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“My Dearest Raven,
I hope this letter finds you well, because even though I am rarely well, the thought of you brings, well, the most giddy smile to my face.
Here I have been the past month, opening myself back up weekly in ways I thought I never would again. To be perfectly honest, ways I never thought I would at all! It has all been such an eye-opening experience for me.
But there is something troubling me. For everything I have told you of my troubles, you have not told me the slightest thing about yours.
I have read and reread each letter you’ve sent me dutifully, much like a scribe in your own ranks off in the green unknown - sometimes that fantasy comforts me, it makes me feel like a little boy again, to be playing pretend-games, but my aspirations in my imagination are so humble, to be but a scribe, that it is decidedly an adult’s fantasy... But please do not take offense to that word, ‘humble’. I merely mean in the scope of a boy’s dreams of knights and kings, there is nothing humble to me about getting to spend each day in a friend’s service, especially a friend that understands so much better than I ever did the art of leadership.
I believe I have begun to ramble. My apologies, there is little else to do on this lonely ship, but think and think until I can think no more and must release the toxin onto paper so my black hands can be put to use once again.
This is why I am troubled by your shyness about your own life, Raven. Is it really friendship if all I do is bother you with my every negative whim, and all you do is listen? Of course, you are entitled to your privacy, and I will apologize most thoroughly if I have invaded that privacy in any way by prying, but I feel it is my responsibility as a friend to at least attempt to pry.
Raven, what is it like in your green paradise?Is it anything like my blue hell? Are you as spotless as I believe, or are you atoning for something too? I swear on every last coin of my lost riches that no matter what, I will remain by your side just as you have stayed by mine.
What other friends do you have? Perhaps we can come up with fun animal names for them as well, and it will all be a marvelous game. What are your dreams, and what do you dream about? Is there another little bird that’s caught your eye? Have you any enemies, outside or even inside your ranks? How I long to know you as more than an unpaid counselor, an unappreciated advisor - but as a friend, the way I have always thought of you. Not someone to dump storms onto, but someone to brave storms with. Together! Can’t we be together, Raven?
If I have made a fool of myself and asked too much of you at this time, or at any time, you are highly encouraged to send this newest novel I’ve sent you a scathing review.
No complaints this time. Only my ears, ready and willing - and ready for a lashing should you decide that’s what I deserve.
With utmost sincerity,
Dog”
—
“Dear Dog,
It’s a funny time this letter has found me in. Maybe there’s something to say of the passage from spring to fall, all the evil in the air. I suppose that is what I would blame this on, if it hadn’t happened before. Quite regularly.
I have to say first off that I appreciate your previous letter. It is nothing but a joy to me to hear your worries and provide solutions, whether practical or intangible, that is what I do best for the people I love, but to know that you would gladly do the same for me... I don’t know what to say. I’ve run out of words on this topic. It changes me.
I feel so much love for you, Dog. I don’t know how else to say it than that. I have so many friends in these ranks but none of them quite as intimate as you.
... Well. There is one who loves me as you love me, who I love as I love you. But tonight I feel that he is especially cross with me.
It is very late at night so I feel as though I should apologize for what I am about to put to paper, as it may not make sense. I don’t have the words to make it make sense from beginning to end, but I feel after reading your letter that I should put it down anyway, even if it isn’t perfect.
He is watching me again, and at times like this, thoughts of you are my greatest comfort. He is watching me even as I write, from the corner of my tent, and though he isn’t saying anything, the look on his face tells me all I need to know.
He blames me. What he told me before he fell that day that never happened was ‘This is not your fault,’ he implored me not to blame myself, but I can feel the judgment in his foggy eyes. Well. Eye. He grows more gruesome every time he visits me, and this time the side of his head where that eye is has caved in like a coal mine. Bye-bye little canaries. Sorry. Thank you for a job well done.
He does not need a name yet. I need time to come up with a clever one, and calling him Canary just seems cruel.
He usually picks the far corner of my tent from my desk as I have mentioned, but there have been times that he has bravely ventured even closer. Once I found him sitting right next to my desk, his broken legs outstretched on the grown, his broken neck craned towards the drawers adorning my workspace.
It seems that we are both haunted, but the unique twist of my haunting is that he is alive and well, as soon as the sun rises. Is he doing this knowingly, or is something hidden in his heart calling out to me, to judge me for a crime I never answered for?
How can i atone for a crime that never happened in the first place?
Furthermore, am I crazy? Could you ever love me after knowing this? Have I ruined myself for you? I’m sorry. I don’t know how to be clean again.
Raven”
—
The dead king of Plegia regarded the latest letter in his anonymous correspondence with the equally anonymous chief tactician to Prince Chrom with a crooked eye... This was bad.
“Do you think so?” He asked the body of Mustafa standing behind him, standing on broken legs and run through by the tactician’s blade.