Lethal - The Letter

[Kylerryth]

Pigeons had a tendency to die on the way to wherever they had been trained to fly -- and besides, he didn't have that luxury available to him; last he checked, Pritchard hadn't installed a pigeon cote -- so Lethal took a gamble and hired a courier to deliver a letter for him. It cost him a few days' pay, but better to let someone know he was actually alive rather than buried in a shallow grave in the middle of nowhere.

At least, someone who might care.

* * * * *

Some weeks later, the courier would arrive at the Dagger and approach Pritchard about a girl named Quincy. No, he didn't know where Quincy was, but he hoped she would stop by soon and help the new girl with the rooms -- they could be something awful, sometimes. The courier pressed on, but Pritchard had no helpful answers or leads. For all he knew, Quincy had vanished.

"You think she'll come by soon?" the courier asked, obviously frustrated. Damn that man! He should have refused this job. Fingering the pouch tied to his belt with his free hand, the courier took that thought back. He even felt a touch guilty. The man had worked hard to scrounge up just enough marks to cover his fee; the man deserved to have his letter delivered.

But I don't deserve this complication, the courier thought sourly.

"No tellin'," Pritchard replied. Peering into a mug, the bartender seemed oblivious to the courier's mood. The courier knew better. Bartenders pretended not to see or hear a lot of things. Setting the mug down, Pritchard went on. "Hope so, like I said. Tell y'what. Leave th' letter with me, Master Courier, an' I'll see she gets it. Aye?"

"Fair enough," the courier replied. He removed the letter from an oiled leather bag, specially designed to protect its contents from the elements, and slid the envelope across the counter. Pritchard picked it up and peered at it curiously, then at the courier -- but he nodded, and after a moment of looking round, placed it somewhere he thought safe.

The courier offered a smile and said, "Thank you, Master Pritchard. Fare you well." Then he departed from the Dagger, and after retrieving his horse from the stable, from Myrken Wood as well.

[Whisper]

What am I … but an instrument of Shyntei’s Song?


The letter fell into her hand almost the instant that she returned to the inn; there were no burning questions, only a long, familiar look between the older bartender and the one-eyed lump of bloodcoloured cloak. Pritchard’s eyes reflected his concern. There was a stretch of time between that moment, and the desperation of the reading, during which she recalled very little: a blur of open doors, a rattle across the porch, and a dreamer’s weary, foggy white sunlight at midday.

At some point she sank into the shade of the town between two empty crates, rotten from the rainstorms. Her breathing was thin, and her heart was pounding in her ears. The shadows of merchants passed the mouth of the empty alleyway. A thin finger traced over the rough writing on the outside of the envelope. .. Quincy ..

The girl, the avatar, mouthed her own name in a slow, quiet way. It was the only word that she was particularly swift to recognize in her tedious learning. She turned it over in her hands and carefully tore it open. A letter was a precious thing. Still, there was a frown line beside her eye. She could not imagine its writer. Surely it was not another letter from Phlynn, so shortly after the first. Seized by terror, curiosity, and confusion, she hastily pulled the letter out. It hissed free.

Quincy bent forward and opened it, palm smoothing it out. Her cheeks were full of air.

[Kylerryth]

Quincy.

Her name: the only external marking on the envelope. It was written in a smallish and rough but legible hand -- an unrecognized hand, too ... but a legible one.

When the envelope was opened and the letter itself smoothed out, it contained not only the same handwriting but what would more than likely be quite a surprise.

* * * * *

[INDENT]Hey again, kitten. Long time no see, aye? Aye. Probably too long. Gods know what's happened since I left a few months back. Wish I had never taken the job now, of course ... but if wishes gave you wings, I'd be flying through the skies, faster than you could believe.

Ah, getting all weird now. Slightly distracted. Writing this kinda quickly with a stick of charcoal I made. The guards won't let me have a quill after what I did to--

Oh yeah. I'm in prison. Forgot to mention that. Hence the "guards" thing.

Where was I?

Yeah. They won't let me have a quill, so I had to make this stick to write with. Normally I got a pretty good hand, but with this it goes all to hell. I hope you can read this. If you even get the letter. Damn courier bargained harder than some merchants.

Anyway. I'm in prison. Long story short: I got into another big fight. Town guardsmen got involved, and a lot of them were hurt. And killed. They blame me since I'm convenient, but whatever I did was completely in self-defense. So I run. Couple weeks later, bounty hunters the town hired net and seize me, take away and melt my harness and weapons (the harness is the bigger loss; I don't know how to make the damn thing, just how it works ... I can always get blades again), and lock me up in the town's biggest prison. So here I am under triple guard watch, day and night, with minimum food and water and light.

The candle beside me is pretty low. I don't know if they plan to give me another. Maybe I can scrape the already-melted tallow together and make another. Maybe.

Distracted. Have to write quickly.

Basically, I just wanted to let you know I'm alive and all right.

Well ... yeah, let's just go with that. A lot easier than getting into minor details.

I'm gonna escape, Quincy.

I already have a plan. I've refined it over the last week. Had to take time to learn their patterns. Barely know the layout of the prison, though. When I was brought in, I had a hood over my head. I know enough.

When I escape, I'm coming back. I don't know when I'll see you again, Quincy, but I'm coming back, and I hope I'll find you soon after. Gods above and below, I've missed you. Sounds weird I guess, especially after all the stuff that went down shortly before I left on assignment ... but it's true. Really do miss you.

Don't bother coming for me. Don't bother looking for me. Don't even worry about me. I will find you.

See you soon, kitten.[/INDENT]

And then, near the bottom of the page:

[Whisper]

The moment that Quincy was able to decipher the alias kitten, she was beside herself to rush, to devour every word in an instant and know it as a whole. Glee anxiously clutched her by the throat and belly, and her head fell back against the alley wall as she held the letter up to the light. All of her cynical assumptions of abandonment were put to instant, welcome shame.

She stumbled and labored over each word, mouthing and pronouncing, clutching the frayed parchment with impatience in the very tips of her fingers.

.. flying through the ..

…distracted .. charcoal ..

prison?

The girl flew to her feet, leg crashing through a rotten crate in a rain of splinters; she lurched and hobbled, heat in the very tips of her ears, until the letter slapped against the alley wall, plastered there, and her face leered furiously close. Hunched shoulders quaked.

.. escape ..

.. miss you ..

.. find you ..

.. see you ..

‘Don’ worry?!’ was her exasperated cry, and the narrow walls mocked her with a soft echo. Quincy pressed the crown of her head against the letter, pinned it to the wall, and stared down at the cobble. She was little more than a dabbler of stealth, and she was only almost fool enough to fight an entire prison of guardsmen. While the risk was worth it, there was Estela to consider. …wide-eyed, endearing, salivating Estela.

How she loved this crude letter, and when she caught her breath with a little reassurance from the ever-present Dog-Ears, in his black scabbard on her back, she knew what she had to do. Her mind went through an imaginative, assertive, unfailing calculation of future events, but first thing was first: Pritchard.

She bolted out of the alley and down the street in a high wind. A torn streamer from an old festival caught her across the arm, and the letter flapped in her tight hand. Lost time could have meant no success in finding its deliverer, and no success was not in Quincy’s vocabulary. That would not change today.

‘Lethal!’ she hollered at a merchant, and it kept him – and his smelly fish – over by the cart. The wary man of wares turned his attention to an elderly couple, hastening toward them, instead, with his prize trout from the Silver Lake.

‘Well, a’ least I know ‘e’s good for somethin’,’ she gasped to the trees when their shade fell down on her back and cooled her brow. The inn was ahead, and her ground-eating run closed the distance.