Dear Sister Gwendolyn

Dear Sister Gwendolyn,

I said I was coming back. Going to look around, see the trees with both eyes for the last time. You sitting at the altar, cleaning your own blood off your favorite knife in preparation for shedding mine. You loved me enough to use your favorite knife.

 

I loved you too. No, that's a lie, I never stopped. You were always my sister, my best friend, my partner in crime. You were Gwen, and I was Finn. Finny, really, but no one else called me that. I still love you, even if you're not you anymore.

 

Aihche said I was honest. So, so honest. Never could tell a lie if I was held at spell point to spit acid from my tongue. If I broke a vase, stained the marble, kissed someone when I snuck out at night, I always came clean. First time for everything, and it had to be you.

 

Surely you know, right? It's been years. Six long years, you can't possibly still be waiting. Maybe you're looking for me, thinking I got lost. I didn't. I ran so far I thought my legs would give out but they never did. I was scared. You held that knife so intensely, you were so fervent in your speech. "We can be happy together, one with Aihche! It'll be our last act of true devotion," you told me, while your face was dyed so crimson I thought it'd stain there forever. The blood was what terrified me the most. I never wanted that knife to skewer out my eye, even if it was in the name of devotion.

 

Are you happy? Was I wrong to run? Surely you must've been on to something, with all the passion in your voice. Maybe living without an eye is better than where I am now.

 

I killed someone, Gwen. So many people. In the Syndicate, they only charge you for the people that matter - 3 in my case - but I had to. They wanted to kill me, I had to use one of the spells Aihche gave me. All because I got tied up with a weapons dealer, and I wanted to leave. 10 people, all lost to the wind.

 

I never want to hurt someone like that again. It's why I can't go back- I'll be swept into a dragon massacre in the name of all holy things. Surely all that death can't be the right course of action, and if it is, I don't know what I'll do. Something drastic, certainly.

 

The people of Yashates are much rougher around the edges than the likes of you and I. I think the person you've become would get along with them well, but I certainly can't. My only comfort is my newfound fiance, Ii-Madeo. He saved me from myself, and the government, and he's the only one who isn't drunk on violence. Tipsy, sure, but I can deal with tipsy. All I want is a farm in Idell, where it's peaceful, where the sky is blue and doesn't smell of sulfur. Madeo will be there, and we'll raise chickens as we did in the monastery, and children that will actually be my own. If you'd like, you can live there too.

 

As if you'll ever read this...

 

I just...hope you're happy, wherever you are, and that you're no longer waiting. If this does reach you, I love you, but don't search for me. You wouldn't want to see me now.

 

Your brother,

 

Finnigan O'Cealliagh