2nd Year of Selenay and Darenthallis' Reign, Vernal Moon
Dear family,
Thanks again for the visit and sorry I wasn't clear when I wrote that we were coming home, I didn't realize you'd think something was deathly wrong with Kir when he didn't write! I wanted the visit to be a surprise ambush or he'd never agree to leave the unit behind. As it was I had to blackmail him with saying I'd already sent word we were visiting and did he really want to disappoint Mara like that (Mara, you're brilliant blackmail, just so you know).
Kir's breathing is all right, I'm keeping an eye on him and not letting him be stupid – that's what we're doing now actually, sitting inside, out of the rain, because he doesn't need to get pneumonia. I think he's made more knotwork pieces in the past two moons than he has in the past year, we'll have to go get him more string soon.
Jer, I don't think many Firestarters can do what Kir did – at the very least, if Herald Griffon comes through, I wouldn't try to do any work you actually needed to get done with his help. Last I heard he was still struggling with the finer control stuff but that was a while ago so who knows, he might be better.
Ma, I'll try and hunt up the actual spices for that cake for you, but no promises! Hope you're all doing all right and pass on my greetings to everyone!
Love,
Anur
Dear Bellamys,
I second the thanks on the visit, it was much needed even if I didn't need to be blackmailed into it, I was just worried about leaving my post on such short notice. Mara, ignore your uncle. He's an idiot.
He's also overreacting to the injury but I'm going to let him for a while longer, it will give me more leverage the next time he does something stupid and tries to stop me from 'fussing' over him. He's right about the forge-work being relatively uncommon amongst Firestarters – at least the Karsite type, the only reason I started it was because I was rather desperate to get out of the Temple District for a few marks a week – with forge-work being both valuable and practice for flames it was easy to justify, I don't know of anyone else who's done something similar. Griffon is your best bet though, should he pass through and you want to experiment.
I would suggest lots of sand and water if you try that though, and no apprentices.
Mara, Karsite-Valdemaran dictionaries aren't exactly common, we've only got one copy ourselves and we rather need it for translating dispatches. I'll see what I can do but no promises.
There's nothing else on our end – weather is still seasonable but extreme at least. I don't look forward to the next stage.
Vkandis bless and guide,
Kir
2nd Year of Selenay and Darenthallis' Reign, Hunter's Moon
Dear Family,
Sorry for the long delay, I don't really have an excuse we weren't even that busy, relatively speaking. Most of our time was spent in the northern reaches, though we had an interesting adventure or two in the southern stretches. I'll have to tell you about them someday – turns out, Companions on Search don't really remember the 'search' part, just a sort of daze as they scramble towards their Chosen. Very disorienting. Seems a little silly, to have them traveling alone that vulnerable but in Valdemar only an idiot would attack a Companion so at least there's that.
Have you heard anything about Princess Elspeth's quest? We've gotten that there was an assassination attempt that made it to the capital by magecraft so she got permission to take herself and another Herald (Skif, I think I mentioned him in stories once or twice?) out of the Kingdom to recruit mages and see why they can't be in Valdemar.
We know that last one at least, its vrondi, but no one knows why they drive mages out of Valdemar so she needs to figure that out or any mages that cross our borders are going to go crazy within a moon and the last thing we need are crazy mages in our borders. Ancar's are bad enough and they're somewhat sane.
I hope she can find some, and find out how to make Valdemar safe from them. It's been nearly five years and he shows no signs of giving up – it's not sustainable, on either end. It's just a matter of who bleeds out first, and it can't be us.
I'm so damn glad you're all well out of it. I hope Pascal is all right, Lilah. I'll keep an ear out for him but I'm sort of in the wrong country for it.
Love,
Anur
Dear Bellamys,
I echo Anur's relief that you're so far north (relatively speaking, I really hope I have no cause to go past your home in winter, Anur's told stories about Sorrows winters and why would anyone live there? It sounds horrible!) and also echo his promise on Pascal – I have even less a chance of hearing about him, but I'll keep an ear out for him and his unit nonetheless.
Though if I ever had cause to meet him on the battlefield for some reason I don't think my claims of brotherhood with Anur would be very believable or reassuring…
Regardless, we'll keep an ear out. The adventures southward were relatively straightforward, though I didn't know that about the Companion's search being similar. I'll have to ask Aelius about it when we have time.
Both Aelius and Riva are doing well and Aelius passes on greetings and hopes for a visit someday soon, he's fond of your stables and the children constantly feeding him apples and spoiling him rotten. I rather doubt we'll be able to visit anytime soon but perhaps this winter.
Vkandis bless and guide,
Kir
2nd Year of Selenay and Darenthallis' Reign, Midwinter
Dear family,
Kir and I won't be able to make it this year (obviously) but have sent some small gifts for the kids and some tea-blends, I remember Jana asking after Kir's headache blend the last time we visited. He wrote the herbs out in Karsite, I wrote the ones I recognized in Valdemaran but I don't know if we have some of them, he'd have to show me samples of the plant.
Aelius and I are having a great time of it, and watching Kir's back is never boring! It's a lot easier now, turns out Kir can mindspeak, he just doesn't like to use it much. Aelius and I are okay though, so that makes things easier – and makes boring meetings a lot more enjoyable!
All is well here, and hope all is well with you. Also, Mara – nice effort with the letter! It took us a while to figure it out – Karsite doesn't have the same alphabet, but Kir's attaching that.
Love,
Anur
Dear Bellamys,
I look at the letters he passes me now and compare them to the first one he sent you; night and day! He's gotten so much better at this – of course I'm still reminding him to write half the time but that's a different project.
I honestly don't know when we'll be able to visit again, slipping away last time was difficult and we're only going to be getting busier. We'll do our best in the coming year, but it may very well be two or three before we can truly visit, and I do apologize for that as it's mostly my commitments and duties that are keeping us in the south. Anur still refuses to head home on his own, the idiot.
I'm attaching a rewritten copy of Mara's letter in actual Karsite script, word for word – then I rewrote it with proper grammar, but there weren't many changes to be made. My reply to her is written below that, in Karsite. I think you'll be able to manage it, Mara.
You may hear some odd rumors coming from down south – all I can assure you of is that Anur is going to be fine, if I have to burn our way to Jkatha and work around the long way to do it.
Vkandis bless and guide,
Kir Dinesh
