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TO BARNABY L'OISEAU OF MOTOSTOKE

Among many letters buried in the postal bag that dangles from a Spectrier's saddle, one unexpected envelope finds itself hidden among others -- addressed to you, its dark rider. The letter itself smells faintly of jasmine, a perfume that the woman who sent it had begun to favor when you last knew her in Hoenn. It is not the only thing that has changed about her, although her penmanship remains an immaculate, pristine thing to behold.[break][break]

I hope your Spectrier can forgive the weight of one more letter among the dozens you ferry, mon oiseau. Such a magnificent creature can, surely, carry a burden as insignificant as mine.[break][break]

I write to you because you are distant now, in a place where nothing I say can mean anything to you.[break][break]

Writing is a weak, pale thing. You can toss this stationery at any time, crumpling it to silence me, and I will mute, obediently and without protest. Know this as you read: that at any time, you may turn back and silence me. That power is yours, and I cannot take it from you.[break][break]

My first confession, then: when you leave, I resent your freedom so much that it aches.[break][break]

I wonder what it must be like to depart these walls as I stare out my window at the populace of Motostoke. I laugh at Isaac Merlo and Caleb Harcourt in their ill-fitting crowns, jesters dancing on the grand stage of a farce spun by Fate. I watch how ana fell lives a life of domesticated bliss with her beloved, and I feel myself drifting further and further away from them both, as if their contentment is liable to scald me, should I dare step too close.[break][break]

You and I alone, here, understand the hellscape we live in. I marvel that everyone else has simply resigned themselves to damnation, and strangely has even learned to take joy in it.[break][break]

I cannot remember the last time that I was truly happy. Can you?[break][break]

The years have numbed me. I know you suspect as much, from the way you look at me when I awaken. There are times I sense you are trying to provoke a latent reaction in me, some dormant emotion that I can neither name nor recall with pinpoint accuracy. You see me enraged, often; other times, merely irritable and short-tempered; many times, petty and vindictive; and in the solitude of night, when only you bear witness to my thoughts, you know the plummeting depths of my despair.[break][break]

But I am not happy. No, never happy, nor even content. Such feelings are beyond me, now.[break][break]

Are you content, when you get to escape this place? Do you, for a moment, feel a fleeting sort of exhilaration at being outside these walls? I wish that for you, and yet selfishly, I don't. Some needy part of me wants to know that I am not alone in my unhappiness.[break][break]

Another confession: I lied, before. I do remember my last moment of happiness.[break][break]

Mine is a faint memory, in the way all memories are fading after-images of a life that used to be bright and splendid. Still, I hold it close with a childlike selfishness -- something that wears down the very thing it adores until it is scuffed and worn, its once comforting appearance now unrecognizable.[break][break]

And though it is a memory that has been cruelly loved to the point it is tatters and ruin, it is a memory I shared, once, with you.[break][break]

I know that is why you linger by me. I know that is why I seek you out, again and again, even as I know I am not the person you need me to be -- not anymore. Your body betrays your resentment towards me in every minute shift between us, in the hollow ache of your every sigh, in the way your cobalt eyes see right through me, as if they cannot find the woman they are searching for anymore.[break][break]

I know this. I need you to know that I know. I need you to know that I, too, mourn as you mourn -- that I, too, grieve something I don't quite remember.[break][break]

It is strange, to envy a version of yourself that has died in another realm. I don't envy her simply for you, nor for the devotion you once harbored for her, although I would be lying if I said I did not envy her that. But I wonder if she would have survived this fate better than I -- if she could have pretended well enough to believe in the lie that we are content, to believe that we could be happy here, starting over.[break][break]

Each day the distance between me and that woman widens. I am slipping away from her, further and further, and I do not know if there is a limit to this darkness I can fall from. I do not know the point of my suffering, anymore. I had thought it meant something, once, when Wo-chien first blessed me. But I am nothing now but a puppet tired of dancing on over-enthusiastic strings, and I hold no control over who dangles them.[break][break]

I wish I could stop, but I don't know how. I know that you wish you could stop it, too -- but, ah, you would never admit to this, because you know it would be futile to try.[break][break]

I have one last confession, mon oiseau, and it is one that has taken years for me to admit to you aloud.[break][break]

Mine is a soul cursed and bound by two gods. Before Wo-chien claimed me as its vessel of resentment, another saw fit to give me her vengeful gifts.[break][break]

Tapu Fini was not dead, Bee. She remained alive. She wished to make me her instrument of retribution in her reclaiming of FERNANDO SILPH, before we were taken away from any destiny that Hoenn might have once offered us.[break][break]

I tell you this, because I do not know if this burden I have given you now is one you want. I do not know if I have cursed you with the sharing of my own unhappiness. Should it be so, should you ache to forget this letter -- to forget anything, truly -- you need only ask. I would bless you with the oblivion of my MISTY TERRAIN, and allow you to embrace this contentment I never can.[break][break]

I envy that you can even receive such an offer from me. I fantasize about it far too often: what it might be like to no longer be yoked to this misery that follows me like a second shadow. I suspect you will refuse it, because you are a man who revels in his secrets and his freedom both.[break][break]

I have written too much, already; I have half-forgotten why I wanted to say all this, in truth. I do not know anymore what my purpose was in confessing all this to you. What purpose it is I serve to you now, or that you serve to me, I do not know. I suppose we do not have to know.[break][break]

I wait for you when you leave, nonetheless. The memory of happiness is better than no happiness at all, and it is all I have.[break][break]

When next we meet, I will pretend that I have said nothing to you. I will act as if this letter was never sent. If you do not wish to forget your pain, then I ask you do me that same kindness.[break][break]

I beg this of you -- for the sake of the woman you once cared for, if not me.[break][break]

Yours,[break]
Elisa

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