A Letter to Mother

[Nectorist 7347]

A starving peasant in the Lower Petra clutching a road shrine as they seek a final audience with God, c. 1916

 

It feels wrong to pray to you up in heaven. This is why I write instead. While it is not because I am far from God, I feel like the place I inhabit now is close to hell. While rations flow steadily, and no great battle has erupted since the Battle of Velec, the countryside weeps. Those who flee the armies of this Second Duke’s War have flocked to the city, overcrowding us and forcing us to ration out supplies. Thankfully, the Duke of Minitz’s army has retreated to their lands, which has allowed us to secure our southern trade lanes.

 

The city now, while not under siege, must care for a great many who are poor, hungry, wounded, and sick. My visits to the hospitals are daily now as I am called to sit beside the suffering and dying. Thankfully, I have called upon the Lord’s strength to aid me as I sit beside them. While I feel selfish saying this, for I know their plight is greater than mine, I sometimes wonder if I have the strength to manage. While standing guard atop the barricades of the southern gate is hot and tiring work, it is nothing compared to hearing an old, blind farmer crying out for his missing grandchildren who we have yet to find.

 

Still, even in these hard times, the faith of the people of Adria has not faltered. More join our ranks, many of them from across Aaun, while those who have been with us do not falter. Whole families have taken to providing for our armies. Mothers sew winter clothes for the soldiers, fathers help move ammunition for the cannons, daughters learn how to become medics, and sons are taught how to care for the horses. This work seems to have brought these families close together. Although the occasion is not the cause for merry, rather the opposite, I still hear regular choirs of people around the campfire in the square when the moon has risen over the city. They sign hymns and share food and talk about how our cause is the right one.

 

I cannot share these sentiments with them. My sisters are gone, probably having joined the king’s side, while my brother is usually busy with the foraging parties that venture from the city. Father is, of course, always having to attend to some matter or another. I sometimes go days without seeing him. On occasion, I have been visited by some friends of mine, but as the danger of visiting Adria grows, our meetings become fewer. 

 

I have made some new friends in the city. One of them is a girl named Nimueh. She speaks a bit oddly and thinks that she is closer to being a woman than I am a man, even if she is only a year older, but I know she has a good heart. She seems to be some sort of squire who is friends with Morgan, Briar, Alasdair, and Wilhelmina. Of them, I only know Morgan well, but they all seem to be of a good sort. You probably would not like them, but I think you would understand why I do.

 

I know that we were strangers to each other despite being mother and son. I grew up in the shadow of my sister, for good reason, while you never saw much in me. You were never a cruel mother, even if you occasionally threw a kitchen pot at my head whenever I disobeyed you, but you were not the sort of mother that I see other children have. I was never able to learn your favorite color, what sort of instruments you liked to hear, what you did before you met father, or what season you liked the most. We never talked like most mothers and sons do. We almost never talked at all.

 

Despite this, it was difficult for me to visit your grave. Although I still do so dutifully and pray for your soul, there was one thing you did for me that I will never forget. It is something that, if it did not make you a good mother or a good person, it made you a mother I could love. When I was a boy, you tried to shield me from the things that I have to see now. The tragedy, pain, and death that war brings.

 

It came with the attack on the keep many years ago, when I was just a child playing under the apple tree in the middle of the courtyard. As the Greycloaks had gone out to fight some bandits, I saw a stream of red cloaks enter the keep. What few guards were there held them off in vain as the mass of bandits advanced. It is hard to remember much, but I remember you rushing out from the keep and scooping me up from your arms. Before you shielded my eyes as we rushed indoors, I saw Richard Hoss speared through the neck by one of the bandits, the man named Dune, as he shut and locked the doors behind us. Even today, Henry Hoss looks at me with eyes that are pained, almost enraged, even if his words are friendly. I think he might wish that I had died instead of his brother that day, but I will never ask him.

 

I probably cried as we huddled in the basement kitchens by ourselves, not knowing if they would storm the manor and kill us. But you stood bravely. I remember you singing a song to me, though I don’t know what it was. You covered my ears as the returning Greycloaks doubtless made battle with the bandits outside. Even if I still see the tip of sword protruding through Richard Hoss’ throat every time I dream, that is the only memory I have of the violence that happened that day. Even though I hated that you prevented me from leaving Adria after that day, I know it was probably because you did not want me to see the worst of this world, especially before I was ready to.

 

Although I might be too young now, I think I am ready to face war. I have seen people dead and irreparably wounded. I spoke with a captured enemy and set her free. I take to the barricades of Velec each morning and evening. I have yet to see a battle, but I know that I will soon. I am glad that the first true violence I see will be now, when I know more of what I am to face, than what could have been if I was young. I see the children in the hospitals now who have had to see the worst. Their eyes stare off into the void, yet they cannot speak or see, only utter the occasional sob.

 

You kept me from having to face the same fate as a boy. While I cannot say that I was ever a dutiful son, or you a kindly mother, I know that you must have loved me. At least once. On that day, you chose to risk your life, rushing outside as bandits surged into the courtyard, so that you could save me. You saved me twice that day: first from death, the second from the death of my childhood, which I have seen to be nearly as horrible. I cannot thank you for much, but I can for that, and as I pray at night my hopes that you are in a better, happier place than you were down here are wishes that I believe may reach you.

 

I hope that when I die, we may be able to meet in heaven so that we may know each other as mother and son. I hope that we can talk about things like our favorite colors, or favorite instruments, or what you did before you met father, or what season we like the most. I hope that you know that I love you and that I know you loved me.

 

Viktor Sarkozic

[Witchring 359]

Nimueh took the missive and ran towards her group of friends, waving the parchment in the air. "Y'all! Look! We made the papers!" She proclaimed excitedly ...
But then, she read her part in full. "Oh hell naw...?" The young Mihyaari grabbed the nearest branch, debating whether or not she would make the well-spoken Sarkozic pay.

[Fie 2519]

Wilhelmina slowly turned to her friend. ".. Put that stick down, you'll hurt yourself and I will not waste medical supplies on foolishness!" @Valkirey

[Beamon4 1646]

Before the letter was to be sent in the morning, amid the night, Heinrik found himself in Viktor's room; by candlelight, he read the letter pausing every so often to glimpse the young crow who now bore a near identical complexion to himself. "I....I wish this were different, Viktor; I wish I could return the peace of your former life," He muttered softly, and though he dreamed he could sit in the confines of the room with his son and let the fire pass them by, he laid back down the letter and returned to the duties of his now so incoherent world. 

[Ireneically 248]

A note would be attached to a missive, hopefully where the original poster would find: 

 

 'Are you wanting to be friends?! Send me a bird!' ( a smiley face was drawn )

 

{|~-Princess Briar Alice M. Pendriac of Barrowtown, The Summer Rain, Child of the Seelie, Briar the Valiant, The Pure Hearted....~|}"

[The previous was scratched out as she deemed it a bit TOO silly for public... Plus adults didn't understand humor. Instead, it was merely signed....]

 

- Briar 

 

Edited March 20, 2023 by Ireneically