon. Small groups of knights have been sent to different regions of the Bionis and to Sword Valley to examine possible battlegrounds. Tomorrow, the Homs and Nopon leaders will arrive. I hope that I am sufficiently prepared for my meeting with them.

Even now, I have my doubts. Every former Emperor, even Father, has followed the same rule- not to interact with the Homs or the Mechon. That way, we could spare our resources for internal problems. But look what has happened to us High Entia.

Our people have become proud. Many of them believed that that because of our privileged position on the head of the Bionis and because of our control over ether, we were the most advanced life-form on Bionis. We thought that Homs were barely deserving of our attention. We have placed all our trust in our power and technology, forgetting the one thing far more valuable than those- unity. While I am regent, I will do what I can to move our people in that direction.

I do not know why I find myself remembering the First Consort more often; perhaps it is because she was the one who taught me to love the Bionis we live on; to appreciate the wonders wrought by the ether that makes us and everything else in the world. But she was also the one who wanted me to think the way she did- that Homs were disgusting lowlife, unworthy of even a shred of our attention.

Decades before you were born, she would bring me to Eryth Sea and Makna Forest to enjoy the diversity of wildlife and the company of the Nopon. But even the mere mention of a Homs would darken her face as she pulled me back to the palace. I eventually learnt that Homs were "filthy", but I never learnt or understood why.

When the Second Consort, Minthe, came, the stereotype of the Homs that the First Consort had tried to imprint in me shattered. I cannot deny that I had little respect for her when I first saw her; she was beautiful and seemed to be of acceptable character, but if the First Consort hated those of her kind so much…

It came as a surprise, though not a large one, when years passed and Minthe remained the kind, gentle person she had been from the beginning. Despite the First Consort's refusal to see her as a fellow consort and the general feeling that she was only in our home, our capital Alcamoth because Father was required to take a Homs Second Consort, she accepted her lot and did anything she could to help us. Her kind words often comforted and encouraged Father when he was at his most stressed. I began to respect, and then to like her.

Five years after Minthe came, you were born. By then, your mother had taught me to appreciate her race and those with Homs blood. And because she had now seen more of Bionis than the First Consort was willing to visit, her love for our world always felt more genuine, more developed than anything my own mother had ever shown me. I am grateful to her not only for her care and concern for me- no, all of us, but also for bringing you into our lives.

As you grew and matured, so did my thinking, though I still could not bring myself to protest and intervene when Father decided not to aid the Homs in the first war with the Mechon. Finally, we ourselves were attacked, and the Homs you befriended fought with a courage and strength I can only hope to achieve. It is because of you, sister, and the Homs, that I can find this strength to mend bonds long broken.

Perhaps there is some hope for all of us.

You are our hope, Melia, you and Shulk and the five other Homs and Nopon. You will escape the curse that binds our race to an inescapable fate- or maybe you can change that. Do not worry for me. Do what you have to. This is a trial far greater than the two you have gone through, but know that the peoples of Bionis will never stop believing in you, in all of you, and neither will I.

Awaiting your safe return,

Kallian