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You - you’ve read it already? Gods, big man. No, it’s just - I am just in awe of you.
It’s bad, isn’t it. What I thought of him - what I said. Mmm. I know. I remember most of it. I did him wrong, and I want to tell him so.
That note, the first one? I couldn’t hide something like that - or something like what I know, what I’ve told you, about his past - forever. And I wouldn’t, even if I could. He deserves better - he deserves to know, if or when he’s ever ready. So as much as it ashames me, that I had that written, also I’m - I have to be glad, at least a little, that I didn’t burn it. Like I’d planned.
Though you’re a sight easier to tell it all to than the poor boy who got to write the last one. He had no idea who Brelyeis was or why I was so distraught about him.
. . . though come to think of it, big man, neither did I. Not really. I’m - I’m grateful there’s a chance for something different to be written now. That you’re the one to do it. No one better.
What? Me writing to him? That’s a good one!
. . . oh. You weren’t joking?
You - you weren’t joking.
Big man, I - I love you. I don’t know why or how you can believe in me like that, and after all this, but - thank you.
But as for me writing this to him? I - I can’t. Not yet. It’s not because of your teaching, I swear - gods know I probably couldn’t have taken it from anyone else - it’s more that. . . Moth. You’ve seen, now, where we started from, him and me. That note - that was the least, the mildest, of what I thought and believed about him for so, so long. And I - I still worry, that one day he’ll wake up and remember that, remember everything, and he won’t want me near him anymore. And I wouldn’t blame him if he did.
No, I know you think it won’t happen! I believe you, and I believe him! It’s just - it’s all there, and it all comes up, sometimes. Like when I think of writing to him - this is his domain, and yours, and gods know I can barely form my letters yet. And besides, I could never write as well as you could, or he could. So I - thank you for doing this for me.
. . . wait wait, what do you mean you won’t change anything I’m saying? Aah, big man, I thought you were going to help me make it sound good and proper and sweet! No, I don’t care if it doesn’t sound like me anymore! Well, because then it will sound like you! That’s good!
Mmmm. Anything I can do to change your mind? No, no, besides actually writing it myself. Mmm. You suuuure there’s nothing?
Heh. My incorruptible big man. All right, all right - focusing, I promise.
So. He’s told you about what I did, that night we snuck into Santhoven trying to get pardons and I found him being attacked. Still not proud of that fight or what he keeps calling a ‘rescue’ in any way except for the fact that he lived, afterward.
Especially now that I know you might have been nearby. That maybe you could have helped us even then.
And that right there is the biggest change between this and the last time I tried to tell a story about him, big man - the knowing. Now I know that he was scared, and probably at the end of his rope, when he contacted Mort, and me - and, and Rafail - to find that orb he’s still looking for. Now I know that he had no one in the world but you, and maybe Adaire, and that we took him - no, I took him, big man, I took him - from all of that, dragging him off into our particular brand of dealing with things that I guess he’s actually been dealing with all his life.
And most of all, big man - now I know, even just a little, of what he went through in the Feywilds. In the capitol, fighting for folk like I accused him of lording over. And in his own bed, where no man should have to know that kind of ridicule or fear for his body.
And the fact that he could push past all that is - I don’t even have the words for how tremendous that is, big man. How hard it must have been. How much I admire him for doing it.
How very, very much I want to keep anything like his past or even his time fighting in the capitol or along our way from ever happening again.
. . . and of course how very, very badly I have failed at all of that so far.
No, it’s not that he needs it. It’s that - if he would let me, I want to. Stand between him and anything that dared to come for him ever again, now that I know better. And you, big man. And you.
Gods. If not for you, big man - if not for him, after we fought our way out of that cultist trap - then we wouldn't even be here, and no silly little note is ever going to be enough to tell him that. Or you, really, but I’m going to find another different way to make it up to you, don’t even worry. . . But for now, maybe a note or a story - even if he never reads it, or the one that came before it - can at least start to make up for my first mistakes.
A little. As much as I can, without actually shoving all the weight of it on him. When there’s enough he’s dealing with, as it is.
No, no, that’s what I can think of for now. I’m sure there will be more someday - heh, yes, I promise I’ll think about writing it myself then. Yes, then?
. . . you really want me to put something on this, don’t you. Big man, I can’t keep the damn letters straight. . .
Yes, that works, I’ll copy it from you.
