Foscari

[Random_White_Guy]

Foscari,

Per your request I am taking to respite but so too - drafting of missives. Journal and more I'll be likely uptaking as well to help keep some semblance of sanity between my newly reduced workload and the idleness.

I confess I do not share your hope for recovery. I have lived long enough to see men in worse state than I lead long and miserable lives. Considering I have a long life to live though stranger things have occurred. i am emboldened not by the situation of my circumstance, nor the preponderance of support, but simply because I have always fashioned myself a pursuant of knowledge. My new physical limitations do not mitigate that. Only present a few nuisance.

Unbeknownst to me Sergeant Grimes stopped by, I was uncertain if such was your doing, but he brought one of Manta's Legion-named Treats and some Baublium, thanking me for the work I had done for him and the Legion in the past and wishing m well. It was unexpected but pleasant enough. He bade me a swift recovery and told me to not worry over tending matters as I had in the past for the Legion.

Apothar Stern has bade me pursue a focus on Logistics and efforts, not a poor notion all considered and at least leaves me feeling somewhat useful. Archaeological field work out of the question, as is most other forms of fieldwork.

But of me, I have said much. Did you know Dante and Manos before you left Il Modo or was your encountering a happenstance of two refugee finding place among this Colony of Baz'eel?

Celybuin Hui'nalyw
Nadiri the Second of Isaac Naught

[NeedForGreed]

Signore Hui'nalyw,

I am encouraged to see your handwriting as steady and lengthy as it is - and your mind busy. How are the willow bark teas helping with the pain? Remember, only one a day. I will continue visiting, and have bid my assistance visit you as well.

I understand that you do not share my hope for your recovery, though I must urge you to continue treatment until the burns have had more time to heal and stabilize. Any efforts now may win you small quality of life improvements down the road. It is ever your choice of course, I will keep coming to visit until you ask me not to.

As for Sergeant Grimes, I cannot claim responsibility! I expect he heard your sending about where you would be and knew that company would be welcome. We spoke a bit afterwards, he tells me he left you with a gift. Would you like me to encourage others to do the same, and keep you company?

Speaking of, I will likely visit the Tower soon, I have a few things I need to discuss with an Apothar. Were I not dedicated to my church, there are days I wish I could join the Tower. To study the stars, and the healing that comes from them. I understand the Tower knows much about the various drugs and diseases that have plagued the Well.

As for Apothar Stern's advice, please let me know if I can be of any help. I am gladdened that you do not feel discouraged but emboldened by your words! Someday I should tell you the story of the Lezrous Knights, if you have not yet heard it. There is ever life after tragedy.

As for your question... goodness, there is a bit of a story there.

I knew neither when I left Il Modo, and met each here in Ephia's Well. Manos and I met at a White League meeting, both of us odd ones out as most Modini lean towards the Gold's tenets. We found we had much in common! A love of stars and learning of them, an eagerness to learn outside what is taught in Il Modo. It is a great part of why I left Il Modo myself, I volunteered wanting to learn. I envy him his place in the Tower a bit, I admit.

Dante I met a little after, and the story is a strange one. I was among Modini, the Banda Rossa, who had with them a dog. We were on our way to some board job or another, and the dog starts warding us! Banducci explains to me, this is no dog, but a Modini man trapped in the form due to a curse of the Wheel faith. He asks if Santina might be able to save him, and so I promise to do all I can to try. At one point, the dog became - get this - a fairy, smoking a cigar and explaining that he had pissed someone off at some point.

I requested a pilgrimage back to Il Modo and was accepted, with the agreement that I could bring the dog with me. It was quite the affair - a struggle to get him through customs, dogs are rare and highly regulated at home. The customs official tried to bribe me to buy the dog! Thankfully, we got him through. Manos came along, happy to help.

We beseeched the help of the Lamp of Learning, the university-temple of Sage Giacomo, the great patron of invention. They brought us to a grand machine, placed the dog at its base. It was a terrible, wondrous thing to witness. By what I can tell, they remade him as he once was.

And there, then, was Dante. Overjoyed and grateful.

The three of us became quick friends afterwards, though I do not get as many opportunities to spend time with Manos as I would like.

I will visit again soon for company rather than merely medical care, if you would allow it. I would love to pick your brain about the stars, and your thoughts on a strange experience I once had.

At your service,

[Random_White_Guy]

Foscari,

I regrettably must inform you as many things, I have utilized magic to subvert the labor. The cantrip of Magehand has many talents, and over the centuries I've been able to perfect using such for animating a Quill. It lends well in my works through out the ages, but so too as a student of Sandstone, the Scribes, and now the Tower. Though it certainly has more need given my current condition.

Of encouraging others to visit I earnestly could not say if that would be good or ill. Be it my nature or simply over the ages having had so many come and go from my life I do not tend to get overly invested in individuals. I had never even met a Human since I arrived in Ephia's Well some months ago but they come and go swiftly, or on a whim change their opinions or views.

Though it is a strange sensation to feel the City has forgotten my works, Humans are very swift in bustling about. Those who I once visited often with for the sale of potions, wands, scrolls, even Prismwork. A few days out of the Krak de Rose and my routine customers simply moving on. Their purview of course, but an oddity I've learned. Fortunately the Tower has many new Nadiri who are in need of aid with finding their footing. No shortage of company as I adapt to my new role.

Of your faith I was curious - is there an honorific your clergy use? I cannot off hand recall hearing anything aside from "Pilot Priest" from a former faithful of Markolo who served in La Banda Rossa as a smuggler for my works.

As for visitation, pay such at your leisure. I am not often occupied when the other Nadiri leave for boardwork or fieldwork with their Apothars.

Celybuin Hui'nalyw
Nadiri the Second of Isaac Naught

[Random_White_Guy]

Foscari,

Today was a bad day. While moving some cargo, though ordered by the Tower, my legs gave out slightly.  I fell into a Brazier. My robes caught fire. Fortunately I took precaution and was well warded. No harm done.

Unfortunately I had blacked out and was not even realizing I had taken to screaming in an empty room. I do not know how long I had blacked out, I just know I was moving the box one moment - and the next I was across the room sweating and screaming feet away from where I was at my last recollection.

I have been given a reprieve from such labors in the future, though at some cost, however it has me beginning to believe I am not attending this matter as well as I thought I was. I do not overly have many physical demands of my duties but if I am unable to control my thoughts, my emotions, then I begin to find myself questioning a great deal.

Suggestions, as ever, welcome.

Celybuin Hui'nalyw
Nadiri the Second of Isaac Naught

[NeedForGreed]

Celybuin,

I am so sorry to hear about this experience. The incident you describe - the sudden awareness of screaming in an empty room, the lost time, the feeling of being unable to control your thoughts and emotions - these speak to wounds that run deeper than flesh.

Reactions like these are not a failing of will or control, but a normal part of the mortal experience.  The blackout you experienced is not uncommon for those who have endured great trauma. Your mind in its wisdom may have shielded you from the memory of pain, as minds often do for those who have been through war, violence, or grief.

In your case, you were faced with a sudden and real danger from the very thing that had caused you great pain. You owe yourself forgiveness. There are few, if not none, who could control such a reaction.

I will give you what advice I have learned from some of my work, though my patients have mostly been those traumatized by disease rather than sudden moments of pain. I have had two experiences with trauma myself, and can speak to what has worked for me. If there is one thing that is shared among all those who recover from trauma, it is that leaning on others, on your connections with others, and working through your feelings with your close friends - all of these things help us process and heal, spiritually and emotionally.

Beyond that, my suggestion is to work on the root of the trauma as part of your steady progression of recovery. With some pro-active effort, I think you can work to gradually blunt the worst of this feeling.

In your journaling, try reviewing the experience and how it made you feel in those moments. Do this steadily, taking it easy on yourself. Don't push yourself.

As you revisit this experience and how it made you feel, try to ground yourself in the present moment so as not to feel overwhelmed. Should you feel overwhelmed by the thought or sight of fire again, grounding is crucial. Find touch, scents, sounds. Aim to pull your mind out of the void. If there is something that helps ground you - words once spoken to you, a count to ten, the feeling of a nostalgic belonging - hold these close.

Should you find yourself reliving the trauma of that day, focus on redirecting your thoughts. Not on blocking the memory, not on control, but on the gentle diversion of a stream. Remind yourself that you are safe.

Healing the mind and heart is little different from healing the body - it will take time. I will visit soon to speak more on these matters. Until then, be kind to yourself. Your strength in facing these challenges is remarkable, even if you cannot see it yourself.

Signed,

[Random_White_Guy]

Foscari,

I thank you for the kind words. A rarity.

I suppose a great deal of it comes down to the fact that even with the utmost mitigation of risk control is never assured. Nor is safety. Even now I have no control over what I do. Apothars dictate my works, my Physician dictates my activities, the very few individuals who do come to visit do so on their terms and then when they have satisfied their obligation to me they return to their boardwork or their other duties.

Though watching the quill float and write the words it feels exceedingly selfish to re-read. The Nadiri who do visit often come for asking the obvious questions. Was it worth it to stop the problem to suffer so much, why did I pursue it, and the more I linger on such the more I find myself drifting. Was it hubris to think I could stop such a cosmic power with my limited ability. Was it punishment for trying such a thing when I was a Nadiri rather than a more seasoned Apothar who had earned laurel and acclaim through playing politic and electioneering with more access to resources from the tower.

I try not to hold grudge as it is the duty, purpose, and goal of the Nadiri to ask questions. Any question. All the question. Even the most obvious. It is how they learn to reshape their thinking beyond the standard perception and grow their efforts. I try and tell myself that it has only been six days, that I will grow accustom to such, that these feelings will as you say pass.

But in truth?

This is the first time I have ever in my life thought so much about Time. Days, weeks, months, years, decades blended together. Now when every breath aches it is a constant thought. Inhale. Stabbing pain. Ragged gasp. Exhale. Shaking cough. Pain. Six seconds, give or take. Six seconds over, and over, and over, and over, and over until ten breathes draw a minute. An hour. A day. Six days. Six long, painful, agonizing, blinding days.

Six days I have had five actual visitors outside of the tower who spent any substantial time. Three of them have been you, to tend the wounds.

Months walking this tower considering the cosmos, the mysteries of the past, the possibilities of the future, endless, boundless, scopeless. What can be done, what could be done, new ways of approaching matters.

And for the last six days between every pained breath all I think is if I as a Scribe had laughed when Bashir butchered my name, insulted me by twisting it into some dehumanized animal form of a pet name, and joked about how he knew how to flawlessly pronounce my butchered name because he had dated a few cute tall elven boys in his life -

Perhaps if I had responded with more than thinly veiled disinterest at the berating and pretended to accept such and ravenously devoured his gossip he would have paid visit despite racing past me like I didn't exist to whisper with you about legal reform. We worked together for weeks and he did not even ask me how I fared, he raced up the tower, through the lobby, past me. Not even a glance.

Nor have I had visitors from my time in Sandstone, Balstan and others who once sought my insights or scholarly exchanges, only one of the former students ever seeking me out and it was solely because he wanted my money for some artifice he thought I needed.

Nor have I had visitors from my time working the Boards in the Krak de Rose, multiple times the same people who would bring me fortunes for my research for my artifice of wands, potions, scrolls. They make calls. I respond. They ignore it because I do not walk past them in their favored tavern anymore. Myl and Grimes and the others looking at me with pity, Alice who I once knew so well looking like she was going to vomit just staring at my bandages seeping onto the floor.

It makes me feel spiteful, and bitter, and small, and broken. But then the frustration bubbles. Those who said they would visit me have ample time for politics, for boardwork, for self-indulgences as I hear them plan their meetings and their revelries and more upon the bellows. And because I am no longer in their thoughts as useful, I cease to be. An unpleasant blemish.

And that frustration gives me at least some odd sense of strength. That it tells me more about them, than it does about me. Their wants, their needs, their fickle loyalty.

So I walk these halls trying to distract myself from these thoughts, burying myself in my work. But I am good at my work, and it is over quickly, and I drift back to my thoughts.

...and the six second cycle begins anew.

Breath in, six seconds begin.

Unpleasant.
Hold. One
Frustration
Wheeze.Two
Self-loathing
Body wracked with pain. Three
Spite
Exhale. Four
Defiance.
Ragged cough. Five.
For the slightest moment, feeling I have some semblance of power and control again.
Rest. Six.

...begin again. This inhale will be unpleasant.

And so it goes.

Celybuin Hui'nalyw
Nadiri the Second of Isaac Naught

[NeedForGreed]

My friend Celybuin,

Please forgive me for not writing sooner. The last few days have been - well. They involved a great deal of fire, for one. My clinic burned, myself captured. I am well now, but I would like to catch up and check on you as soon as possible.

Your friend,
Fiordelise

[Random_White_Guy]

Foscari,

It is not a problem. And my apologies for being less available, archival work is one of the few peaceful times I have left as I thumb - very slowly to avoid much harm - through the old libraries and more of the Tower.

I'll raise call for you soon but at your leisure seek me.

Celybuin Hui'nalyw
Nadiri the Second of Isaac Naught

[NeedForGreed]

Dear Apothar Hui'nalyw,

(Is it rude to call you anything but that? I have never been very intuitive with that sort of thing)

I ask your forgiveness in being so slow to get back to you. I cannot overstate how much I have had to work through in my heart and my mind these last few days. My world is shifted beneath my very feet - the last time I felt this way was that night beneath the stars, at the First Wheel, where Peryn Fairdrake unearthed something sealed and terrible. I do not recall if I have told you that story? So here I find myself once again grappling with the fundamental questions of reality and truth, just as I have so many times before here in the Well.

I come away from it, ultimately, humbled. And all too aware of my ignorance.

As for your offer - for now, I would express instead my interest in a more general learning on the topic, and the topic of the astral realm and the beings which inhabit the great dark above. I hoped to work together with you on the matter of the Plague already, too. Would you be open to this? I do not know if I ask a great burden, and I think it would be easier for me to visit and discuss in person. I write so there is not silence.

I meet Azimi soon, I hope, to formally ask to join the Tower. It is likely a futile effort, my being a priestess and their distrust of Dante. He warned me gently that I would need to shift my focus, to learn to be a researcher, that I should expect such challenges. A fundamentally different sort of work than I am used to. Yet medicine, too, takes a scientific approach. I have no doubt I will struggle if accepted - few can say they have tried to walk the paths of both faith and science.

With deepest gratitude,

[Random_White_Guy]

Foscari,
Curiosity begins with the single step. Choosing to point the telescope away from the rolling waves and reflected lights to the source. Not of navigation, not of warfare. A different kind of discovery. A different kind of conflict. Shifting upward and wondering about once's place in the cosmos. To feel simultaneously indefinably small but yet somehow greater than those who keep their eyes gazed upon the waves.

I cannot promise you an easy path, for it is said many have tried with little luck, but one way or another such a shifting forever changes a person.

The Tower's distrust of Dante is not a woe, provided you are successful in securing admission. And if you are not successful their distrust matters little. A luxury of being a teacher is taking pupil under any conditions I so choose.

As we spoke one need not be a Nadiri to understand their place in this world. To change it. To mend it. To do as you please. That is the fundamental root of Freedom.

As ever this is not a rushed matter. You may take up letter to me at your leisure or we may meet as your busy schedule allows.

Celybuin Hui'nalyw
Apothar of Q'tolip

[NeedForGreed]

Apothar,

What is your price, to learn of the summoning of astral beings? To clarify, I speak of the astral worms and so on.

Fiordelise