[To Aubrey Domergue: Isabella Fitzgerald]

[Empress of Neon]

Dear Aubrey,

There have been separate instances in the Krak de Roses of late concerning the Banda Rossa. Particularly as it relates to Mr. Bruno, who's seemed to make it a point of turning my home and hearth into anything but. I'm painfully aware of the games they're trying to play.

Ellan did the same at their age, when he wanted someone to give him an excuse.

I'm not going to stress to you how counterproductive this behavior is to the Accord; to Ephia's Well. I'm not convinced Grandmaster Elizabetha even really has any influence over the Banda Rossa, given the behavior I've seen. Gods know I'm not going to try and appeal to their actual boss.

I don't feel safe in there anymore. Where once I felt nothing but a pull and closeness, I no longer feel safe in the den of my own people!

Between the snake under my bed that bit Ellan, blatant attempts at fabricating cassus belli and crumbling faith in the people who are suppose to be safeguarding (not harassing) guests, I've had to make the difficult decision to withdraw both my patronage as a resident (which I'll not be renewing in two days) and stipend for the wedding ceremony (and no, it never took place).

I will be moving the ceremony elsewhere, where I don't need to question the intentions of security on a day we've waited for since we were children.

I'll not have this nonsense spilling into our ceremony just because I'm wrapped in purple, or juvenile belligerents threatening to throw me out on the street because I dare brook politics where I eat, live and sleep.

I expect my dinars returned to me within two days.

Don't think for a moment this affair hasn't made me bitter.

~ Isabella Fitzgerald

[Pandip]

Isabella,

I grow tired of your antics so I shall make this mercifully brief.

If someone has threatened your life, I welcome you to share the actual details of this wrongdoing and it'll be  handled promptly and reasonably.

Edha is well.

You will not be receiving back a single dinar for the wedding. Cease your harassment of mine peers and students immediately.

You will have to do better than this to feed me to the lions.


  -- Aubrey Domergue
 
  Balladeer of the Lost Hearth
          

[Empress of Neon]

Dear Aubrey,

I considered you a friend once. One I thought I'd spend the rest of my life, calling neighbor. Doing some good for the world; leaving a better one than the we knew. Tending the garden that is Ephia's Well.

It's in the spirit of that memory that I'll open my heart to you again. But this is the last time.

You chose to ignore my counsel, after Diakos was displaying so many warning signs. You put your trust in him because you wanted to be the one, Aubrey. The heroine of the story; the one who revealed John Syter to be the true arch enemy of the Well. A man who was stained in your hatred. You let that blind you, every step of the way, because you couldn't accept the alternative possibility.

That we were being used.

I never found anything, Aubrey. Gods know I tried. There wasn't a single trace to Diakos's claim other than the one you chose to present. Evidence you did not even deem to share with me.

I still don't know if that was Diakos's deceptions, or your forgery, in your hand.

You clutched to Diakos like a child her father. From beginning to end, even after what happened in the assembly, you defended him every step of the way. Were you simply so thirsty for his approval, his support in the next election? Or was it something more malign?

I still have not seen you bare to ease my greatest fear.

Then came the incident at the Gate of Roses. What in the hells were you thinking, siccing the Rose on Alexander? Right after the damned serpent in the messenger's skin bade you to, you had him beat within an inch of life his life and then chose to let the halfling, who would've murdered him on a serpent's promise, had I not caught her in the act, go. Do you have ANY idea how suspicious all of that is, right after Diakos's betrayal? Do you have any what kind of danger you put our people in?!

I still don't know if you were being a fool or acting to the serpent's design. Either way, you gave it exactly what it wanted.

The night Diakos approached us with the truth of the League, you had a choice to make. You chose the idea of leading another generation to blood and ruin. Another Ticker Square. In the pursuit of an idea, you signed off on destroying everything the people of Ephia's Well had built together. You chose to rob them of a future; a kinder world, however imperfect, than the one we lived in the Old City. Over what, an idea on how government should be run?

Who the fuck do you think you are, to take that away from them?



I still don't know what words you shared with that man in Qadir. How you knew him. How he knew where Diakos was.

You didn't trust me enough to share.

You didn't trust me enough to see you, because you had something to hide.

You didn't even trust Lynneth enough to tell her the truth about the White League.

You damned your perception of yourself, Aubrey Domergue.

And I will never forget the look in your eyes you gave me the first time I opened my heart to you. They were not the eyes of a friend.

They were the look of a predator, who saw a threat.



Neither you nor Elizabetha have control over the Banda Rossa. That has become painfully clear over time. Her mercenaries are in the pockets of others; and I'm not blind to their playbook of choice. I won't indulge in it; I won't play to the whims of that wretched snake. I left the Krak because it was clear to me what was about to happen; gods know I've seen it before.

I'm not afraid for my life, Aubrey. I'm afraid of another cycle of vendetta tearing the Well apart at a time where our enemies are trying to divide us.

That is what you, every Rossa, and every Balladeer who thinks it's due to act like a gods-damned Orzan don't seem to understand.

You have all been playing right into the enemy's hands.


I've kept my voice silent on this matter, publically, solely because of it. And it's a failing on[hide]Sol Auk's[/hide] end for stoking the fires, rather than remain on guard as he was counseled to.

I never wanted you dead, Aubrey. If anything, I wanted the truth on you more than anything else. But I never got to it. You only ever gave me more reasons to be suspicious without ever truly definitive guilt to see. Do you think I've enjoyed this? Do you think I'm a fucking serpent who's been playing politics and games with your life? Do you think I ever wanted to choose between my people, my community, my FAMILY from the Old City over Ephia's Well and the rest of the world?

Then you still don't know me.


This is your final written warning. Return the three-fourths stipend on a promise broken (Yes, you may still keep the fourth) to me by the end of the day or I will treat it as theft and bring the matter to the Legion.

I'm done playing games.


~ Isabella

P.S Thank you for updating me about Edha. She's a reminder that there's still things worth protecting in this new world.

As for your guilty, Aubrey? I don't think you're of the cult.

Just a dangerous fool.

Stay the hells out of government.