[Another of Dust’s letters arrive perhaps six, seven weeks after the former. The cursive is shaky and sloppy, as though written while drunk, and little flecks of ink dot the parchment.]
Must you rob me of one of my few true joys in life, sweet gossip? I suppose, reluctantly, that you’re right. I shall simply have to keep my amusement over dear Haelga’s extracurricular activities to myself, especially if I wish to renew her contract for another year – and of course, I do. Based on this last month alone, she’s earned it. Poor thing has been running the shop and doing chores almost single-handed.
I’ve been under the weather lately, you see. That, or I’m feeling my age. It’s really rather unpleasant. I keep spattering ink all over the page when my hands tremor, and I have to confess to moments of losing focus, completely walking away from what I was working on. Not good, for an alchemist with a bubbling cauldron.
Well, it’ll pass. Or, gods forbid, I’m simply getting to be the feeble old woman Haelga has been treating me as, fussing over me! For once, I perhaps understand your delight in denying me the pleasure of fretting over your health. Put in the other position, I can see why it might become irritating even if it comes from a good place.
In any case, life and work have continued steadily on our side of the continent. I’ve come up with a delightful new solution to the silverfish that infest the older wooden buildings of Riften. There’s a type of silica they dislike – that, with a touch of citrus oil, dusted around baseboards tends to keep them away quite nicely. Initial reports have been excellent, and the coin continues to come, including for my ‘hedonistic sensibilities’.
It’s just unfortunate that Haelga is – well, insists on being the one to make the trip this month. I could use the change in scenery, I think, but I suppose I musn’t worry her. Perhaps rest would do me better, anyway. Put an end to these damned shakes.
I hope our age is treating you better than it is me, my friend. Youth truly is wasted on the young, especially if they don’t even have the sense to throw a proper orgy now and again.
PS: I must apologize for the lateness of this letter. I had been in the middle of writing it when it somehow slipped my mind and I walked away, only to rediscover it on my desk under my ledger a week later. Stupid mistake, won’t happen again. Can’t have you missing the latest news from this side of the continent, can we?
He hadn’t thought much of it, when there was no letter of hers forthcoming around its usual time. Perhaps it had simply gotten lost. The Empire was a pale shadow of its former self, and so too its courier- and postal services. Skyrim and Hammerfell were further apart now than they had been in an era, in all ways but geographically. Mail usually travelled by boat, and there were dozens of ports along the way where a letter could get overlooked or sorted on the wrong stack.
And wasn’t that just how he liked it? To be unreachable, free to focus on his work without distraction. No, it hadn’t worried him. No news was good news.
But he’d been a fool to think so. Despite the letter’s optimistic tone, it worried him very much. He’d accepted her death once already, like that of every non-elf he’d known in his youth. But then he found her again two centuries later, made of sturdier stuff than even him. He’d taken her condition for granted, complacent, trusting she’d always be there, even long after he himself was gone. Perhaps it was time to re-evaluate that belief.
A dozen times he’d read her letter, looking for clues, symptoms with which to diagnose the problem. Was the sorceress’ magic fraying at the edges? Or was there a flaw in the necromantic energies that bound her being together, allowing for age to take hold much sooner than anticipated?
He let it sit for weeks on end. He tried to put it out of mind, hoping against hope that by the time he had found the words to address the matter (or pretend it hadn’t happened), she’d be her old self again, nary a care in the world.
Let me begin by apologizing for the time it took to answer your letter. Per what you are no doubt accustomed to, I have no shortage of work. It takes me everywhere but home, most days.
I have little to share to satiate your hunger for gossip, but perhaps it may interest you that Medeia represents her mentor on the council of the jewelers’ guild these days. I believe she has her eye on a position on the council of the merchant’s association, as well. She’s inherited my sister’s appetite for politics, it seems. A frightening prospect. She inquires after you, often. She hasn’t forgotten your kindness and companionship in Winterhold.
I won’t pretend your last letter didn’t leave me concerned. I hope this finds you better, and that I may relay the good news to my niece.
