crystals | step one cut a hole in a box

[dissolving]

FORM: Crystals
SENDER: Cedric
RECIPIENT: Friends, Romans, countrymen
NOTES: Complaintiment box

Hey – 's Cedric.

Heard we used to have a box for, uh. Feedback. Set up a new one outside the Mediation office.

If there's aught been bugging you, can put it in there. Won't promise you the moons, but reckon we can at least talk it out. And if there's something gone good, or you seen someone really putting in the work, 's a fine place to say that too. I'll let folks know.

Won't read it for a bit. So if you got a pressing problem, talk to me direct.

Ah. Yeah. That’s all, thanks.

[ muffled: ]

How d'you even say Pizzicagnolo –

Comments

[aberratic]

[ that cedric is the one who suggests it means ness doesn't discount the idea out of hand for self-indulgence. spend valuable time thinking about what might have been, if vazeiros had ever loved her, if her mother had loved her more, if she had made it to baldur's gate or got waylaid on the way and joined the circus, or something. plenty of things might have happened, but they didn't, and now she's here, and that's all there is to it. no point dwelling. don't get stuck.

don't think about it too hard. no one cares, there's a war on.

but cedric said he wouldn't be asking if he didn't think it mattered, so maybe it does. at least to one person. ]

It's a lot to write down, [ comes slow, wrestling with herself, the warring urge not to say too much and the need for validation. ] But it's not a bad way to... memorialize a life half-lived, I suppose. One-eighth-lived.

[ she'll hit old age here before she'd have been even halfway through her lifespan in faerûn—she hadn't even thought of that yet. ]

[dissolving]

[ one-eighth, and he knows better than to argue with a rifter for that. whatever's true - whether other lands roll on beyond the fade, or only more dreams - it doesn't matter. she's felt it: that's real enough. ]

Work of a lifetime, [ he agrees. ] Always gonna be new paths you pass by. Tells you, maybe, where y'want to go now. What matters in th'going.

[aberratic]

[ where she wants to go, what matters in getting there... hm. ]

It's a weird kind of... nostalgia, almost, isn't it, for those paths unwalked? Not regret, exactly, but a... wistfulness.

What have your missed paths taught you about where you want to go?

[dissolving]

Yeah, reckon that's near it. Nostalgia for th'point it might've still happened? Dunno.

Been at war longer than I done anything else. But,

[ hesitation. it always sounds childish, but he trusts ness with that ]

Being here, y'know. Makes me hope that's not forever, that I can find something after. Just hope whatever I do matters. Been given a lot, [ he says, and means i have taken, ] And don't want that t'be for nothing.

[aberratic]

I can't imagine that anything you do— [ hang on, the stars in her eyes are too audible. hold back. ]

That whatever you do, you'll do any less than your best, or that your best could be insufficient. You'll find your purpose when this is over.

[ it's her turn to hesitate, chewing a little on her bottom lip over whether she should just leave it there. ]

I hope that you can find that purpose away from a fight, though. I think you deserve to see what kind of person you are without a sword in your hand. I hope that's alright to say.

[dissolving]

Thank you,

[ means it. shouldn't lean into that, hold those words in his head and roll them about for the echo. but there are a lot of things he shouldn't do. this one's – harmless. ]

'S why I joined diplomacy. [ admission: ] Hasn't always looked like this, it don't have to.

[ wasn't everyone on fieldwork, in the old days. plenty knights hadn't killed. stood watch, and ran drills, and taught the kids; had a day in town, maybe a life. she's due one too. community, safety. something that'll last. ]

There's better out there than all this. Reckon coming in here first, 's got to blot out the sun, but there are good places. Good things. Maybe you'll get to see them. Maybe we can try and make 'em better.

[aberratic]

[ we thrills through her, breathless. she's no fool, she knows he doesn't mean—and yet there's still no way she can't sound exactly as besotted as she is. ]

I would like that.

[ the tender longing of that lingers only for a moment before she shakes herself out of it, murmurs a hasty ] Thank you for talking with me, Cedric. Good luck. [ and turns off her crystal.

time to go bury her face in three different books at once. ]