Celyn's Letter to His Brother Pryce

Pryce —

I’m writing to you rather than Mama or anyone and I trust that you’ll tell people the things that are best for them to know.  I know Mama will worry and I know you can keep mum when need be.

You know how when I was trying to figure out if I needed to leave Clawyn, Ellis said he thought I was carrying too much fate to stay?  And too much fate to be together, but I’ll come back to that, because I think he’s right and people who have destinies on them have a hard time with people who don’t.  And then I was traveling with the Players and I spent ages and letters home wondering where my fate was anyway?  Because that didn’t seem like it was the thing, even though it was where I needed to be for a while.

So I found it, or it found me, and there’s things you need to know.  If you hear about things in the Barony of Aveil in the news that comes in to Nefyn, that’s where I am, mostly, though I’m writing this from Fellburn.  They call us “the heroes of Cleenseau” which is awfully weird but we’re back to fate again, and chance meetings, and circumstance.  There’s four of us, me, another Tyrwinghan called Robin, an orphan boy called Viepuck, and a dwarf called Izgil.  Luck and fate brought us together and we have been dealing with so many terrible things.

We encountered a hostile fey.  He knocked me mostly out which was mostly bad because nobody else seemed to have the sense the Wildling gave a goose.  But he said he served an old enemy of the Queen’s, and I think that’s related to all the terrible things, though I don’t know how the fey would be working to rouse up old bones and bodies, that doesn’t seem much like even the nastier ones.  But please tell Ilean and whoever else is helping her these days to be extra sure of the standing stones and things, to keep everyone safe as we can.  Especially the stone over near the big old oak that the moss grows on?  That one might need a rock wedged behind it again if there’s been much rain, it does wobble.  But I’m clearly needed here, because Sembarans have no idea how to deal with the fey and don’t even really believe they’re around much and someone’s going to do something dreadfully stupid if I’m not careful.  And I’m not very good at careful so the dice are rolling.

I had to write to you in particular because a young man we’ve been encouraging lost his whole family to a terrible thing, and was heartbroken unto madness over his favorite brother.  And I thought how I wrote to Mama for everyone, and I even wrote to Ellis, but I never wrote to just you.  I keep worrying about whether or not the terrible things here will spill out larger and what that will mean.  I needed to write to you in case of terrible things, I guess.  I miss you.  I miss home, and being quiet together, and trying to keep the goats from eating my shirt.

It isn’t all bad though.  I said I would come back to carrying fate.  Ellis wasn’t, and mine was too heavy for him to share.  Aside from the other reasons it’s for the best we didn’t settle down and get married like Mama wanted, I’m sure he’s happier feeling like he and Llew can leave Clawyn even if he doesn’t actually do it.  But people with similar weights of fate?  I have hope that can work, even though it’s all very new.  He’s not as quiet as you but hardly anyone is and he wouldn’t scare the goats.  The Wanderer lends him strength, but it’s a matter of gentle resolve for him, not like how my mad fury makes space for the Wyrdling’s power.  I like the contrast.  I like that he understands Tyrwinghan things because Sembarans are exhausting.  Despite all the terrible things here, this makes me happy.  It’s a hopeful thing, isn’t it?  That even in the midst of such dire events, there can be happiness?

I think you’d like him.  I know Ellis would flirt with him but Ellis flirts with all the cute people.  If you see Ellis, tell him I’m happy and I’m not burdened by a fate that demands loneliness, okay?  I know he’d be glad.  I hope he’s happy too.

I love you.  I miss you.

Celyn