[Isabella Fitzgerald]

[Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi]

[A letter is delivered by courier to Isabella, wherever she may be in the Well, for she is nothing if not prominently garbed in purple.]


Isabella,

I hope you are well and greet you in earnest friendship. Though I write directly to say that I am given cause to ask you to attend a mediation.

Naelin of the Torchbearers has asked me to be mediator, and to mediate a conflict that has arisen between you and her. So that I may moderate the fierce passions that I know you both possess, and aid in seeing to some manner of resolution to what has plagued you.

If this is agreeable to you, I shall invite you both to the Krak des Roses as my guests, were we may speak at length on the subjects that have come between you. If this is not agreeable to you, say so simply by reply to me, and I shall ask nothing more of you. But if you are agreed, I ask one more thing of you. To send to me a short summation of the wrongs that you have suffered, so that I may go informed, and not in ignorance of any matter of import.

Whether yes or no, I would humbly ask you to write me at the Priory.

Yours,

Acolyte Amelie

[Empress of Neon]

Dear Amelie,

I am cursed. I was born in a place where human supremacy was cruelly inflicted on those beyond the claim thereof. Many injustices and grievances bloomed there and such memories are not so easily washed away. I was born of the Peerage Ward, and Naelin remembers me only as such. A filthy, arrogant, haughty, manipulative snake (It's a common perception in some circles, unfortunately). I have also, regrettably, offended her and the Torchbearers (At least some of them) in times past after I invited them to employ for my Auction of Blushwhorls Charity Event. Naelin especially took grievous offense in presuming I was trying to 'whore them out'. In the defense of my grandmother, from who'm the seasonal tradition I inherited, it was more a matchmaking spectacle than anything of ill repute. Gods know Alejandro didn't agree to be Zania's late-night other.

Though they would make a cute couple, as mistress of the games and he her ambience.

My own grievances are simply thus:

~ She mocks and chides at me every chance she gets, whether it's called for or not. The last straw in this case was during the assembly, where I unintentionally was beginning to speak over the Princess in a chamber with a terrible echo problem and a pair of aging ears that's started to fail me. Her 'comment' was both unecessary and unwelcomed. Especially insofar as it painted division in the Purple League right in front of royalty.

~ Endlessly, outside the chambers, have I tried to be courteous and decent towards her. Every single instance she's treated me lower than dirt and consistently slapped away the olive branch. There's no excuse for it and I am not without an end to my patience. There is an auld wisdom to invoke on when it comes to persons who consistently wrong you. Forgive once, but never twice. We are well past 'twice'.

~ Always treating me like a pariah. Like I'm some kind of predator in the room. It's offensive, and I've done nothing to deserve it. And if she's going to wage a story at me about how 'Peers like me made her life so miserable', frankly, she can shove it. She knows nothing about me or the life I lived and I've suffered enough from those who deign it appropriate to punish the children of the fathers.

~ I'm well aware of her gossiping and the bile she and others spew behind my back. You spread it enough and people with some sense will eventually inform your victims. Like many things, it is unwelcomed.

~ I could tolerate all of this, as I come to expect it as a politician, if not  for one thing: I threw the election. Power and wealth means nothing to me. When I proclaimed over the baubles I was the wrong candidate, I meant it. Legates need to be approachable by any league's Voiced, not just their own. My relationship was too sour with the White League. Once that seat was filled, the risk of constant deadlocks from two Legates who could never agree on -anything- because of past grievances was a very real prospect. Ephia's Well deserves good government; not getting its wheel locked in the muck of politics and personal vendettas.

The Well's in a bad situation when members of the Accord are trying to take seats

I have only ever given to Sephidra in this race. I've asked for nothing and need nothing in return short of victory. In spite of this, Naelin continues to do all of the above and act as if I am doing  this for for some kind of personal gain. I could end the ash-storms, and that woman would still have a reason to jape at me.

No more.

She is a vile, wretched, two-faced, fork-tongued, barking-bitch spawn of a She's mistaken if she thinks I am without dignity. I have more self-respect for myself than to take these undue displays and insults. I have been wronged, not the other way around, and I am not going to keep praying to the Mother for patience on the matter. It has been squandered enough as it is.


~Love, Isabella Fitzgerald