Dear Gregor,

I am to take a letter to you from Temp, but that is later. This letter is from me.

What I have been impatiently waiting for is here at long last! A letter from you to me. Now your strange silence makes more sense. You have given me the proverbial slap on the face for being so impatient. I have been acting horribly. A queen should know better than to be so frustrated. Or to act it, at least. I am sorry.

I am glad to know that I am on your mind just as you are on mine. Though I am often distracted from my thoughts of you, you are never far away. Ripred says that my pining for you is making him crazy. Do not believe him. Queens do not pine. Well, perhaps this one does some pining. She daily wishes you were here. There is nothing wrong with that, no matter what the rat says.

My new bond is also making me crazy. I am sure you would not want either of us. We fight about everything, from where our land's borders should be, to who gets what river, to what to eat for dinner. I wish you were here to interfere. You have a way with words and knowing what is truly important that I do not.

Your letter to Ares broke my heart. I cried after reading it. I am sure Hazard thinks I have lost my mind. But I strangely felt better after crying. Cleaner. Have you experienced this cleansing?

Losing Ares is for you what losing my parents was for me.

I try to be a parent to Hazard, but I fear I am no Hamnet. So I will just be his sister. Like Lizzie is for you. And Boots. It must be nice to have so much family around you. Even when you are grounded, as you explained to Hazard.

Aurora says hello. I do not fly on her so often now as I am used to. I ignore my old bond in favor of fighting with my new one. They do not like each other. This is no surprise. Perhaps if you were here, you could fly on her and she would get some exercise. I know this is wishful thinking, but I think it nonetheless.

I will eat cake, like you suggest. Ripred will eat shrimp and cream sauce. Perhaps we will also invite the shiners to share our meal.

Whoever knows you gathers once every few days to read aloud your letters to them. In this way, everyone stays abreast of the events happening to you.

Hazard misses Boots a great deal. More than I thought he would. He misses speaking in crawler with her. Speaking alone with Temp is not the same, he says. He misses the way she cuddled him to sleep by singing. The way she handled the pups. The way she wanted to learn every language she could. Most here do not want to learn languages. He is much in demand for interpreting the hisses and clicks of other races. I feel too many rely on one so young, but he never complains.

Oh, Gregor, I often do not know what to do. I miss your hugs when I feel this way. I wish my parents were here to tell me how to rule. I wish Ripred was not so sarcastic. I wish you were here for me to talk to. I wish, I wish, I wish.

Luxa