A Missive

[Reverie]

The office of the barrister sits in ominous and almost otherworldly silence; for a moment without the bustle of its lord, it has all the sanctity of a sarcophagus, with angels marked by twilight. He has been writing letters again, to this one and that one, and there lies the half-full parchment with the quill-pen and the ink, and these things are almost painfully familiar to the unseen. Too many things are painful, of this dark, empty office.

The quill lifts now, prettily erect, its tip darkened with the paint; it hovers for a moment before it takes its place over a fresh piece of parchment, and begins the dainty and sweeping motions of a script. It is as if it is held by an invisible hand, for surely there is not even a shadow to cast proof of a presence, nor a scent, a sight, a sound. No, it is only this animated quill and its paper-prey, weaving words like fine poetry, like cultured documentation, as if both things are hauntingly bewitched and coming now to do their purpose.

The handwriting, too, will be familiar. It is the same precise and flowing script that a small girl used to write only two words before the barrister's eyes, when first he bade her to spill her secrets.


"Dear Master Coriolanus Helstone, Who Has Been Rather Naughty;

"It is strange, everything I am told these past few days; I wonder if you knew the manner of persons with which I spoke while a guest of yours, and if you can imagine the nature of conversation I had there. I will assure you that it was nothing untoward, for I would not like to make anyone cross with me; I did learn, however, that more than likely I would be safer in the clutches of the black king than I would be with you. Is that not curious? I still had faith in you, then, and so I thought this rather silly. Whether it is true or not, I think I might well have been safer in your clutches than where I am at this moment.

"Although no one is commanding me to slaughter persons, so I suppose that you might think I am better off here; yet soon I fear I must try to chop up my hosts, which will make a great mess. And do you know, that since neither of us can say I am alone in this black deed, I think I may present the head to you, for it is of a very fine gentleman, and you may have it as a center-piece in your office.

"The other heads, you may bury, and I will not speak your shame.

"You are making me a murderess, Master Helstone; a slave can do nothing but as she has been commanded, and I am certain you quite remember your commands of me. I will not say that I understand why it must be me, but I suppose at some point I must have been very naughty, and you are my deceptive punishment, and I wish you had poisoned my honeycakes rather than set me to this. I will do as I must, but you should know that I cannot get the child out of me, and I think that she is angry I have tried to chop her.

"Twice have I impaled the sword through my stomach, and my babe will not be put out. This, you see, is the problem. We have both of us been ignorant; but you have been the Bad Man. You had better listen very carefully.

"I was wrong to be frightened of her, and to doubt her words; Avel is a good babe, and she was made with the goodness all babes must have, even if she is unnatural, even if I have not done whatever it is a maiden must do to get herself with child. It is the demon blood that is the issue; my Avel has got something even more unholy than even her nature put inside of there, so that she will fester quite nicely; do you see? There is a monster inside of me, that she may grow, and that is why I cannot chop her out.

"I am writing to you because the demon blood is sleeping, even if it is tied to her conception; it is dormant, if you will, and my baby is stronger than it. And I am stronger, too, so long as I am being a good girl as you said I must be, and raising her even now to be something whole and sweet and good; if I have not done any bad things, I am told, then I might have no worries, and her demon's blood will sleep on, and she will be born innocent and forgetful and fully mine.

"Do you understand, Master Helstone? I will go and kill all of the dark elves you have asked me to kill, for I can do nothing but; I will go on and be this wicked creature you are making of me. And then I will give birth to an evil the likes of which even I cannot stop, nor any other. You are creating such a paradox of me; you ought to have let me go, really let me go, when I asked you to, or now you will be caught in the consequences of your own actions, and so will this place you love and cannot leave. I suppose that is the cost of a councilor, and I do not envy you, but I do think that I might well despise you now. I think that of all people, you would be better off dead; then, you see, there would be no one to command me to wickedness, and no one to turn my child to dread priestess.

"It is fortunate it was only entreaty and not command, that you asked I do anything I might do to preserve my child's goodness. I would have to come for you, then; you are as much her poison as the black king.

"I will come to give you your new centerpiece as soon as I am able, and that will well begin it. Thank you very much for the use of your pen and parchment, and I hope I have not spilled any ink on your nice things. I hope the pretty lady with the striped stockings is doing quite well and has killed all of the spiders; I know how you are frightened of them. And I hope your conscience does not nibble at you too unkindly while you are at your rest.

"Until we meet again,
Reverie Dreamer

"Post-script: Did you know that my eyes are turning the most curious shade of crimson? At first I did not think them pretty, but now I am beginning to think otherwise.

"Second post-script: I am becoming a philosopher, and I include a barb I hope you will find most humorous. That is to say: to err is human, to really make a mess of things, you would have to be Coriolanus Helstone."


The quill, having finished its task, sees no reason to remain animated and self-aware. It promptly drops to death on the office's quiet floor with a lazy resignation, but the parchment flutters gracefully, centering itself with importance over the otherwise busy clutter. There is moonlight framing it with majestic reverence, and the ink dries sumptuously and with naked vulnerability, thinking only of self-preservation. It seems content to wait to be discovered by his eye, as a good letter ought to be, written by a very good girl.

Elsewhere, in the small room of her confinement, the elfling has gone back into the precocious power of her dreamless repose.

[channe]

He sees the letter the next morning, still in his nightclothes; the shirt-ties dripping open, his hair still tousled -- he sees the letter, and reads it, and drops into his chair for the nausea, for this is not what he intended, not what he thought by those words --

-- it is what he hoped, but at this price?

This first letter will be for her.

Revania,

I am not a safe man. This is, of course, partially due to my duties as a governing official of the province your Lord desires for his own; if I were still simply Helstone the barrister, Helstone the fop, we'd be drinking tea and having scones, discussing any number of lovely things -- you and your sister, who worries for you desperately.

Perhaps we never would have met at all, and perhaps that would be for the best.

I am not a safe man. But I am not wicked, nor am I heartless, and what you have said -- God, commit me now to the very depths of hell rather than continue with what I have asked of you, no matter who you are or who your babe is. I order you to cease your fight; the chastity of your child is paramount. Cease it, now; stop these things that will create in Avel a monster. I tell you to not do them for me. You will also see that you will not do them -- or anything else that might harm her -- for Faeryl, or Audmathus, or anyone else.

I did not ask their blood of you, really, but I understand now how you have taken my words in the wrong fashion. Though, if the child wills herself so to be born, even after what she has been through, she will be born, and you must be ready to do everything you can to bring her up to the light.

I am going to see Alli as soon as I can find her, Revania, and I must know what to tell her. She worries for you. Perhaps this shall be my penance: to make sure that you return to her, in a land untouched by war of any kind.

So. I want you to help me in a different way: when you hear things where you are, you will come to my office very much like you did to write this letter -- and you will continue to write me letters, Revania, telling me these things. What things, you may ask? You will answer all of the questions I ask you, you will tell me tactics, you will tell me what they are doing, you will tell me who you see there -- in short, I tell you that you will be my ears in that dark place, and I command you to never tell a soul that you are doing this for me; and in return we will try to bring you home, because the Underdark is no place for your baby. No place at all.

We will fight the darkness this way, Revania. I tell you -- do not continue with your fight.

Sincerely,
Coriolanus Helstone, who is certainly not your master -- but is your penitent, and would be your advisor once again.

There is no mention of heads.

There is no mention of long-term vs. short-term effects and other forecasting talk beloved of barristers, and choices, and the scary, disgusting fact that he'd really have liked her to kill her drow, because he knows they would not kill her; no, she is far too valuable to them --

He is, of course, hoping she is speaking metaphorically. And perhaps he is not speaking the whole truth, but, quite honestly, when has he ever?

He is not a perfect man; but when he believes one colleague has gone to the drow, he knows another has gone to insanity, and a third is -- is missing, and a fourth unresponsive; in a world where the military can seemingly do nothing, in a world where honor and stubbornness alone keeps Helstone in the fight when his better angels tell him to run to the foxhole with Rosa, or at least as far away as Ricathair --

-- a world where it seems like he, lawyer and barrister and a man who overthinks himself into the ground, is the only damned thing standing between light and destruction. Really, it's enough to drive a man to things he'd never do in saner times, isn't it?

[Reverie]

The quill behaves now as it did before, and it has no care for either the office's occupancy or lack thereof; it quietly lifts from the desk as if compelled by an intangible hand. And there, you can imagine the writer delicately dipping it into the nearby inkwell, and the feather-plume pauses thoughtfully as if poised at the edge of a mouth, before it charges downward like a sword; it will heartily complete this war of words, as quills ought to do. Paper scatters, and one leaps like a victim, lying beneath the point, pierced through the literary soul.

Yet the script is an easy flow like water, black scrawling seamlessly over the vulnerable white of the blank parchment of the barrister's desk. It is that same familiar handwriting, maidenly precise but culture in every careful consonant.


Dear Mister Coriolanus Helstone, Who Likes Me Now;

I am sitting on my bed in my new room, and there are glowing lights on my ceiling, and warm fur on my floor; I cannot tell if it is day or night, for everything here is an endless dark, but do you know that there is some charm about it? It is not your three secret rooms, Mister Helstone, but it does just fine; I am being a good girl so that I will not get into trouble, and I keep everything clean and I am very quiet. There are whips here, and cruel things, and monsters, and I would not like to have such nasty and negative tactics turned upon my person; I am going to stay where I am put, as I always do — you remember that, do you not?

The Underdark may not be a place for a child like me, but it is written into my fate, and I have seen that nothing ever to happen to me will ever really be in my hands; it was once in your hands, and now it is in theirs. Perhaps that is a necessity, or merely an unfortunate event.

The black queen is rather nice, and she is lovely besides, and she has a throne and servants just like any monarch should; she is not so much larger than I am, and I think that very fine. I doubt that she has any affection for me, but she has said I am to be treated like a princess and have anything I should ask for, and nobody is beating me, and that is quite well-done. She has not asked me to trust her, Mister Helstone, which is also fortunate; I am far finished with trust and I think it quite the useless affection to have for many others, and so instead, I will trust Avel.

I also am fond of the Qu`essan, for she is very pretty in red, and she has not been cross with me; I have got to ask her where she procured all of that red.

Furthermore, I do not like the tailor anymore, for he put the rope too tight on my hands and my leash, and would not let me loose; he is not a pleasant guide, but I suppose he knew the way to this dark place well enough, even if elf-napping is naughty. I think he is frightened of females who are not I, for I am fat and breeding and not so clever and talented at the killing; he said I was to be good and look pretty and not kill the black elves when we went before the queen, and do you see, I did not. I am a present, you know; it is very nice to be a present all because I have a baby in my womb, even if it does make such a fuss. .. There are bull-men here.

Also, I have chopped the black king's hand for touching the sword; I am really sorry about that, but he ought not to touch swords so much, and it was an accident. There, I have told you what I have seen — did I write that it is all pretty — so that you might make your naughty plans; I am not going to chop anybody else, I promise. I hope you are having a pleasant evening, and I will write you again very soon, once I have seen all there is to see. It is such a large place.

Oh, and I am sorry I was cross with you in my last correspondence; I am not often so ill-behaved, and I hope that you will forgive me. I would invite you for tea, but you do not like spiders. .. That is a jest, Mister Helstone.

Only, there really are spiders.

With fondness and sincerity,
Reverie Dreamer


And yet, Coriolanus Helstone has also spoken of a second black-haired young female; he has included worry of her in his past letter, and this is the reason that the quill does not at all stop in its path. No, it is searching for another piece of parchment, where the script becomes small and shy, and several words must be crossed-out and rewritten more neatly. This is the more emotional of the two letters. And by far the more important.


Dear Alligail;

You are straying too long in the dark, Alli. Go to where there is light. Remember me, and do not take off the violet ribbon.

I love you.

Your sister,
Reverie