Sleeping on an Argument

[Glenn]

Gloria,

I assume this will reach you on your travels but admit the possibility it may not reach you until you arrive in Myrken. I would have suggested you stay in Razasan for a time longer, that we work through some of your current troubles (I have endeavored to do so in your absence, though with great distance and as few coins as possible. Proffering too many would draw attention to where no one wished to look) and to travel together in better weather. At that point, however, with your knife at my throat, I mainly wished you gone. You'll forgive me that. I'd forgive you it, though it's been a good many years since I pointed a blade at anyone's throat (it did me no good and much harm, no matter how entirely validating it was in the moment, more validating than you will ever know or I could ever explain, which is no small statement if you think about it as I have).

I am not entirely sure how to bridge the divide between us and it is my business to bridge such divides. I suppose I would request of you a separate paradigm. You were distressed to have to attempt to tear mine down but failing in that task, at least in my mind, which was the only one that mattered in that moment, you offered me nothing to replace it. Anyone can tear down a dream. It is much harder to build something with purpose and meaning and value, a value that is at all worth an estimated cost. What have you to offer instead?

Were I a magistrate (and I shall not be, as you know I am not to seek any such position), I would almost certainly rule in your favor in the matter of the fairy. She's hardly well from the experience, but I don't find her explanation particularly satisfying. It's been brought to my attention that I do not see her often in the wild. On the other hand, you I have seen in the wild. Everyone is pleasanter exchanging ideas over letters. I will be careful as I start to engage with the world in a more tangible way, Gloria. I have heard that message loudly and clearly.

I hope your journey is safe. If you are in need of resources along the way, let me know, and I will see what I can do, many weeks after you need them, of course.

Glenn

[Rance]

Glenn,

The devide shall be bridged as follows: it shall require accuracy in the stead of truth. So I shall begin by providing you with these, my accuracies—

ONE, I shall apologize for the blade and the drawing of it, but certainly not the necessity of it nor the sentiment. Never believe for once that you are beyond anyone's ire or greater than it. Whether the bearer of a blade is idiotic or vangeful or frightened does not matter — it may still stab you, and you would still bleed. You chose the wrong words at the wrong time and I shall continuously hold you accountoble. We are not always prepared for, interested in, or desirous of your every word or your presu pr intelligence. In that moment I required your action, not your wit.

Very rarely do I require your wit.

TWO, I shall encourage you to identify the difference between enginearing a desire and fulfilling a dream. As of the writing of this letter I have not made a single move to destroy, break down, or deny you a dream: you are but thearizing possibilities for the future and chancing this legacy upon a very volatile notion. This is not a dream. It is hardly a plan. Know well Glenn Burnie that I am a fine ally to have, whether or not you believe it: convince me, and you have already completed a very difficult challenge, and would be in possession of a loud and clumsy and yet immensely convicted and powerfully loyal ally. Of the few fixtures of my pride, this is one I hold in high regard: that when I believe, I shall allow no pain nor threat to provoke me away from what must be done.

Many years ago, Rhaena Olwak nearly won my affections to her cause without ever touching my mind. But she did not, because she could not convince an otherwise content girl who was good at seams and very poorly at maths that a happier way was a better way.

You glorify a solution for Myrken's ills but offer no footpaths. I shall not dare to travel a road of but air and promise. Certainly not yours.

THREE, I am comprised of no hate for you. Know this. It is a reality that I care for you but am not required to like you or admire you at all times, as I expect none of this from you.

FOUR, of the fairy: I have got a simple but stark history with such beasts, in that I have successfully slaughtered one. The chance meeting outside your abode was one for which I am not compelled to convince anyone — including you — of the comprising facts. Were you a magistrate (you are not one) I would not give any further a piss for your opinion. In those harreying moments, my instinct prevailed: and this instinct was, even though I did not know her, to protect her and see her healed as best as I was able, however far from ideal.

Her instinct? To attempt my destruction and protect herself.

You may come to your own conclusion regarding the many reasons why I find your alliance so particularly disturbing and questionable.

Before explaining, do save your ink: you cannot convince me of anything different at this moment until I know her intentions from her lips. I will have them in time. I am nothing if not obstinate, though perhaps barnacle-like would be a better describer.

FIVE, you must come to understand that you will not be rid of me Glenn Burnie, as I will not be rid of you. In this we truly have Myrken Wood's best interests at mind. Should I clash with you, it is not out of want, but because I must. I yearn for a time when we may return to our old ways: your dismissifeness, my lack of interest, your cotery of ever-engaging companions, and my simple satisfaction with labor. Alas this is not meant to be. In the absence of Ariane Emory and Lady Marshall Egris, I shall seek to affix myself where necessary to function in Myrken Wood's best interests. I may be a young woman and an owner of no land, but there are always concessions to be made.

But if you require something to be built with purpose, meaning, and value, let us first start at the beginning again, like schoolchildren: with our helloes, and our how-do-you-dos, and the knowledge that if we conflict with one another, it is because we believe we must.

Of course knowing you, I should be cruel not to give you your avenue for philosophy:

As one who has done so, what does it mean to feel love and affection for another, as best you know it?

From Foggy Bottom,

- Gloria Wynsee

[Glenn]

Gloria,

Numbering things is a useful way of organizing one's thoughts and keeping some sense of order to a letter (and yes, indeed, a world) with far too much in it.

Are you sure we should not begin by questioning the difference between accuracy and truth? Opaque metaphorical devices are a poor way to introduce a need for accuracy. In short, truth may be broad with accuracies are precise?

One, your apology is paltry and not accepted. Had you my action instead of my wit in that moment, one of us would be far worse off now. It was the moment before in which you needed action, of course, but action without wit often makes one's position worse than before the act. What would have you had me do? If you want a warm embrace and a hot drink with a fireplace to go along with it, you are well on the way to Aloisius' hospitality. That was the sort of action I stumbled into upon my arrival to Myrken, many years ago, horrors and his hospitality (one might say they are the same, but that is hardly fair to the Ashfiend).

More pointedly (accurately?), I am out of practice. I am slow moving. Razasan is not Myrken, no matter how efficiently you discovered violence here. I shall work on that.

As for two, unfortunately, there's nothing to be done but a slow process of growth, maximizing possibilities for the people who live today while minimizing their pain and sacrifice, in order to create some sort of exponential improvement for the generations to come. It makes logical enough sense that such things can be rooted in today and not just thrust into tomorrow at the cost of today, but the exact path (possibilities) towards that will be clearer once I have a better sense of the situation on the ground. There are, I think, two potential scenarios, a first where we must find so thin a margin that little can be done except for at increasing cost (there is likely an equation for this), and a second where some new technological breakthrough can be found to decrease the hardship of every day life enough to allow for growth.

For three, my caring and your caring are not, I think, dissimilar. I can envision scenarios where others curse our warmth and regard.

For four, see two. I cannot close doors until I have cataloged just what open doors might even exist. There may be warmth and regard as well. I am trying to move forward without glamourie over my eyes. In fact, I have an allergic reaction to such things, which is useful and debilitating all at once. Her intentions are not all that different from our own. The well-being of her people relative to her own place and responsibilities, real or imagined. They will not shock you to hear them.

The means, though?

Five, the people of Myrken Wood can well be bludgeoned. It does not go well for those who take that path. It never has. You know this, though, and I will not try to warn you off of it. I'm sure in a year's time one of us will be picking up the pieces of the other. I could not tell you which is which, though. Neither could you.

As for the rest, you ask of love. It's in the air, it seems, a winter that would rather be spring. There is a difference between romantic (passionate) love, and the love of a compatriot, between those and filial (born of responsibility) love, and even then, different sorts of that last one, based, I think in our people's instinct towards survival and desire for purpose. If you mean the romantic sort, am a poor person to ask. I've ready many conflicting things, both in treatises and stories. Firsthand, what I had with Rhaena is unlike anything one might find there. I do not mean to be dramatic or maudlin with this. Quite the opposite. It was a crutch and a cheat. We had no secrets from one another, no misunderstandings, no doubts. Until the end, when she was lost, we shared in everything. Our affection was total and unyielding, absolute. We ceased being two entities in love with one another and were instead one hybrid-entity with the freedom to love itself.

I can explain much more poorly the sort of love that most people experience.

Glenn

[Rance]

Glenn,

Is it a wonder that I find you far more hospitible when you are not trying to convinse the world of your grandeur. At several points in your previous missive I found myself almost believing you capible of functioning like a human.

Whether or not you believe it, Glenn, what you sorely lack is a capasity for self reflecktion, and I do not propose to be the mirror through which this act may occur. Your exile in Razasan has done you no good deed, it has turned your writing into an aimless hurricane and has stolen from you any true sense of the feelings and perspectives of others: what you refuse to see (that you are this blind still astonishes me but I should not be surprised) is that my hesitation to understand or believe in your New Endeavor is that I am afraid of it, and afraid for many others—

And I am afraid for you. Do not be so dim of wit to presume I hold my anger and fear for no good reason.

I have dispossessed myself of the notion that I may make you see sense, that in trafficking with Unknowns you threaten dangers and calamities you cannot even fathom. For once, Glenn, learn from me: my return to Myrken Wood is nothing I take lightly; before I set foot within the boundaries of the town, I aim to ensure that my presence is of no further disturbance to Catch, knowing our past — for I cannot risk what my return may inadvertently cause. I have taken great pains and risks to prepare this measure. Because of all I have learned of Catch, it is that he too is an Unknown, and would better I tread carefully than chance any Disaster. And too, I fear that your Unknown has, whether or not she believes it, tampered with him. She drew from my lips his name. From my very mind. From the Part of him that lingers in me. Be wary of any creature which knows him so closely.

You truck with beings that are infanitely your greater. And like those before her, what will be left of this one when she no longer bides you, as I imagine she does, or when you no longer believe her interesting enough to capture your attention.

Like all other things in Myrken Wood, Glenn Burnie, you breed destruction. You leave broke things in your wake. For a moment stop looking at the horizon long enough to look at the wreckage at your feet.

We have established that I think your Endeavor is a foolhardy one, and filled from toe to crown with stupidity. I shall not cease reminding you of this. So let us move past this, then, to the next step: you will have to somehow convince Myrken Wood that a greater connection is to be had with these Unknowns, and that you are the ideal envoi for this relationship. It must be done within lawful boundaries, after all, and while Myrken Wood can be bludgeoned, it does not go well for those who take that path. What will you say? How will you convince them of your altruism, and of hers. How will you sassinctly break down many learned years of fear and terror and the presumption that that which is different is not immediately prepared to level catastrophe upon their heads.

Prepare your words well. Practice them. Be sure they are perfect. Right now your words are far from it.

Your throat depends on this. So does hers. And so does mine.

Here is a wonder which continues to confound, and I hope you shall suffer its selfishness: of my body, mind, and being I have given great sacrifices to Myrken Wood and its people, as have you; I have shed blood not because such a deed was asked but because I chose to, perhaps because of this warmth and regard of which you speak. And too I have been the subject of insult, derision, hatred, and disdain, and yet I have never wanted more than for our small province's wellness. Because it is my home. Yet somehow you do not trust enough in the capacity of my care for Myrken Wood to regard it as anything but a daft child's aimless blithering.

No. Forgive it. I will not compare a foreigner's regard for Myrken Wood to my own. I have cultavated my own unique love for the place and demand no such traumas of anyone else.

So let us instead be good and fine with this. If your Endeavor is what you seek, then let me briefly help you construct and build, as you challenged me to do. Consider then these questions, which I raise to you not as Gloria Wynsee, but as an absent Inquisitor in Good Standing, whose work speaks well for itself:

What is one measurable benefit of your Endeavor.

What are the probable costs, human and economic and otherwise, of your Endeavor.

What proof of genuine mac ma magnanimitey on the part of these Unknowns will you provide.

How will we ensure continued good faith.

Ruminate upon these questions. You have asked me to construct instead of destroy. This is my first effort.

Gloria

[Glenn]

Gloria,

In response to your kind salutatory first paragraph, let me note this. The most important thing we can do in life is to try to understand others. You do this, and it is admirable that you do this, but I feel that you are, sometimes, too sure of your conclusions. Perhaps you are too good at self-reflection and not good enough at reflecting others, as you have certainly not proposed to do with me.

The key word is to try. We are, in fact, all 'human,' a word that can, if stretched, have more than just connotations of race. Rarely, in all of my encounters, have I come across someone or something which does not see itself as the centerpiece of his or her story, with wants and desires and fears, just like anything else. Yes, I am a human. If you feel like I try to convince the world of my grandeur, you ought to wonder why, or in turn, what I think I might be doing. I can assure you it's not that.

Catch is an exception I would not have brought up, save for the fact you already have. One so broken can not be seen as a rational being. It can, however, be documented what stimuli might affect it. That can be a dangerous business, but in the end, patterns can be understood and a framework might be created. Of course, others might call me broken as well, so there you have it. How do you intend to ensure that your presence is of no further disturbance to him? This seems no simple undertaking. One does not have the luxury of simply avoiding Catch.

What will happen with her when I learn all of her secrets? Something new, I think. I look forward to finding out, just as much as you seem to dread it.

While my first paragraph (the first two, I suppose) was hardly salutatory, and in fact was a bit more playful and badgering, I applaud some of the leaps you've made as it pertains to my plans. It's such a dangerous game, inference. I much prefer that aforementioned (multiple times in multiple places) gathering of information and discerning of patterns. We do not always have such time or such means however. It is a simple logical connection as I mention (and surely you see that) we need something more than we have to bridge today to a potential tomorrow while I correspond with all manner of being. It is not so simple. I do not wish to give us all magic tomorrow, but we do need something. If I come with a tangible improvement in people's lives, not an ideal, but a turnip that will not rot so easily, perhaps that will be a start. Perhaps we can build a stairway of turnips to reach the ideal.

As for your self-struck-out "blitherings" that I will not so simply ignore, note that no stairway, not of turnips or wood or memories, exists between the two of us. We build it now. We exchanged letters. We had a few arguments. We had a few conversations. I saw indirectly things that you did. You felt the impact of things that I did. There was no bridge between us and we build it now. I am only coming to know you, Gloria Wynsee, to push past easy assumptions to something more. When we get ahead of ourselves it ends with a knife at a throat or many insulting words. You say that I do not trust your capacity. I know that you do not trust mine. If we do not give up and end this attempt at communication, perhaps we will get there eventually.

I will answer your other questions at length in another missive. I take them seriously and would provide you with something that can withstand even your wind. In the meantime, ponder turnips.

Glenn

[Rance]

Glenn,

Remember that to be convincing in this case you must not think of turnips. I have thought a great deal of turnips. Let me remind you what turnips we have been offered in the past: A turnip which told great tales and gave them heartbeats and murdered eleven children, a turnip which turned the world to happiness and lace and yet simultaneously rid us of our will, a turnip which lingered in the wood and prasumed to protect us if only we obeyed it; and then there were other less desireible fruits and vegetibles which were not even turnips.

If you come to Myrken to say This is what you need then you will be hanged, put upon a spit, you will be burned, no matter who you are; what this requires — and you will refute this I am sure — is a complete transformasion of your language and the way you are thinking of it in the first place. Do not speak of the ideal, for such a word has been a poison.

Please Glenn. We have neither of us been in Myrken Wood in the past two years, far be it from both of us to even imagine what it needs. It has done just fine.

You are absolutely correct in that I do not currently trust you or your capacity for Myrken Wood's care and let me allow your letter to further explain why:

You write: What will happen with her when I learn all of her secrets.

With what agency will you leave her, then?

To dig so deep, to learn all secrets, to imagine we know the mind of a creature so closely, whether one we love or admire or befriend or daspise, is to break the very nature of identity. Unclothe a creature of its need to hide what it holds most presious or most afeared and you will render it defenseless. A being aught to have secrets for we minister to them, listen to them, moralise with them, and give ourselfs purpose by them. Write to another that you shall one day know all my secrets, Glenn Burnie, and I shoult see you for the snake you are: but a prying boy seeking to undo me of my oldest possessions, be they childhood secrets, nightly terrors, or my worst fears.

Is all she is to you but a collection of secrets to be unpackaged?

Nameless, what little care you truly have.

For your sake and hers I shall discard your last letter to flame; it would do a creature's heart no good to see such a phrase and I will not undo your Endeavor by wielding it against you.

Before you write again I will demand of you this: that you purchase at your nearest glasser a piece to be silvered, that you may look upon yourself in it every day and ask what it is to be human. You consistently lack the awareness of it. Define it with your words as much as you might like to you have not yet defined it in your heart, and no progress can ever be made until you do so. Do not look lightly on this expectation for it is not one I give to you without my own expertice: you must look yourself in your eyes even when you do not wish to do so.

Do not write me again until you may offer clear proof of this purchase. Your answers will not matter until then.

As for Catch: I have my means. That is my secret, for now, to possess.

You are to be worked on Glenn. But this is a start. This is a bridge.

Do not set flame to it.

- G. Wynsee

[Glenn]

Gloria,

I say turnips and you say ideals. I do not think it is that you don't believe me. I think, perhaps, you think me incapable of working along practical lines. Perhaps you think I do not know what a turnip is and that it is instead some sort of code for getting people to act like a rooty vegetable, to grow strong in the ground, living among dirt and extending roots outwards, so that future harvests can be bountiful in years to come? It's not. I mean turnip. People are hungry. Let's see them fed. People know hardship. Let's mitigate it. That's the starting point. There's no secret to the turnips, Gloria. They're just turnips. And in not seeing this, you, too, are a turnip. And a rutabaga as well. And an ostrich. Maybe a turtle too. Go write sixteen paragraphs about why you are a turtle.

What is one measurable benefit of your Endeavor.

Turnips? No, no, that's a joke. Measurable is an interesting word. Having failed at pushing a change from above, one where some meager sacrifices might be made today for great gains tomorrow (blood from a stone, yes), the only avenue left is to improve conditions today. The biggest benefit will be luxury and an assurance of safety. People may idle this luxury time through sport and spirits, and I ultimately will have little say over that, but if even some look to better themselves, to master writing or mathematics or some such, there can be gradual improvement over time. None of that will be possible without time for luxury and that time stems from more reliably having those things one needs to simply survive. So you see, the endeavor is a secondary goal. The primary one is nothing but measurable: less sickness, less hunger, less deaths in childbirth (for mother and child), so on and so forth.

What are the probable costs, human and economic and otherwise, of your Endeavor.

Frustration, on my part. I do not intend to entirely lean upon this sort of inter-species trade to achieve goals. There is much that I have learned in Razasan, new theories, things that ought to work. I have some money I can use to set some things in motion. The biggest cost will be in time, both in proving some level of success and in not just succumbing to easy alternatives. Fairy gold is a poor basis for anything. I intend to internalize most of the costs. There is always a risk to change but these shall be calculated risks and likely no worse than staying the course for anyone in Myrken.

What proof of genuine mac ma magnanimitey on the part of these Unknowns will you provide.

An even exchange. We offer something (and here there is an element of cost, but not as you put it before). There are advances we've made, even gradual ones from Myrken, that are unknown to them. Metalwork is the least (and the most of it). There are legal ones. There are stories. There are endless things. Even the turnips, really. We offer minimal things and receive minimal things at first. They are as bad off as we are in their own way and just as loathe to admit it. The important thing is not to overreach or get greedy and thus enticed.

How will we ensure continued good faith.

They're fond enough of formal contracts. I see danger in that. Again, putting all of our eggs in that one basket will create a dependency and thus we lose the eggs, the basket, and our lives. The way to ensure good faith will be to leverage whatever we receive from them, in conjunction with everything else we will attempt, to turn one single gain into many gains. Thus we will never be at a disadvantage. It comes down to practicalities, Gloria. It all does. Turnips. Are you listening?

As for proof of a looking glass, I have a forgettable nose. I had forgotten that. I remain one letter behind, for the most part, so I feel little need to further acquiesce to your terms. I will get there or I will not with the next letter.

Glenn

[Rance]

Glenn,

Perhaps I shall be one letter ahead of you, I have nought but time to spend in the task of writeing. I must preface what I say to you now in order to satisfy your patience: the criticism I levie is not out of spite but out of a sense of improvement. I spent too long with Proctor Duquesne to not apply much of what I learned here if not in my dailey interactions:

You ramble too long and speak in needless discourse. Remember Glenn Burnie I am not asking for these explanations or these answers to be convinced (I will not be, for I am both obtuse and aware and aware that I am obtuse (if ever there was a sentence a turtle would write I believe I have found it)). Rather I am encor encouraging you to truly reflect upon every faset of your proposal, of this Endeavor. For it is neither minor nor paltry. Perhaps it could enlighten and enliven, or perhaps it could fall apart like badly-yeasted bread and bring us with it.

In this, measurable is necessary, for it is numbers which convince a people.

In this, your frustration is hardly a realistic or convincing argument.

In this, an even exchange is not benefisial to Myrken Wood; one needs not live there long to know we have few options for exports and few spesialisations to provide an entirely foreign presence.

In this, leverage is hardly a prosperous concept except in wartime, especially with Unknowns such as these.

So I will return to you your answers and remind you that in your past you have only rarely succeeded in speaking in public to anything but a destructive and harmful degree.

This is what Duquesne once instructed me: that an argument must speak first to the hand, and then to the brain, and only then to the heart. It must first demonstrate tangable benefit, then express functional logic, and then satisfy the needs of the soul. You cannot convince any people, whether humans or Unknown, by first piercing at their heart when you yourself know very little what composes a heart. Have I ever successfully applied Proctor Duquesne's logic? Yes, in examination and oratory with practice and behind closed doors. Ix Exi Extemporaniously, however, no. But I do not need to be an effective rhetor to see where I would be hardly convinced to listen to another.

I am listening. I am reading. I am doing these things very closely. I am approaching these matters with an Inquisitor's eye and not with those of my usual ill temperament.

Before next you write, consider this. Jernoah possesses a great many possible benefits to Myrken Wood. Their glasswork is beyond comprehension. Their architecture is unmatched. They summon edable vegetation with consistency and regularity from sand. Their medicinal practises beggar belief. Of their unique skills, I believe certain Jernoah learnings and creations could both save and improve the lives of many Myrkeners.

So then I will ask you: why do you think I have never, ever suggested we adopt any of these ways, let alone communicate with them.

Think on it. And when you write again, do not avoid what it is I said about secrets. This matters.

- Gloria Wynsee

[Glenn]

Gloria,

First, an admission, a rare one from me: I do not yet have all of the answers. I do not know what the situation is on the ground in Myrken. I could send a letter to Aloisius but you can only imagine the sort of magnifications I might receive in return. I cannot distract Genevieve with this as there are more pressing matters. You do not even wish to know the sort of letters I receive from Agony and her sister is little better, unless of course you'd like to know about her potential courtship options. I won't bore you with the rest of the list, though it is manifold. If you arrive first, you could provide useful observations, I am sure.

How was the harvest? How is the winter (both now and in the months to come)? Are there monsters? Gods? Catch run amuck? Brigands from Heath? Cameron Holbrook inflicting a shared horror upon everyone? Sweet Egris arriving to declare martial law? Maybe Burel turned up in the town square. There are new things that happen now and again too.

What I have instead is a framework, a system, intent, limits through which I must steer the carriage of this endeavor. I will do nothing in haste.

Let us see. What else? Frankly, you underrate the effectiveness of my speeches. One comes to mind. One and only one. I achieved what I wanted to that day and I was in a far worse state than I am now. I gained a great deal and it only cost me a bruised jaw. I do not take this as an insult, though you may well mean it. I take it as you not having the necessary information you need and the emotional distance to use that information.

Your question about Jernoah is a good one. Your question about leverage is also a good one. Your question about what we have to offer is, as well, a good one. The last first. We have a great deal to offer but not so much that the entire project would be insulting, hostile, and overwhelming to them. In many ways they have nothing of what we have and as such, we, for our sparseness of riches and collective learning, are a wonderful place to begin. Razasan would overwhelm in so many ways and these people are very acute of our numbers. I think they would feel more secure working with us and it would be our generations before they had a need to look further. As for Jernoah, well, your people seemed repressive and all-too-dogmatic. I'd deal with a fairy queen before them. I mean no real offense. They ill-treated you as my people ill-treated me. It's all systemic. If we fail in this, you should reach out to your people, though. If I fail, perhaps you will succeed.

As for secrets, worry not about her. She understands what tools I use to be powerful in this world. I've explained myself and she much prefers it, whether she admits it or not, to how most humans would deal with her and her kind.

The concern is well-appreciated (barely appreciated, perhaps?).

Glenn

[Rance]

Glenn,

This is why these exchanges are important because whether or not you believe it, you require the scant wisdom of a twenty-years woman to guide you away from at worse complete loss of your life and the lives of many others, or at best, yet another debilitating blow to your self-image.

And let us not revisit this matter of your speech that day Glenn Burnie, because there were factors at work. Do not bowey your effectiveness by measurement of afflicted and altered people. You dared to put Genny Tolleson to some very ill work that day. A lesson I learned from Jernoah and perhaps one that you should scrawl upon your heart: any circumstance in which you expect great sacrifice of moral and ethic and physic from those loyal to you is no worthwhile endeavor.

And yet again we come to to the matter of this Endeavor. I look forward to once again publicly decrying something which you believe in wholeheartedly, not because I find pleasure in this, but because I must. But that certainly does not limit us in our ability to share words and advise.

I have not got any good or ill words regarding the state of Myrken Wood. I still remain in Foggy Botom. You will have to rely on a source more amenable to adventurous words. From the news which has come to me by passers-by it still stands, has not burned, and remains stadefast.

What I find most telling though is in your loose wea w wielding of this idea of emotional distance you provide the altogether wrong assessment of this matter of Jernoah. Ill-treated as I was, that is no good reason to deny the advancements Jernoah might bring our people; ill-treated as you were, if your projenit pr birth people truly possessed a means for Our Collective Improvement, we would be daft to ignore all of them based solely on our meagre personal offences.

The why is far more important, for I recognize balance. Jernoah is as needy as Myrken Wood; ours would be a draining and consumeing relationship, feeding one another until the coffers flew thin and the stores were empty. The disadvantages rendered by their involvement in our workings would more greatly outweigh the advantages. Utility must be considered.

Have you considered the Dynamic of a long-term relationship. Are they salt to our soil. Or are we salt to theirs.

Know this and know it before you take any more steps.

What your past responses tell me is that you have not yet thought far enough past your own excitement over the idea to even begin considering utility, let alone the necessity of your Endeavor. This is what I am driving you to do and will continue to do so even if it frustrates you, because while you Dream I will be very Real, and I will never allow you to forget the connection between the two. To do anything less would be to abuse and mistreat you.

Measurements. Vyable numbers. Proofable values. Compile these. I cannot give you guidence on this for mine is not a mind for numbers if they are not stitches.

I will one day hope to receive a letter from you which is not rittled with presumption. I worry for her because I must Glenn Burnie. Because if you fail in this Endeavor we will all be saddled with her displeasure. Do not tout the power of humanity then turn about and act counter to it in order to please her or satisfy her needs. You build up dangerous expectations. What you coddle turns to poison.

So worry I must. Your shortsightedness astounds even me, the Jerno with the Glass Sun in her eyes. If you do not understand this reference then I take it my gift from long ago has been well forgotten.

With every courtesy which remains in my bones,

Go Gloria Wynsee

[Glenn]

Gloria,

People who did not deserve to die did not die on that day. Not person. People. That was my one and only goal. It may have cost me my position as Governor and a great deal more. You made that harder than it ought to have been in the moment. I do not hold this against you after what you experienced, but I will also not accept your judgment on this. If Genevieve wishes to judge me, that is her choice and I will accept that judgement in full. While you are proving yourself to be a useful advocate to force me to consider angles unseen or, at the least, unstated, very much the sum of your own experiences, and I do thank you for that, you too must find the line between factual concerns and emotional preferences.

Actually, let us pause for a moment. Words come swiftly for me and occasionally I am too loose with them. You say, however, that you look forward to publicly decrying something, yet that you would take no pleasure in it. Is it the idea of purpose that you look forward to? Tearing down instead of building once again. You see that as your purpose, I think, which has two implications. One, it poisons all else you say (and without the least bit of coddling), though there may be truth to be found there. Two, it makes it all the more admirable that you at least try to build in the words that follow. Whenever you try to build, because you are not just fighting your own nature, but the own obstinate and wry pleasure that you find in it. I admit that I may not be dissimilar though along different lines. You certainly find more pleasure in writing insults. As enjoyable as they may be, they are not argumentatively compelling as you might hope. Still, one has to find some semblance of joy in life, I suppose.

Two thoughts on the matter of Jernoah. The first adds another wrinkle to the mere idea of need. We've mentioned cost. I feel like we would potentially be better insulated from the potential advancements we'd get from the Others than we would from those from Jernoah. This is because they are so strange and different, because they would have such hesitance as well, because what we are offering is so basic, because of the natural reluctance of the people to accept cultural goods as well. I feel that Jernoah might have a more pernicious influence upon us. The second is that I have no idea what we could offer them. We could offer so little to the Others and gain a good deal. What do we have to offer almost anyone else?

There is value, I think, in looking more broadly though. If we were to be a conduit for certain goods, perhaps, or could find other places that did need what we have in abundance (though again, with earthly partners that seems difficult). Farmers plant many crops in as many fields as possible (while letting some rest at times) so as to ensure that one crop's failure will not cause outright starvation. It would be better to have some diversity in our partnerships so as better to safeguard us from either outright failure or (even worse?) complete dependency.

I remember your gift. I wish I had not deigned to coddle you years ago. Maybe all of this would have turned out differently.

Glenn

[Rance]

But people did die on that day Glenn Burnie. Or rather a path was carved for them at the end of which they met their demise. Two of them I killed myself. And how sick I still am for the act. And haunted by it. And do not like to consider it any longer and would like that we MAY MOVE PAST IT

So violently were the words written, and with so many passages of the quill, that the parchment itself bore a frantic hole.

However I must bring to your attention the purpose I have got in mind if you so believe it necessary to speak of my purpose: it is not simply to speak the opposite of your belief in this Endeavor. Again we return to Proctor Duquesne: you may see my intensions of refuting you as personal offense, or as a barrier to your success, when in truth they are a sin ca cynthisis. You will speak the benefit of the Endeavor. I will speak its weaknesses as I see them. The two when combined will create new possibilities which our minds now are currently too narrow to fathem. If I must do this for a Council then I shall. If I must do this in your presence and in a public forum I shall. Only tirrany goes unchallenged and only fools rely on dreams alone.

So again I confess myself uncompelled by your reasoning for while it makes allowance for the uniqueness of these Unknowns or Others (I will continue with Unknowns for this Is my truth) what it does not do is make any allowance for the predictability of humans.

In the Odos there is a philosophie which I remember and when translated it says this:

Power is finight and its pendulum shall swing back and forth and back and forth.

To establish sudden trade for Myrken Wood with this Unknown land introduces new power to the peninsula. It will go very noticed by Myrken Wood's neighbors. It will be received in many ways:

For one, it will be admired by them;
For two, it will be yearned for by them;
For three, it will be frightening to them;
For forth, it will be threatening to them.

Derrie and Thessalane and whichever lands surround us, it will not go well for them. We will open ourselves as a gem of desire to them, to be conquered for our new goods or to be destroyed for the possession of them. So while you may believe that there are Great Things on the horizon for our trade with these Unknowns, this diversity in our partnership will surely awaken the scrutiny of other realms, governance, and nearby Courts and Powers.

You ask what we have to offer your Unknowns. We have one thing in abundance:

Blood and strife.

Will you share it with them too.

An additional page is attached, a whole leaf of parchment functioning as its own satisfying addendum.

To insult big-headed men affords me great joy. This is what a woman allows herself in a world where men raise their voices and seek to scowl or beat her into silence.

[Glenn]

I'm not sure it's entirely healthy for us to move past it yet. You had your chance to stab me. You stab paper instead. Was the famine that followed natural? Would things have been even worse without that day? I don't know these things. I did not necessarily reach that point in my questing. I did not necessarily have anyone to reach that point with. That was the last I had, the last bit of capital, the last bit of energy, the last bit of thought. I could barely stand. There was nothing left after that but a stubborn root of defiance which saw to the end of the Council and the end of the Governor. Maybe the end of the occupation too, but I can't well speak for that.

Suggest someone else for me to speak to about this and I will. It would be doing a disservice to what you went through for me not to engage with my own ignorance and failings on this matter. I've reached out to your young friend Cherny in the last year as well. I have not received any response. Trying to apologize to Catch got me into this trouble in the first place. When I wrote to Dulcie, a ghost responded. With Genevieve there is too much else. Kals, understandably did not respond to me. I can't tell if Agnieszka wishes to bed me or kill me. Either way, I'd rather not respond further. With her sister, it's infinitely worse. I received a lovely gift from the person I hate the most. That's a thing. I'm too much a coward to write Egris once more. If I did, she would come to me. If she came to me, I would have to give answer. Dragons and elves are easier. You're easier too, for all your well-intentioned rancor and tightly contained malice.

Obviously Sylvius did not respond. I imagine Aloisius would. Can you imagine how that would go? I'd ask him to tell me about the hard times and he'd write me three paragraphs on how he feasted on hamfat and how the people refused his largess because he made it so damn grotesque. There is no crueler joke.

I adore your vocabulary, Gloria. You know so many of our words. You cannot spell them, but you know them. Is this all Sylvius? How many talks did you have with him? I think, in the end, I had more talks with his rival, his tormentor, than I did with him. His interest was ethereal. By the time we met him, I, but you as well, he was no longer of this world. He had lost too much and regained just enough. One had to provide stimulus to engage him, to make him manifest. One had to remind him that he was alive. He would not meet you half way. There was nothing within him to meet you half way. You had to go all the way to him. I think Ariane, through sheer force of will of which she had more than anyone else, could not see this, for she, by her very nature, could do nothing but draw him out and invoke him. That was her greatest weakness, perhaps. The world was different for her, so she could not foresee the challenges others would have with it.

They lack vitality. They have the luxury of being able to try many things over many years and the nature to try none at all, or to deliberate for centuries before trying a single one. We have no luxury at all and thus are infinitely ambitious. Death will come to any and all of us soon enough. We've already lost. We are born bereft. What more is there to lose?

Do you have other correspondents? Does Sylvius return your letters and ignore mine? I imagine not. You may speak freely of the troubles of being a woman in this world to me. I will listen. No matter how I treat you or how I treat everyone, this does not change the system in which you were born into or the experiences you must endure every day. I will listen and try to understand. However, while there are many, many reasons for you to turn your blade upon me, or barring that and accounting for distance, your insults, me belittling you for being a woman is not one of them. If I belittle you, it is because of who you are, not what.

In friendship and hope and suffering,
Glenn

[Rance]

Glenn,

You will find that so necessery is the care I take with this response that I have purchased for its composition a bottle of coshinele ink. For what purpose: the distincsions I will make must be of the utmost clarity, both for myself and for you. The greatest weaknesses you possess appear in great abundence in your letter, namely that you possess so little care for others that you believe a bounty of useless words will somehow convince you of the breadth of your heart.

I will write to you a story of Glenn Burnie.

Here, Gloria employs her purchase: the ink is wine-dark, a product of crushed insects and various preservatives. She rewrites his words here, highlighting snippets and moments.

I've reached out to your young friend Cherny in the last year as well. I have not received any response - When I wrote to Dulcie, a ghost responded - With Genevieve there is too much else - Kals, understandably did not respond to me - I can't tell if Agnieszka wishes to bed me or kill me - With her sister, it's infinitely worse. I received a lovely gift from the person I hate the most. That's a thing. I'm too much a coward to write Egris once more. If I did, she would come to me.

So wound-up in himself, Glenn Burnie found that his letters received no responses or displeasing ones if at all they came. Too greatly focused on his own amusements, Glenn Burnie did not realise that the truth lie in the absense of act: no one desired to respond, because Glenn Burnie has set flames to many bridges and what the world at large wishes for most is his silence.

I adore your vocabulary, Gloria. You know so many of our words. You cannot spell them, but you know them.

But in the midst of his letter-writing Glenn Burnie greatly inspired the ire of a stubborn young woman named Gloria, for he found it suitable to patronise her, and to simultaneously claim that these words, being "ours", could not also be hers.

Is this all Sylvius?

He then reduses this woman's agency by presuming her intelligence cannot be her own, for if it exists, it must be as a result of her tutor and not her own capasity for thought. The belittling begins and yet so daft is he with HIS words (for surely they cannot possibly be hers) that he does not even realize it.

How many talks did you have with him? I think, in the end, I had more talks with his rival, his tormentor, than I did with him. His interest was ethereal. By the time we met him, I, but you as well, he was no longer of this world. He had lost too much and regained just enough. One had to provide stimulus to engage him, to make him manifest. One had to remind him that he was alive.

Glenn Burnie you see moved through the world with such ner naso self-obsession that to have "talks" to him also denoted "relationships"; and here, this same girl which he earlier belittled interjects to correct him thus: Sylvius Duquesne, my Proctor and friend, was so valued to me that I spent greater than a Season in his company. While he guided me in my studies he as well provided me with essential company as such to engage my faculties, to welcome me, and to show me worth and value. He gave to me books and discussion and purpose. We practiced at the corder staff. We drank of tea and we argued greatly and we took to the hills and we laughed.

He gave to me access to his printing-press and confided in me great parts of himself which I hold precious in value.

He entrusted me to know his child.

Sylvius was and is a very dear friend for whome I possess powerful respect. Ours were not "talks"; ours was a friendship.

The girl asks Glenn Burnie: please, will you know the difference?

The next sheet continues on with the dismemberment of his words. The sand, here, is greater; it spills out from the folded page, folded with such haste that it was not first emptied back into the pot.

They lack vitality. They have the luxury of being able to try many things over many years and the nature to try none at all, or to deliberate for centuries before trying a single one. We have no luxury at all and thus are infinitely ambitious. Death will come to any and all of us soon enough. We've already lost. We are born bereft. What more is there to lose?

And so Glenn Burnie moved through life with wasted philosophie, so desperite to be seen as special enough to be embraced by Unknown beings that he convinsed himself that his mortalitey was a Gift. Surely they laughed at the notion.

I will listen and try to understand. However, while there are many, many reasons for you to turn your blade upon me, or barring that and accounting for distance, your insults, me belittling you for being a woman is not one of them. If I belittle you, it is because of who you are, not what.

The young woman comes to his court and addresses him where he sits upon his throne. 'Glenn Burnie,' she proclames, 'too true it is that your belittleing is a kindness and a boon, that I shoult feel a pleasure at it, and dirive from it great joy! before now I have but seen it as insult, and I hope one day to thank you for the gift of your constant self-aggrandizement!' And she bowed to him, for that was what he wanted, to be seen as smarter and greater. For if he could not be Governor of the people then he could certainly be Governor of philosophie and right and wrong and life and rules and morality, could he not.

And also, the owner of every word. Ours and not hers.

A final page at the bottom surrenders itself to her original tone.

Glenn Burnie,

I have been patient both with myself and with you. I have attempted to construct, as you say, in the interest of providing you valid considerations for your Endeavor. Yet this letter makes it clear to me that my efforts in challenging you the way I prasume you might desire have not amused you. And so you revert to inauthentic explorations.

So let me make this very clear to you: I shall allow you, in every case, to insult me, to break me down, to grind me into powder if it suits you. But what I will not allow is for you to make light, in this case by way of your carelessness, of the most important relationships in my life and their endless value to me. "My young friend" Cherny is no such a thing; he is as a brother to me, and Sylvius Duquesne is not only a proctor, but a preservor of my life: at a time when Gloria Wynsee thought this world would be better suited without her he invested himself in providing me with the tools to be the architect of myself.

What I am not interested in is your idle chatter. Not anymore.

What I am interested in is ensuring that this future you want to forge is wrung free of its flaws.

Do you intend to infuriate me? Or is it but a byproduct of us?

[Glenn]

Through the continuous application of your chisel, we have cut through layers of civility and common compassion.

So here is this, a secret. A hidden truth? Perhaps that is more accurate.

I treat you how I would treat a three-headed dragon. I treat you how I would treat a wizened elflord. I treat you how I would treat a hundred orphans. I treat you how I would treat a plague of locusts or a beautiful butterfly. I gather information. I pay attention. I take in stimuli. I classify it. I organize it. I try to make sense of it. This is listening. This is asking. This is provoking. This is observing.

Then I come to conclusions. Some are correct. Some are incorrect. I always try to hone the process so that it can be ever more correct. We all do this but few of us are apt to be cognizant of what we are doing. I try to understand.

In remarking that you had an ever increasing grasp upon our language, I was stating an observation. That you took offense with the our speaks far more of you than of me. Master it fully and you can claim it as your own as well. The bar is mastery. That I asked of whether you had learned certain things from a known teacher is hardly an insult. It was phrased in the form of a question as I was not sure. It was a matter of interest. If you responded that it was through reading instead, that would open up other lines of inquiry.

You ever seek grievances. I worry lately at how I interact with the world, but I watch you how you clench and unclench, the spines that you raise up in defense from imagined slights. Even through all that I have encountered, all that I have lost, I think I might never rise to the level of sheer misery you can manage.

Yes, I know exactly how you are going to respond to this, how you will attempt to belittle and minimize and insult and turn this back upon me. I said it anyway because I believe it. I believe it, with open-eyes, thinking frequently lately of my own faults. I have you to thank for that, in part, and I do appreciate it, but as you are insatiable in your capacity to feel offense, it warps to the level of parody so severely that increasingly I find what you say to be less and less useful. You are free to feel the same of my words.

And I am sorry. I am sorry that you have reached this point. It's hardly pity, merely sorrow. I wonder if Cherny, your brother, writes you back and not me. I would applaud his prioritization and restraint if that is the case. I wonder if Sylvius is writing you back and how those conversations are going. I would find that unlikely due to the man's manners. I hope that you have others you correspond with, however. For one, you have much to offer to a fellow correspondent, both in language and in substance. For another, it will only help to increase your skills.

I struggle with friendship. My gestures do not go well. This will not surprise you. I think, perhaps, I am a better rival than a friend.

If you write, I will write back. There is regard in that. Obligation? Those things I can provide honestly.