A letter for Kerrak.

[channe]

(OOC Note: in-timeline, this comes before 'White dresses and black blood', just before Helstone's second visit to Reverie and the girls' escape. Which is really only a day ago. I apologize for the late posting.)

--

No fanfare, no message-boy; just a plain, sealed letter left for the Captain in his office, for the author is not sure it will reach him at the Barracks.

The missive is a gamble to write, for a man as confused about the situation as Coriolanus Helstone is; and the twisted threads are beginning to unwind, dangle, and twist again, the second knot even more difficult to unravel than the first.

If that list is true -- oh, and how he believes it may be -- keeping Kerrak close is far smarter than allowing him to stray into the drow or join with Thessilanean forces over the border; and so he has done what Coran asked him to do, even though Helstone does not completely trust the handshake the man gave him.

Even though he does not trust Coran's word at all.

Politics is so rarely easy, is it?

Captain,

I am writing to you today to express my extreme displeasure with your plans to attack the drow at their stronghold. There are things we just do not yet know; there are things that are in abeyance, sir, things that we cannot possibly know about our many foes, things that we are discovering, whispers in the dark that I do not feel safe expounding in the written word but that I [I]must air to the full Council.

There is no-one in Myrken Wood better suited to make the kind of sally that you plan, of that I am sure; but, if things are turning out the way that your friend, the lord d'Zir, tells me they are -- then, by your gods, sir, meet eternity under the sun and stars alongside the rest of us, as is your birthright and your duty.

We would see you [/i]live, Captain; we would see our province strengthened by your presence as it has always been. Lord d'Zir tells me about the inexorable end of things, and for that I am truly sorry, but -- it must not be now. We have not agreed on much, you and I, which has been regrettable, but I believe I speak for Guillaume and Roschen as well when I say: [I]do not go.

There are those who would make of your name a traitor's slur; they say you serve Thessilane and not Myrken Wood. Prove to them, and to us, that you are ours: stay.

Sincerely,
Coriolanus Helstone[/I]

And, with that, Helstone walks out to watch the Hawk's Talon on its descent into town, with the kind of sick feeling in his stomach previously reserved for the most dire of situations; and he will stop by St. Iona's to pray.

And then, once again, he will stop by a baker's to pick up some honey-cakes for the elf Reverie, intent on widening their previous conversation, and finding some answers.