Zed does not bother to show up in person to give Irelia her gift. Instead, a letter mysteriously appears on her desk, her name written on the envelope in ornate lettering. Inside it lies a (surprisingly well-written) story about her, detailing her rise and fall, and delving a touch too far into balance's -- and her own -- failings. At the end lies only three sentences: "You know that I am right. Happy Snowdown, Irelia. Good luck finding any peace within balance alone."
At first it seems innocuous enough, if told from a somewhat more bitter perspective than one’s average story teller. As the word choice becomes more and more cutting, Irelia considers that the lavish curls and flicks of the handwriting emulate blades more than the twists and turns of a story well told. There is hatred here, a fire that mirrors deep in her own heart, and by the time she reads those final three sentences, Irelia’s fingers clutch so tightly at the papers they are crinkling in her hands, threatening to rip.
Irelia does not need to see a signature to know who this is from.
With no less than a snarl, the pages are crumpled into a ball and tossed into the fire. The ball lacks the weight to be anything near satisfying, and her closed fist strikes down through the air, landing with a heavy, painful thump against her desk.
She hates that the master of the shadows continues to harass her like this -- unprovoked, unwarranted. She detests how it torments her, makes her stomach twist and her throat heave with a heady mixture of rage and despair. It passes through her and leaves her utterly livid with no hope of satisfaction in any vent that does anything less than tear her to pieces entirely. But what she hates most are those last three sentences. That even here, alone, with all the time in the world to form cohesive arguments, she cannot find a single word that tastes anything but bitter to her tongue.
But she will not admit defeat.
