Unsent Letter to Jasmine, Written Approximately 15/02, Recreated Here
Spica
Metadata
Reference Number: BICI/SSP/CRJ1004/012
Title: Unsent Letter to Jasmine, Written Approximately 15/02, Recreated Here
Author: Spica
Date: Written approximately 15/02, Year 5607 A. o. W.
Extent: One letter, two pages long
To Jasmine, the lighthouse my blind eyes cannot see:
How are you, back in Seabreeze Shoal? Are the cool winds treating you well? Is the sea air filling your lungs with salt?
I miss the taste of kelp hanging on my tongue. I miss the hot press of the sun mellowed by the sweet breeze on my neck. But I miss you most of all: the jokes you never knew were jokes, the intensity of your gaze on everything that crossed your way, your quiet satisfaction shown in an empty bowl, or the rare times you’d let me cook you dinner.
There are so many meals I wish we could have shared.
I am tired of smelling smoke. It hangs in a gray haze everywhere I look. The sky here has lost the vibrancy that paints our home in my mind’s eye. I am haunted by metal and the buzz of magic. The taste of dried meat and stale bread lingers on my tongue long after our meals end.
My training is going poorly. Ash mutters to himself that I am an impossible case when he thinks I cannot hear. He calls me a vanity project. We know I am to be Branded at the end of the month; we also know this to be a farce. Neither Ash nor I have a choice in the matter, despite Ash being the most Senior member I have met since my arrival. He does not mentor any other trainee save for I. When I tried to ask why, Ash responded that this was an order, and that he and I have no choice but to obey.
I believe that order came from Fir. Who exactly is she? I have yet to figure that out. I know she must be high-ranking — possibly higher ranking than Ash — but if so, why take such interest in a failure such as I? She isn’t here, either, and no one has any idea where she had gone to. The other trainees do not know who she is, and when I attempt to ask Ash, he tells me to focus on my training instead. I know Fir must have duties to take care of outside of ferrying me around, but she was so excited to meet me. And I her.
Her absence feels like betrayal, but even writing that is shameful. What right do I have to feel betrayed?
Constantly, I find myself with a single wish: that things had been different.
I am exhausted constantly. My body aches. The forge is a place of violence — I know this. I have long accepted this. Yet every night I collapse into bed with my sinew ablaze with invisible fire. His Eternal Warmth’s magic is burning away my weakness and my reticence. It hurts. To be forged anew is neither gentle nor kind.
I find no solace, not even in my dreams. I would rather be in pain with my mind still my own than subject to the torture of dreams. I see your turned back, Jasmine. I see hatred in your eyes.
But more often, I see Blossom. She calls for me, for you, for answers. I beg her to stop, but she never does. Sometimes I look at her, hands clasped together in either a prayer or a plea, and the sight I see in my dreaming mind does not match the one in my memories. The Blossom before me is not twisted, but she is different.
Whenever I see her in my dreams, I am haunted awake.
There is no rest here. I wonder if I will find it after the Branding.
I suspect that the answer will be no.
Fearfully,
Spica