Abiegni’s Letter to Her Mother
Metadata
Reference Number: BICI/SSP/CRJ1004/010
Title: Abiegni’s Letter to Her Mother
Author: Abiegni
Date: Written approximately 14/02, Year 5607 A. o. W.
Extent: One letter, two pages long
Mom,
The Branding Ceremony is less than a month away. Can you believe it? My final test is in two weeks, but my mentor says I’ll pass no problem. He says I’ve been ready for a few months now. There are so few Trainee Embers these days that he’s surprised I had to wait so long. I wonder why they delayed it in the first place…
I guess I can wait a few more weeks. I’ve been here for three years, after all.
Honestly, I’m more excited to go home than I am to pass my exam. I don’t know if I’ll be assigned to Strinarre immediately, but I hope so. If I get assigned somewhere else, I’m gonna ask for some time off to come visit. I want to see you! I want to see my friends! I can’t believe Vanille is already getting married. Make her delay the wedding until I’m back! I’ll be so pissed if she gets married without me.
I want to see Bori, too. Isn’t his birthday soon? I’ll try to get him a gift. What does he like? He’s turning what… two? Does it really matter what I get for a baby? Though I guess he doesn’t really count as a baby anymore…
Warmth above, I’ve never even seen him before. Sorry Mom, but Dad’s not a very good artist. I want to see Bori for myself. Does he look more like you or Dad? I have your nose and Dad’s chin. Does he, too?
Anyways, tell him and Dad I said hi. And that I’ll see them both soon, hopefully.
Oh, and clean up my room, please! It’s fine if half of my room is storage, but please put my bed down, at least. I don’t want to sleep in Bori’s room! His crying will keep me up all night.
Speaking of keeping me up all night… Do you remember how I said I was getting a new bunkmate? Well, I got her. And she’s a freak. First off, she’s old. REALLY old. Twenty-one. I’ve NEVER heard of a twenty-one year old Trainee Ember before. Can she even be taught anything if she’s that old?
Next, she hates it here. Completely does not want to be here. There’s being homesick, and then there’s whatever she is. I asked if she was homesick once, and she was all, “Oh, I don’t deserve to go home.” Are you kidding me? What’s THAT supposed to mean?
I tried being nice, but… ugh. Mom. She has SO many issues. And she somehow gets special treatment. I have no idea why. Her mentor is the Overseer. THE OVERSEER! They hadn’t accepted a new Trainee in a YEAR before I arrived, and the Overseer didn’t bother to speak to me for my first three months. And then she shows up out of nowhere, and suddenly he’s mentoring HER?
I hate dorming with her. She keeps me up at night. She gets horrible nightmares. Cries all the time. Sometimes I wake up to the sight of her sitting at the edge of her bed like a statue. She stares off into nothing. It’s so creepy. I’ll take her crying in her sleep over the staring any time.
She’s also a freak about her weapon. We’re trained to keep them at our bedsides. Once we’re out in the world, we’ll never know when aberrations could attack. We need to be prepared just in case they strike in the middle of the night. So of course I keep my bow right by my bed. I told her to do the same thing, but she never does. Sometimes, when I’m feeling especially nice, I’ll put it by her bedside when she forgets.
Then I wake up, and the sword is on the other side of the room. I get she’s bad at using it, but it’s like she’s afraid of it.
So stupid.
Anyways, I’ll stop here. I can hear you scolding me for being rude in my head. It’s not rude, Mom. It’s called being honest. If you met her, you’d understand.
I might not send you another letter before the Branding Ceremony. But I’ll see you soon, Mom!
Love,
Abie
Journal Entry, Dated 15/02
Jasmine
Metadata
Reference Number: BICI/SSP/CRJ1004/011
Title: Journal Entry, Dated 15/02
Author: Jasmine
Date: Written approximately 15/02, Year 5607 A. o. W.
Extent: One journal entry, three pages long
15/02
Our wall looks like shit. Hardly functions any better than shit. It’s an awful mish-mash of rocks, rotten wood, and fallen branches, held together by stubborn determination and some tar Nico picked up from a village to the northeast.
“Why does this look so much worse than what I first saw in the forest?” I asked Nico, after we had set a new piece of rotten wood on top.
He laughed sheepishly. “It was too hard to keep building it nicely. Function over form, you know?”
I wasn’t going to push. Between lugging around wall materials and killing aberrations, he was stretched thin. He did an excellent job of killing aberrations, though. I’d freeze in place as a screaming monster came careening towards us, but time and time again, Nico calmly loaded a bolt into his crossbow and fired it off. He came well-prepared, too. This morning, Nico’s quiver was stuffed full of bolts. By the time we had finished, only two remained.
I think we’ll measure our workdays not by the sunlight, but by how many bolts he has left.
We still had an hour of sunlight left by the time we finished our work, so Nico used the extra time to bring me to one of the best-kept cottages in the village. The roof was gone, but the walls were still intact. Mostly. Nico pushed open a rickety door and gestured for me to enter.
Dozens of weapons hung along each wall. Nearly each was a different kind of weapon. There were so many whose names I didn’t even know.
“If you’re gonna learn how to fight, you’re gonna need a weapon! And luckily for you, I smuggled all of these out of the Hearth.” He puffed his chest out proudly, a smug look all over his face. I think he wanted me to praise him.
I need to be clear: there were dozens of weapons.
“Uh. How?”
It was impressive, but… strange. And a little unsettling.
He grinned. “There are thousands in the Hearth. They’re everywhere. All that guy has done for the past forever is make weapons. Nobody was going to miss a few dozen.”
“No, I meant literally. How did you do it.”
Nico laughed. “You’ll never guess.”
“What.”
“C’mon, guess!”
“No. Tell me.”
He rolled his eyes, sure, but he didn’t stop laughing. “A really big cart, and a really big tarp.” His grin was razor-sharp. “The lug never even noticed.”
I’ve never heard anyone slander His Eternal Warmth the way Nico does. The sheer disrespect made even me uncomfortable. Sometimes I think about telling him to shut up in case His Eternal Warmth was listening.
Anyone from the rest of the world would have slapped him for his sacrilege by now. Or worse.
I had something else on my mind. “Okay. Why?”
“I wanted to distribute them to the villagers here. That way, we’d never need to rely on His Eternal Warmth or his Embers again. Then I actually returned, and… well.” Nico’s easy grin faded. “You know.”
“Sorry.”
“No need to apologize. You did nothing. You know, I thought about selling them, but never got around to it. Now… at least one of these can go to a good cause.”
A good cause. I wasn’t sure how I felt about him calling me that. Was that all I was — charity? A way to make amends for what happened to his people before?
The answer didn’t matter to me. Let me be charity. We’d get exactly what we needed from one another. Him, an easy answer to misplaced guilt, and me, a path forward. “So I just… pick one?” I asked, scanning the weapons. I lingered on a pair of daggers for a few moments until a tall staff caught my attention. It was made of a dark iron and topped with a deep blue gemstone. “I thought only Embers could hold these things.”
Nico came to my side. “I’ll let you in on a secret: anyone can wield His weapons. Every weapon He forges contains some of His power. Sure, you won’t be able to shoot a fireball, but you can knock out a few aberrations.”
I took the staff off its wall mount. It was heavy, but it felt good in my grip. I gave it a test swing. Nico took a few steps back, letting me move in a complete circle. He watched me, eyes glowing.
Residual magic from all the weapons lingered in the air. Not enough to disarm me, but just enough for it to stick to my skin like a hot, humid day. Nothing compared to the lighthouse’s lantern room, but it still wasn’t pleasant.
“That one, huh? I’m surprised. I took you as more of a knife girl. Staves are best for channeling magic, you know. Though I guess you can always bash aberrations over the head with it.”
I held the staff upright. My hand fell against a light groove. It was the perfect height to rest on. “This has a lot of uses.”
Nico didn’t stop smiling. “Oh? Like what?”
“Walking stick.”
Nico burst into laughter. “I didn’t even think of that!”
With that done, we headed back to his cottage. Now I’m back in my room writing, and Nico is off… hm. He was next to his hearth last I looked. I only saw his back, but somehow I got the sense that he was watching the flame.
I wonder how he feels about fires, after all that’s happened to him. Does he find comfort in them still, or do they remind him of all he’s lost?
I could ask, but… best not to. All I need from Nico is for him to teach me how to fight. I don’t need to be good at it; I just need to survive without his bolts covering me.
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