Letter sent to Barend Hoensbroeck

[Ahmet]

Dear Mr. Hoensbroeck,

I must begin by offering my sincerest felicitations at the successful publication of your latest work, your essay on interleague tension and cooperation.

I have been an avid reader of yours ever since your initial writings on poetry and song, and have followed you as a distant yet all-seeing companion that sought comfort in the winding paths of your economic broodings. I was enamored, and like a hidden admirer, I would follow each and every kernel of wisdom with a bob of my head and an "ah!" near on my lips. The lashing whips of the sun were as gentle as scarves of silk with your wisdoms in my mind, and the long and grueling days were but brisk outings whenever I've new works of yours to read that evening.

It's been an everlasting delight, a rapturous pleasure, and an eternal honour to read your thoughts, and it is precisely this joy of mine that bears the rotting fruit of my misery this day.

Forgive me, but I am compelled to ask: what ails you, Mr. Hoensbroeck?

I beg of you to tell me that this communique was written by a fraudster, a knave who stole your name and thought to frame you as the author! It may be any other, any save the kind and industrious Mr. Hoensbroeck!
Pray, I pray each minute that passes now that it was nothing more than one of The Cadyssfly's tricks; a maggot of falsehood that hatched and wriggled it ways into my hands. Anything!— any excuse, any reason.

Are you afraid, Mr. Hoensbroeck? Where is your fire, your pride?

Where is the folk-hero that puffed his chest and bravely proclaimed to the skies his noble blasphemy? That very banneret that would sooner expire with the Magus's tomes in his hands, no jewels in his lap, and nothing for all the treasures of the world to see the people fed and housed. Where is the hummingbird that dared sing songs of a luminous land far in the sky, where the yokes of yore have rotted away?

Has he fluttered off and flown away? Did a hard gust sweep him off to yonder shores afar? Is he lost?

The Leagues can never unite. It is anathema to their very being.
The king's wants make not the serf's.

Take up the torch, Mr. Hoensbroeck— a cheap compromise does not become you.

Respectfully yours,
Ahmet Yildirim

[Hierophant]

Mr. Yildirim, kindest admirer,

I have returned to my loft with a letter penned by your hand and ink still so bold. Your asking is my telling but pray tell, a date and time for us to convene and discuss it for youthful ideas deserve youthful thoughts, and young things are often unpredictable and undecisive.

Though it is to my chagrin that I inform you my displeasure that even in a decorated Izdur temple, I have found no text penned by the Magus Asterabadi that expand upon the thinking of the Lily tenets. But one, in fact, though curiously the author is detailed as anonymous.

And you, my colleague, are most calculated in your wording. It is exactly the sort of theatre that shall inspire others to join our Merry Band of Hope we call the League of White, however I fear you have misunderstood the meaning behind my treatise if you believe my latest work is an abandonment of my ideals and the embracement of opposing thought.

Another notion of humility as a common theme in my studies of late, I have had an epiphany on deep discussions before hand and came to the conclusion as detailed or rather commentated in Interleague Tensions. To reiterate, I believe League rivalry is good for all as ideas without opposition will never realize their imperfections in a very imperfect system. A system we must refine through trial and error, and through civilized politics.

I do, however, disagree with the format of law and policy proposal in the Assembly and I feel a committee is the finest answer for such dilemmas. The goal is not to blur the lines between the three League tenets, but to create common grounds from which to work ideas of reform, so that when the day comes this city is not ruled by autocrats nor merchants, we are not left with a broken system. Most certainly not while we know full well a Colossi's weight in dinar that has been spent on smear campaigns and charity drives could have gone towards expanding and growing our League as a whole. Let alone the effort that could have gone towards assembling the bright minds of the Lily and making strides to enact the change we decry our rivals for ignoring.

Let us meet soon and discuss then a great many thing, and put this hiccup between colleagues to bed before it roosts itself and becomes insidious, bringing ruin to what could have been a fine and enlightening friendship.

Yours truly,
Barend Hoensbroeck
Scribe of the Sublime Garden

[Ahmet]

Dear Mr. Hoensbroeck,

It lightens the heart to hear you've not, as many others before you, taken open arms with treachery. I must apologize for my brusque admonishments— do you have a taste for coffee? I hear the Soot Lamp's the finest.

If I would say anything before we meet for a cup, I must then let ink fall to record these few thoughts of mine: if the White League is as a lily-flower, then the Golds and Purples are as beetles, for they seek to devour us whole and leave nothing left.

Let us organize our league according to a strict party-line and form an impregnable regiment to bear the fires of our still-beating hearts. For so long as we've the breath of life in us, we'll must never stop striving for total liberation. Rivalry and criticism, yes. Humility and honesty, yes! However, this ought be within the League of White, not without. Intraleague critique and cooperation, and not interleague!

Fie on so-called "cooperation" with the boots. Face them not with humility in your heart, but hate and ire. I cannot fathom a world where the Purples and Golds will acquiesce to the simple demands of the White.

We should speak soon.

Respectfully yours,
Ahmet Yildirim