Kristian brought his wife’s concerns to me. To say he was not interested in them and therefore did not squander much time in attempting to convince me to change my mind would be quite the understatement.
Thus Brikitta’s new garments started arriving yesterday.
She looks quite fetching in them.
Kristian agrees.
Brikitta does too, but she has not admitted this aloud.
Though, Timofei has found his way to share he much likes them as well.
He is, of course, becoming brighter and brighter as the days pass. I’m no clairvoyant but I feel fairly certain he will be Head of the Drakkar House when it’s his time. Ousting one of the Frey’s direct line to do so will be quite the achievement, but mark me, this will surely happen.
There’s not much else to tell, except both Josette and I find it highly amusing that Kristian and Brikitta’s servants have taken to calling her “Mistress Josette” due to the fact I treat her with such familiarity and we often share breakfasts and even lunches together.
I have not disabused them of the notion of doing this. She’s far superior to any I’ve known in her profession so this show of respect is due her.
At that, Noc started laughing.
Only Franka could make treating a servant with equality seem like she did it with superiority.
As I feared, there is naught else to share.
Though I do look forward to receiving your communiqués.
And I very much hope you’re enjoying your adventures.
Now, I shall bid you farewell until my next undoubtedly titillating missive where I’ll regale you with news of the next set of garments I’ll press on Brikitta and perhaps how I liked, or disliked, the soup I’d taken at lunch.
Until then…and until we meet again,
Always yours,
Franka
Since he’d sent a letter from the port city in Lunwyn (the part of it that used to be Middleland), and he’d used Finnie’s dispatch to do it, Franka should be getting his letter any day now, if she hadn’t already gotten it.
That didn’t stop him from walking into the room behind him, his bedroom in this huge palace that Disney animators would freak over, and go right to the desk in that room.
He sat.
He pulled out paper.
And he shared news that might be more adventurous than hers, but she wouldn’t think so since she’d seen it and done it all before.
That didn’t stop him either.
In fact, he wrote three pages of the stuff.
Then he sealed it and found Cora so she could send it.
This she arranged before she gave him a hat and took him to Tor’s horse, Salem, an outrageously handsome animal (and one who could talk to him, right in his head, if that shit could be believed).
Before getting to that world, Noc had been horseback riding twice in his life.
He’d been on a horse a shit ton since they left The Finnie—Frey’s kickass galleon that was straight from a pirate movie—in Bellebryn’s port.
And off he went with Cora, having to pretend to be Tor until they left the city and galloped across a countryside where the air glittered.
Fucking glittered.
It was amazing.
He missed Franka. He missed just looking at her, but he missed more how damned funny she was, how cute she could be and how her trusting him the way she did, the way she showed she did, the way he knew she didn’t give to anybody (but maybe Josette, and perhaps the dead Antoine, but Noc didn’t go there) made him feel.
But he sure as fuck was glad she’d made the decision she’d made.
Because he wouldn’t have known what he was missing.
But he was sure glad he didn’t miss it.
And he had it.
But in the end, he’d have her too.
* * * * *
Franka
Two and a half months later
Hey there, Sugarlips,
I should not smile. I really should not. He was incorrigible. Even in the written word.
I nevertheless smiled.
I’m guessing you know Finnie and Frey have returned to Lunwyn since they should have gotten there a while ago and brought my last letter with them.
He was correct in this. They had.
Finnie wanted to continue on with me, but Frey wanted her home. She’s getting along in her pregnancy and he wants her close to a doctor he trusts. That didn’t go over real well with Finnie. She thinks like we do in our world, obviously, and most women work until they practically go into labor…
How bizarre!
And dangerous!
…and they had a big blowout about it. Frey won. Not because Finnie agrees with him that advanced pregnancy makes a woman invalid, when it doesn’t. But he’s a dude and dudes tend to express worry through anger and bossiness. She’s been with him long enough to know that so they took off and passed me off to Achilles, Apollo’s cousin (in case you haven’t met him, tho’ with the incestuous way those Houses are, you probably have) who, with some of Lo’s other guys, we went through Hawkvale and now we’re in Fleuridia.
Gotta say, I’m not much of a fan of south Lunwyn. There’s a bleakness to it that’s actually pretty, in its way, but it’s also depressing. I can see why that asshole, Baldur, didn’t like what he got in the cutting-a-country-in-two bargain. Doesn’t excuse him being an asshole, but I can see that.
Bellebryn and Hawkvale, I don’t have to tell you, are fucking amazing. There’s a lot of beauty in my world and you’ll see that, I’ll make sure of it.
But there’s nothing like this. It’s so pure, it’s like magic. It almost doesn’t seem real and the fact it is makes it even more beautiful.
It also makes me wonder what my world was like a hundred years ago, two hundred, a thousand. Was it like this? Did we fuck it up with all our garbage?