Letter for Legate Lujayn

[Tulwyn]

To my beloved friend, Lujayn al-Farisyya, Legate of the First Seat (in the Assembly of Ephia's Well)

I have heard so much since my return and before that. Indeed, I seem to recall us once being friends truly and not made light of in a half-jested letter that I now write to you.

That you are not fond of myself nor my actions, and for what reasons? Perhaps you have them, but they would be the reasons of a spoiled child, running temper tantrums through the Palatial Pyramid. So long as they are not seen by the public eye though, I suppose you can continue to belittle others from your now high chair, and fit the bill of your prior plaint as others sat in that chair.

Not so righteous anymore, are we, Lujayn? Perhaps now you see not all can be done with the flick of a finger and that your time as Legate will be remembered as yet another tenure of status quo and a holier-than-thou leader who found herself so afraid to take a chance that she took no chances at all, and thus, accomplished nothing at all.

I would not expect you to know the difference between personal provisions acquired for oneself and common provisions acquired for the state's well-being, for that is what the position of Palatial Advocate and the formation of an Honorable Guild of Advocates is for and intended to be. Do you know why that is?

Because you, dear Lujayn, know nothing about the sanctity of law and order and that is ironic coming from myself (I had to place that there for I know it would be your first quip). Yet knowledge does not change, actions or otherwise, for knowledge does not fade like friendships do, when one considers themselves better than the other, liberated of any 'stain' they so eschew upon once a fellow. If you did, why would you appoint a Magistrate obsessed with her own image and vainglory, who would spit on the Adliye's chosen Witness that observes each and every trial this city has made a mockery of, and consider it a dignified choice? Her stain falls on you now.

For the Palatial Advocates to come, for all the reforms to the Penal Code to follow, and for all the proper Jurisprudence to engage with the Living Brother as witness and the Martyred Brother as final judge, this city will become a more lawful place.

You cannot see past anything but your own childish remarks for you are a conceited and snobbish woman that bleeds aristocracy and an incessant need to please her father. Not only that but you are a liar and a grifter, and I do not think you truly care for this city at all. As I've said before, I think you are here to make a name for yourself no matter what that entails.

Lujayn came to this city an aspiring scholar and archaeologist, and spoke sweet words to me. 'Oh, I'm not interested in politics.'

A week later, a week after that, the excess of your campaign, your war chest by the beginning of it; no, you came to this city to become Legate, to rule over it. At least be honest with yourself for those sweet words only work so long until it is plain for all to see, and I do think we are seeing the beginning of your façade unraveling itself.

Rest assured. I wish you the best, and I do hope your time as Legate is draining your sanity every moment that passes until you have no patience for theatrics and gentle words, for at least then, you shall be honest for the first time in your Ephian career. Speak what you will of me, but you might say I am brutally clear; flaws, mistakes, passions and all. It is who I am, and I am not a feared of it. Admire me to my face when no one is looking, as you always do, and then speak ill behind my back as you always do. It has become amusing, the various faces of Lujayn al-Farisyya I've been graced with since meeting you. I look forward to more.

Regards,

Your friend

Legate Edmund Lothere

[illumination]

To the singular Edmund Lothere,

I remember that early conversation between us. It was in Elossi's; I said I was not interested in politics. I believe at that time I was mere nights, perhaps a week, into what I had planned as only a visit to Ephia's Well. When I set out from Baz'eel to this satrapy I was fully intent on temporary scholar's work here, and the delivery of my father's condolences to Ricardus Saenus, but how could one avoid politics in those early months of IY 7789?

Alexandria's extremity and your approval were on full display. The religious intolerance laws, so estranged from Baz'eeli enlightenment, were freshly on the books with my friends victims thereof. As those injustices mounted I resolved to remove Alexandria and yourself from office, as you clearly could not be trusted with power. It was the right decision then and I would make it again.

Months later, your own time as Legate only reinforced my resolve. Multiple, illegal, unilateral actions with the Stele of Law, in violation of Legatial procedure, with real risks, such as your thoughtless exile of Peyton Monroe. And then this conflation of your own role as a titled advocate with the health of the satrapy's jurisprudence, such that you tuck into more sweeping legislation the title's creation and name yourself as its holder and advocate's guild leader. If it were another granting their crony a title, you would be howling. Could you not have earned the title on your merit?

It is an example of exactly why our relationship is cyclical, and why you believe me two-faced regarding you. On one day you impress me and my adulations expressed are genuine, and the next day you act reprehensibly and earn my scorn. Then later you impress me again with some singular act...and around and around we go! This is not me being a manipulator; it is my reaction to a man who has such potential but frequently buckles under the weight of his baser impulses.

I recall how tenderly I felt for you in the Temple of B'aara. As you wept over your conflicted conscience, over your rebellion against Alexandria's misdeeds, my empathy for you and my desire to support you, as a friend, was true. You spoke of how it pained you to realize how easily and commonly murder was wielded as a political tool. I remember you told me of how Alexandria considered its use. In support of you, I expressed the enormity of our home's loss if you, a man who truly cared for the common good of the people, would succumb to your addiction. By the Mother, I meant those words.

Later, you returned to Alexandria's side, you claimed, after winning certain concessions from her. Certain guarantees. I had so looked forward to the new Edmund you might become, and you backslid!

I heard dark things later, too, Edmund. Even now, months after, I hear little bits of corroboration. I have heard my own murder was planned. I doubt now I would have survived through the election if Alexandria had not died at Bet Nappahi. I would have gone into the election as the clear favorite, even if Alexandria had lived. We both know what the woman was capable of, and that my life was nothing to her when weighed against her ambition.

You would have condoned my murder. Oh, you may have shed a tear. You may have drowned yourself a few nights in drink over the necessity of it. But I believe you would have condoned it because you are a fanatic and it would have been in the service of your righteous cause.

You dare to call me righteous? You are the one who could only ever dream to vote for your own league, believing the other two are intrinsically harmful, and have said as much in your treatises. And when people are intrinsically harmful, are invariably detrimental to the righteous cause, it is moral to destroy them, no? Such is the twisted logic of the fanatic.

You are the one for whom the ends have justified the means, Edmund. Not I. Do you not remember how you spoke of how Luther Donisthrope's House Orza, and their rise to power through murder, made a mockery of your Peerage's attempt at justice and jurisprudence?

The unresolvable conflict between us shall always embodied in your words one night at the Soot Lamp, months ago. Denain de Jonquille had finished speaking of how a new world might rise from the "ruins" we find ourselves in. You agreed and hoped the "old days" (that is, the halcyon days of your Peerage's peak) might return in your new home.

You spoke as if our Sultanate is nothing to you; as if it something to be swept away and replaced. People like you have come here as hopeful conquerors, in your hearts; if you had an army, you would overthrow what is here and remake this desert in your vision. All you brought was ash, however, and so the pen is all you have. And a knife. With the glory of restoring your old world on offer, but more beautiful than before, what is a little spilled blood compared to such promise? So I think you tell yourself. If not, why go back to Alexandria?

Call me a grifter all you like. By the end of my term I will have done more to make real the League of White's ideals (in keeping with the compassion for our refugees expressed in Princess Faziima's tenets) than you or Alexandria ever managed to achieve. I already have, in fact, by not betraying your league's tenets, as you both did. Alexandria betrayed them by instituting religious intolerance laws in exchange for a cheaper Voice, which betrayed the White's tenet to make Ephia's Well a sanctuary for all; you agreed to a higher Voice cost in exchange for... yourself as a Palatial Advocate, it seems.

Thank you for your letter. It has only strengthened my resolve and thereby restored some of the sanity which every Legate seems to lose in the role.

P.S. I remain quite proud of my family, who have always eschewed ambition in favor of service. They are soldiers, not politicians or nobility, and they did not teach me to lie or to grasp for my own ambition, but rather to serve our Sultanate.


My father's daughter, indeed, I am,
Legate Lujayn bint Ghalib ibn Ahlam bint Suhaila bint Khumail ibn Ghaffar ibn Tuzrum al-Farisyya

[Tulwyn]

Lujayn,

That you still espouse those days as anything but strong faith has always alarmed me. You claim to care for those friends of yours now gone and yet break bread and publicly put coin in the hands of the man who saw his back broken? El'vel Serian is in a cold grave now, and cannot brandy you a vote, so I suppose that is where your friendship ended, now that anew can be kindled with the old, and you can shake hands with a murderer. A true murderer, by the way, and not a woman who only played with the idea.

Alexandria was very human. She bore many flaws, she was young, she was bold and she was ambitious, yes, but she was good. No blood was spilled by her hand, and I have made peace with my suspicions then, and have called them as they were and are-- the paranoia of a man in love. For I loved her, and indeed, I was willing to shatter the very thing that has held me dear for many years since the Ringfall; law and order, and a strict moral code upheld by my found faith in the Martyrs, just so I might remain close with her.

You and her are very different. She came from nothing, and made something of herself in this city and no matter your claims, she saw to it that the Stockade received thousands of funds and the coin that was to ensure another vein of water is still in leeway, but no doubt it will not come to fruition under your reign for you would do all that you can to erase the history of Ephia's Well and its pioneers, and instead write upon it the fable of Ghalib's young daughter made Legate. Herein lays our own differences. You only see those from Baz'eel worthy of your respect, and while you might say I am some Peerage enamored fool looking to make myself King, I am here in sooth to make of this my home, and make of it a home worthy of those that come after. You already have a home. You could throw it all away and still sleep in linen sheets and on satin pillows that very night.

Most of us do not have that leisure nor privilege. Many of us rely upon the success and prosperity of Ephia's Well for in its absence, we have nothing but the reminder our lives were torn apart and our homes destroyed by Nothing. All the while, I was in the service of one who had unveiled to us the Great Lie. That more than destruction, our livelihoods, our history, was at the pretense of a Monster that preyed upon mortal life and used us for his machinations to bring ruin and death upon the City of Rings.

So I am sure you are quite proud of your family, Lujayn. I am sure of it.

The Sultanate is not nothing to me.

The Sultan is the Last Peer.

And he is our new King.

Unsigned