Scrawled Fastidiously Upon Weathered Vellum

Hello to you again, Knight-Protector.


Surely, you must have familiarized yourself to the fabric of my character -- or, perhaps, merely the heft of its silhouette that I've shown you during the arc-length of our correspondence -- to the point where you'd never believe me if I wrote of my wish that this, the present entry in our continuance, finds you quite bedridden.

Why would I not pray upon a determined kneel 'neath the portrait of every deity yet conceived for the speedy putting apart of what ague has so cruelly struck you from your proud stolidity? Am I such an indecorous pustule upon the fine face of our be-misted moors? Don't answer that.

And, in answer, I'd say only that, had it done so, you would be quite unable to do anything but read on, which bears into the center of my bitumen-bloated heart a certain selfish satisfaction. I am only a Wizard, after all; however loftily you've perceiv'd my moral comportment as a result of my academic rigour is merely a distension of the very human Aog Ridir!

I can feel, through the motes in the must which separates us, your displeasure. And maybe that it isn't all of a smithy's yield written in my name, dropped from a barnhouse's sling post upon my unwitting crown. Desperate unlike before are the circumstances which have beset you, Lacey. No wisdom from my innumerable insomniac's doldrums at the Litany Keep can properly convey themselves through this letter, nor any other. And so I announce a curious approach:

The thunder-heads you see without, thrumming indolently on the Eastern horizon, herald a visitor -- and that is me. Surely, the company of a friend and accomplished sulphur-huffing statesman can do only goodly for your displeasures and dour disposition, if nothing else! Now, now: I'm not inviting myself; I'm already abouts. Stormclouds, remember?

By my estimation, I'm a week's breadth from your stoop. Have they stoops on the facade of a stately manor? Maybe I'll see sooner than we either of us think. Were you to compose a reply and have it beaten-hastily to ... what is that mush-mire hamlet an Easterly four-day's gambol away? They've a cottager who leases his spare bed-room to pale Wizards in their time of need. Make your mark and reply there by this evening, and both it and I should arrive at the same hour.

In truth, I can't wait. But don't tell anyone I ever said, or the mystique of my office will be repudiated for-and-ever.

𝓐𝓸𝓰