Unsent Letter to Jasmine, Written Approximately 24/02, Recreated Here
Spica
Metadata
Reference Number: BICI/SSP/CRJ1004/016
Title: Unsent Letter to Jasmine, Written Approximately 24/02, Recreated Here
Author: Spica
Date: Written approximately 24/02, Year 5607 A. o. W.
Extent: One letter, three pages long
Jasmine, my dearest friend:
You and Blossom are my nighttime confidants. It is no longer surprising for my eyes to close, only to open again and find myself in the lighthouse as if you had finally granted me entry.
And yet your haunting took on a different tenor last night. When I awoke, it was as though reality had haunted me, tearing me from the honeyed truth of the dream. I nearly fell out of bed in my blind pursuit to find some kind of balance: in this morning’s case, it was a desperate attempt to ground myself with my own feet.
Now that I am as balanced as I can be, I am left wondering about my dream: was it simply a scenario my desperate mind created, or was I given a long-forgotten memory?
The only one who would know the truth is Blossom, and she…
She…
[There is something scribbled out on the letter. The text is illegible. Out of respect for the original text, the Berelyse Institute of Cultural Illumination has elected not to analyze the illegible portions. -Ellsyx]
That final night, you asked me to watch Blossom. You normally don’t, and didn’t, ask for my help, but she had fled to the lighthouse during the last full moon, and you were convinced that she would try once again. I accepted immediately, of course, desperate for the chance to aid you.
“Are you sure? She’s a handful,” you warned me, as if hoping I would say no. But how could I ever refuse your outstretched hand?
I accepted it, and all of the complications that came with watching Blossom. I knew sleep would prove elusive that night; even a flutter of my eyes could send Blossom sneaking away. I came prepared with tea and books, ready to stand sentry over the night.
At the door, Blossom greeted me sullenly. “I don’t need a babysitter,” she sighed, as if either one of us could change the situation.
“Jasmine needs to work tonight,” I reminded her gently.
“She’d work better if she had help!”
Blossom looked at me pleadingly, knowing that no matter how vehemently I protested, she and I held the same wish. The lighthouse was a prison we both failed to breach. We had no key to freedom, but perhaps we could offer comfort in your cage, if you’d only let us.
It has always struck me how vastly different you both are. She is the pale moon; you, the dark sea below. I see your similarities in the smallest things: the way your hair falls in the same lilting curls, the ravenous hunger that envelops you both at dinnertime, the eagerness with which Blossom attempts to translate your mannerisms into something of her own. She keeps her back stiffly straight like you when she sits, though hers is affected while yours is natural. She copies the way your words spill into one another when you talk, though her sentences last longer than yours ever do. You may not look alike, but what is that against your shared history?
I made Blossom dinner. We assembled a puzzle together, one I had brought from home. Upon finishing, Blossom asked if I could bring a few more for her. Completing them made the time pass faster when she was alone. When I suggested you and she could do one together, she rolled her eyes. “Jasmine would never. She’d be too busy cleaning to solve it with me.”
“She wants to make sure you’re taken care of.” But it was too late; the damage was already done. We approached a topic of frustration you and I have both heard many times before.
“I’m thirteen already! I don’t need to be babied anymore! I can work in the lighthouse. It doesn’t scare me! It feels more like home than this dump ever could.”
“It’s safer down here. You’re closer to school. To the rest of the village. If you need help, the rest of the village is right here.” I recited every point you ever made to her, but I left out the biggest one of all: that you hate your cottage far less than you hate the lighthouse.
For all Blossom insists she wants to dedicate her life to the lighthouse, you want to offer her a choice. You want to shield her from the cruelty fate bestowed upon you. If her dreams change, you want to let her chase them. Even if it dooms you to a place you hate.
I admire that about you, Jasmine. You may not believe it, but you have such a bright soul. You love so deeply and so intensely. It astounds me every time.
“No one should stay at the lighthouse alone. If you’re alone, the sorrow will swallow you,” Blossom said.
I noticed a change in her. I don’t need to explain it; you’ve seen it countless times. The faraway look. The sudden gravity to her voice. A weight that a little girl should never be able to grasp.
“We’ll always be together. You, me, Jasmine. Jasmine may not understand, but this is how it has to go. I know it. Just trust me,” Blossom said.
I awoke in a cold sweat.
I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have said yes. I shouldn’t have opened the door. I shouldn’t have looked in the hearth. I shouldn’t have looked in the hearth. I shouldn’t have looked in the hearth.
Why did I look? Why why why
[The rest of the letter is completely indecipherable. The Institute has tried to, and can’t, decipher the ending. -Ellsyx]
Journal Entry, Dated 25/02
Jasmine
Metadata
Reference Number: BICI/SSP/CRJ1004/017
Title: Journal Entry, Dated 25/02
Author: Jasmine
Date: Written approximately 25/02, Year 5607 A. o. W.
Extent: One journal entry, four pages long
25/02
I’m still not used to writing in the morning. The pages of my journal look different when they’re lit by the sun. I didn’t realize the paper was this white.
We made good progress on the wall yesterday. At this rate, Nico thinks we’ll be done by the end of the month. We’re nearly done with the southern wall, and Nico expects the northern wall to go much faster. We’ve completely abandoned any attempt at making them look nice. As long as they keep people out of the village, we’ve accomplished our goal.
The chasm widened again yesterday. Nico and I were lugging a rotten log over to the southern wall when he stopped, scrunching his nose up in an expression I didn’t recognize. A moment later, he set the log down and looked off into the distance. I tried to follow his gaze, looking for any aberrations, but I didn’t see any.
“It’s going to widen,” he said.
I remembered the last time this happened. “The chasm?”
He picked the log back up. “Come on. This way.” He guided us east, further away from the wall. Just when I was about to ask what was happening, I heard something behind me. The earth next to the chasm crumbled away, falling down into nothing.
I remembered the aberrations. The way they screamed as they fell.
The nothing grew. Quickly.
“Should we drop the tree and run?” I asked, pulling further away from the chasm. We were a good distance away, but watching the cliffside grow was unsettling. I didn’t trust it not to widen even further, and I wasn’t willing to take any chances.
“No. It’s about to stop,” Nico said. His little grin returned, as easy as ever. After a few moments, the crumbling stopped. The chasm wasn’t too much wider than before, at least in this area. It was only a little longer than one of my arms.
I didn’t understand how he was so nonchalant about it. I still don’t. “Can you always tell when it’s about to happen?” I asked.
“Most of the time,” Nico said with a shrug. “There’s a kind of… hmm. How should I explain it… there’s a kind of change in the air right before it’s about to happen. You might not be able to notice it, but I’ve been here long enough that I can.”
“Is it magic?”
“Kind of. A really strong Ember might be able to notice it too, even if they hadn’t spent much time here.”
“And you’re not worried about falling in?”
“I’m not worried about something so predictable.”
I could never feel the same. If I lived here by myself, I would leave the moment I had my things packed. I wouldn’t be able to go to sleep without worrying that I’d wake up falling forever. I’d dream of it every night.
The only reason why I don’t leave now… well, I’ll chance the chasm over the aberrations, given my poor fighting skills. Besides, Nico would tell me if we were in genuine danger.
The rest of the day was mostly uneventful. Nico has thinned out the aberration’s numbers, so we get more work done during the day. We usually end with his quiver half-full of bolts.
I even killed an aberration by myself today. I’m still not much of a fighter, but I can heft the staff over my head and bash one’s head in until it stops moving. It feels visceral, but at least they don’t bleed.
When aberrations die, they don’t leave bodies behind. They turn to ash and blow away in the wind. Sometimes I wonder where the ashes go. When I asked Nico, he said he didn’t know.
There was one other strange thing. On the way back, Nico asked me to collect some wild herbs in the village while he started dinner. I asked about the aberrations, but he wasn’t concerned.
“If any come after you, just scream and beat it with your staff until I come!” he said cheerfully.
“Yeah. Okay,” I said, and left him to head back to the cottage. I was still a little concerned, but at least I was near the cottage. I could run back inside if I needed to.
The meadow was quiet. I didn’t hear or see any aberrations. I looked around for the herbs, and found a large patch close to the edge of the chasm.
I still didn’t trust the chasm not to grow on me, but since Nico wasn’t worried, I was determined not to be either. I had never seen it widen twice in the same day.
I crouched down to pick the herbs, pale green with soft leaves and a slightly smoky smell. I didn’t know their name, and I didn’t ask during dinner. Maybe I should tomorrow.
Still slightly nervous, I glanced over at the chasm. It was completely still. I wondered how far down it really went, and I crept a little closer. When I looked down, I saw a faint layer of fog. Faint, and hard to make out against the black void, but I know fog well. I’ve spent my life staring at that thick blanket of gray that His Eternal Warmth created to shield us from the edge of Nothingness.
But unlike what blankets the ocean, I could see through parts of this fog. And lining the wall was…
What looked like a layer of ice.
I wondered how something like that could possibly exist here. This forest is much hotter than Seabreeze Shoal, and ice only forms in Seabreeze Shoal after a cold night’s worth of rain. You can scrape it off the shallow pools gathered in the village in the morning.
Spica would sometimes gather ice and put it in a bowl of sliced melon. She said it tasted better when it was chilled.
I thought about bringing up what I saw to Nico. I almost did during dinner. Then Nico asked me to help sweep the cottage, and the moment passed.
It’s for the best. No one outside of Seabreeze Shoal even knows what ice is. Why waste my breath explaining something that doesn’t matter to someone I barely know?
Unsent Letter to Jasmine, Written Approximately 26/02, Recreated Here
Spica
Metadata
Reference Number: BICI/SSP/CRJ1004/018
Title: Unsent Letter to Jasmine, Written Approximately 26/02, Recreated Here
Author: Spica
Date: Written approximately 26/02, Year 5607 A. o. W.
Extent: One letter, four pages long
To Jasmine, the first of my secret-keepers:
Training has been progressing terribly. I end each day exhausted to the bone. My muscles are torn to shreds from endless drills. My skin burns from the lingering tinge of magic I know I am not equipped to handle. And my heart is broken to pieces, each jagged shred a reminder of how I’ve wronged you.
This sword is my constant plague. Ash says, with no small amount of effort, that I am picking it up quickly considering my unique situation. I force myself to keep moving even as he belittles me under his breath. My magic is still as poor as ever, and my spirits worse. The only thing I am picking up quickly are my sword skills, abysmal as they still are.
I am not meant to be here. I wish I could leave. Sometimes, before I fall into terrible dreams, I linger on that fantasy: of packing my bag, leaving this sword behind, and finding somewhere else in the world to take shelter in, far away from this place. But there is nowhere in the world that His Eternal Warmth cannot see. No crevice in the world that his Flame-Feeder cannot drag me out of.
The Flame-Feeder… did you know of her true identity? I fancied myself a scholar who studied the Undying Embers, back in Seabreeze Shoal. I realize now I was nothing more than a child who chipped away at an ugly rock and declared it a grand statue.
For all the books I read, for all the lessons I begged from Pina and Deodar and every Wandering Ember willing to spare me the time of day, I failed to learn one simple fact: The Flame-Feeder’s real name.
Jasmine… Fir is the Flame-Feeder. I am not just the protege of a senior Undying Ember.
I am to become His Eternal Warmth’s new voice proselytizing His will to humanity. Of all the people in the world, me.
The next Flame-Feeder.
I feel so stupid. Of course Fir is the Flame-Feeder. His Eternal Warmth’s blessing flows through every part of her: I’ve seen that since the very beginning. Of course her uniform is nothing at all like the familiar orange breastplate and long black robes nearly every other Undying Ember I’ve ever seen wears. She still wears the same black shoulderplates, but instead of armor and robes, she wears a thin green dress. Why bother with cumbersome armor when the blessing of The Keeper of the Forge is more than enough?
I now understand why she always spoke of where we might go next, after my time at the Tending Grounds. She wishes for me to travel the world with her so that I may come to understand the world I will one day oversee.
Why me? I am Fir’s junior, yes, but only by a dozen years or so. Maybe fifteen, if I am being especially generous. I’ve heard His Eternal Warmth can lengthen the lifespan of particularly faithful disciples, and I can’t think of a more faithful disciple than His Flame-Feeder. Given that, she may be in her mid-40’s… but still, wouldn’t she want a teenaged apprentice? One more moldable than I?
And my skills…
Yesterday was a particularly grueling training session. With magic, Ash can move objects around as if they were alive. He sent a dozen straw dummies after me, animated by smoke and sparks, and told me to defeat them all with only magic. I failed miserably. I’m supposed to channel His Eternal Warmth’s magic through this cursed sword, but I can’t do it. The magic won’t flow no matter how hard I try.
I am disconnected from the fire’s heat. I live in cold breezes. How could I ever stoke a flame?
The dummies advanced on me. They knocked my sword out of my grip. They sent me cowering to the ground. I curled into a ball to better shield myself from their strikes, crying, but they still wouldn’t relent.
“Pick up your sword and fight, you cowardly child!” Ash shouted at me. His face is often red from rage when we are together. The sight haunted my mind’s eye, even as my eyes stayed squeezed shut.
“I can’t! Please, make them stop! Let me quit!”
“You’d be dead if this were a real fight! Now get up and destroy them!” he screamed, his voice hoarse.
I was at my limit. The weight of everything I had done caught up to me. This felt not like a gift, but like divine punishment.
“No! Let them kill me!” I screamed. Ash must have called them off, as the blows soon stopped. That did not ebb my sorrow. I laid there, nothing more than an infant taking her first breath in the world, and I cried.
“Kill me,” I sobbed.
Kill me, kill me, kill me… it was a litany flowing from my lips. Like one of Blossom’s strange songs, twisted beyond repair.
“I don’t know what the Flame-Feeder could possibly see in you,” Ash spat.
I didn’t know either. I still don’t know. What is there to see in me, besides disappointment and loss?
Eventually my litany ended, and I found my mind returning to me once again. I slowly uncurled my body. Each movement felt like the first I had ever made, muscles stiff from disuse. Ash sat in a chair nearby — one that I distinctly remembered not having been there before — and watched me with utter disgust. I was a bug he had yet to squish. Nothing more.
“Did you truly receive a Spark?” he asked me.
“It wasn’t worth the cost.”
I looked up at him, then, and saw nothing but resentment in his eyes. “I’ve known children, no older than twelve, who left behind everything they had ever known with more courage than you. So you left home. You can convince the Flame-Feeder to let you return in less than two weeks. What is there to cry about?”
Leaving was not what broke me. That hurt, but it did not tear me in two. No… I once thought I could not survive leaving you, and I have come to realize that I could have.
But what I can’t survive… and why I can’t go back… I told him. I told him everything. It was the first time I had spoken the truth, and every word tore my throat to shreds as it left me.
Ash listened in quiet contemplation. And for the very first time I saw his gaze soften towards me.
It was a long time before he spoke.
“Undying Embers aren’t required to prove their worthiness for a Spark. It goes against one of our fundamental principles. His Eternal Warmth sees the potential in every person who has yet to be sparked by His holy flame. That’s what the Spark is. It ignites you. This test you speak of… more likely than not, it wasn’t a test at all. Knowing the Flame-Feeder, she simply wanted your company.”
And that, Jasmine, may hurt more than anything else. I am being made a fool, or a trophy, or a pet. I don’t know which one yet.
But I know that you did not deserve this.
It is one thing to accept my folly. There is a game being played here, and if I were the lone piece being moved across the board, then perhaps I would take this manipulation as my absolution. I am not the only piece. You and I are shuffled across a board whose shape I cannot see.
I do not have the strength to fight for myself. But if allowing myself to be someone else’s pawn means protecting you, then a pawn I shall be.
There is something new in me. I am loathe to call it a flame, but it is a kind of burning all the same. I cannot die here. I cannot let myself falter anymore.
I will stay here, Jasmine. Until I know exactly what game we were thrown into, I must stay.
This cannot heal the wounds I have given you. But at the very least, perhaps I can stop the bleeding.
Yours, though I can no longer claim that title,
Spica