"
Daryl."
The tone in her voice could have either been misplaced admonishment or pure elation; even Gloria Wynsee didn't know. But when she saw the boy, her brow furrowed (
What are you doing here!) and her blunt-toothed, cork-colored smile beamed across the Gruelmaster's common room (
It's so splendid to see you!). Before the letter, there was an embrace (even now, thicker and stronger and darker than she had ever been, Gloria Wynsee still bore that Jerno smell, that sandswept sharpness, that sourness that refused to disperse from her clothes). And food. There was food, all ordered with haste, biscuits and sausages and stringy Razasani meats. And mending! The hole in the knees of his pants did not remain long; she demanded the garment with a powerful flick of her fingers (
Upstairs, I've a pair of trousers you can wear in the meantime; you'll be all but swimming in them, but I've a desperate need to vanquish this tear and must do so before you depart).
Gloria's doting over the boy was an act of warmth, cheer, stubborness, and — lacking any better term — suffocation: she asked after him, after his health, after Myrken, after familiar faces; she wiped a smear of dirt from his cheek, scrunched her nose at the state of his shoes; she ate and he ate and only
then did she accept his letter. Even in excitement at receiving it, she dedicated her time to him, settling the unopened missive aside to pour over him with attention. She demanded he remain at least a few days (
I'll show you the lowstreets, just as long as you stay close).
And when he was tired, worn to threads by his journey, she gave the boy her bed. She stayed awake and only then struggled, with lilting confidence, to mend the leg of his trousers. In her remaining hand, an undisclosed tremor kept the needle from perfection. Her knuckles, swollen and cracked, were far more suited to throwing punches than working seams. But for Daryl, she worked them.
Then she read the letter.
Then she composed her response.
Genny,
The words in your letter sooth me. Disagreements as we have had and discomforts as I have given you, I am thankful that you still consider ours a friendship. I cannot bare to face some of the realitys of some of my past choises and am struggling to rediscover friendship with myself in the process. For shoult I have met me yesterday, or a year ago, or six, I woult have become a quick enemy with myself. Consider this journy to Razasan an escape, not from Myrken, but from myself.
Daryl arrived safely. I venture he will complain upon his return about how I scarcely gave to him a moment for himself. Shoult Myrken ever become too dangerous, I implore you send him my way. He will always have safe harbor with me. It was a wonder and a relief and a rege rejuvi refreshment to see him. I cannot imagine such a rapid journy be undertaken by an adult let alone a boy but he is well and he is so very good. He sleeps as I write this and my hope is that his dreams are uneventful.
To matters of Elliot: I appresiate your honesty regarding the matter of his choice and, whether or not it be believed, both understand and respect it (see, Gloria has grown, she knows now how to respect another's choices, and nex week she may very well learn how to say please and thank you!). For this too is where I encounter moral challenge. I do not wish to force my will upon him. But at what end does the refusal to force will also breed a monster where before there would never have been one. Power consumes him there, he beliefs himself capable of a great many alterations and that these alterations to dreams and thoughts (and I argue souls) are both his purfew and his responsability. That with this newfound power he aught to change frowns to smiles and forge dreams where otherwise there may have been none.
I hope you, too, will understand my inflexibility in this regard. For if no action is taken, then nothing is prevented; if every action is taken at the wrong time, then everything will be broken.
I do not want to be forced to help destroy a thing for which I have come to care very deeply. And yet if left unchecked this may become problematic.
I know I am in the wrong to force this upon him and do not wish to. Convincing is the only way it must be done but I fear it may be hard to convince a dog too elated by the strength afforded it by the foaming of its mouth. The goodest news of this is that he is not yet lost: in him as you might have noticed is still an Elliot who has not been wholly changed. Even in her death she proposes challenges for us to overcome. I tire of her legacie and her name and her affect upon the world we know. When may we truly commit her to be forgotten?
To matters of the wood: First, I aught to ettempt it in a tincture cure for the itch of a foot with your suggestion. Remedies are quite funny things arent they. Consider this: as a child in the seam house learning my trade I too often fell victim to a rather embarassing habit of making water in the bedding, and they had no bark to take this away, so do you know what they did: they tied desert rat's tails to a child's toes and she was to sleep with them facing perfectly upright and also was prescribed to hold an alderfruit between her ankles and this was proved to solve the
A second page continued on from where the first left off. The woman's handwriting had become quick, efficient, and rapid. Her capacity to express with language had increased, and consequently, its precision had waned — a symptom of either crushing boredom or increased exposure to one Glenn Burnie.
damning act. But alas, it did not prevent what age gradually learned to overcome. Now this is what I find of great interest: Myrkeners have a far less primative grasp on medicine and the ways of leaves and herbs and you have already discovered other uses for this bark. But so too have I. You will find a limitless supply of this flaking off the stump where our Catch used to serve the town by chopping wood. It has swallowed some bit of him and of other trials and of other tribulations and violences. Sleep with this specimen gripped in your hand. Perhaps on the other side of this sleep I will meet you. I cannot explain this any more fruitfully, but it is a thing that I know.
I hope that you will forgife the rambling and exhaustian of this letter. In my brain there are a great many words and only a fraction of me can find its way expressed through the blow of a fist to a cheek. Glenn is here and I shall greet him from you; Lady Follox too is here, and Raf, and others, names which to me are friends and accuaintances but to you are just letters upon a page. Yet I find myself in desparate need of companionship, yes? At what point shall a body fail to serve a brain gone too long unstimulated.
You need no final advice from me upon matters of family. But I will sleep with the hope that one day before your old age you will reconsile with your brother. That he will reconsile with you. Scars do not lose their memory but they lose their pain. Both Tollesons are made of the most goodly stuff. I will direct future corraspondence to him as instructed if I shoult ever find the gall to compose such a thing.
Let us solve this matter of Elliot as best we may. He too is made of goodly stuff. I would hate to see it become her final casualtey.
With revarince,
Gloria Wynsee
In a blink, morning was upon Razasan with its cruel summer sun and the gasping bleats of birds upon the Gruelmaster's sills. None of these disturbed a sleeping Gloria, whose final task had been to sand the letter, stamp it with a sloppy seal, and label it to its recipient before daring a few moments of slumber (
Just a few, just a few...) with her head hanging back over the spine of her bureau's chair.
She slept with the missive clutched against her breast and Daryl's mended trousers still on her lap.