499 - Don't Make Jia Jealous All Right?

In the private correspondence package from the Midwestern Empire, on the Ayne River.

Dear Minis:

We miss you and Kyriala dreadfully.  The caravans have reached the outermost part of the circuit and we’re about to start on the homeward leg.  It is so odd… and rather nice at the same time… to be saying ‘homeward’ and mean the city.  The City has become home, where at first it was the most terrible place on earth for me, and Farasha says that it’s odd for her to think of any one settled place as home.  She’s sitting sewing up a ripped sleeve in one of her shirts, as I write.  A new mule we bought was a biter and tore the sleeve before he got retrained.

We’ll be doing the middle leg home so we won’t be on the coast for very long, but won’t go as far north as the skirts of the mountains, so part of the route we’ll be taking you’d both recognize.

Since this is a wing packet, we’ve sent along some of the foodstuffs we think you’d like that we picked out… and we made a few things along the way.  Tell Ili that the body puppet of a dragon is not to be used to make Jia jealous, all right?

I sent along a select package of fancy thread for Ky for her tapestry art.  I’m enclosing a letter of introduction from an arranger of exhibitions of art.  He heard of Ky’s tapestries being shown privately and is hoping to persuade her to show them publicly.

Farasha is sending along three ancient little books she found that she hopes are rare enough to perhaps not be in the Archive… or if they are, that you might be able to use them for some of your doctorate and your musings for Intharas.  

She’s got contacts with the Booksellers and the Book-tellers and is getting things too fragile for sending in any kind of post for Atzana.  It’s interesting… the Book-tellers are becoming book teachers because okas who are learning to read still… are bringing books to have them told… and read along during the performance.

We’ve found trinkets for everyone all along the route.  I thought it was funny and Farasha laughed and said that ‘Things find you!  All you have to do is open your eyes!’  I had this image of stuff coming out of the woods and fields and jumping up on the tailgate of the wagons to climb into our trunks and pockets.  It seemed to be the only explanation for the burgeoning wad of stuff bulging out of our trunks every time we opened them.

I mean, I bought a dozen little statues from an artist I found… kept one and sold the rest in trade for a pre-fire hammered metal bowl that reminded me of the basins in the Marble Palace, for my shadow mother.  Stuff like that.  I’m more making contacts with Farasha and her family, for my family.  They like a lot of things my family has in hand… from Yeoli… including woolly pigs would you believe?

I’ve heard through a couple of people that the long-necked spitting critters… the ones that kept spitting on your head… are doing well in Yeola-e.  Sorry my brother, my family, they must have just been prejudiced against blond hair.

Our love to Ky and to Ailadas and to Ili and to Sera Eren.  (They must not have gotten my letter yet about the wedding!  I need to send another… perhaps with the invitation enclosed!)

We are looking forward to getting home and being with you both, with you all.  Farasha and I re-play our farewell night quite a lot and very, very pleasantly.  I hope you are too.