Winter Solstice, Year 5: Satyan Plans for the Future

My dearest Shiv, I write to you with a lonely spirit and a heavy heart from within my usual cabin aboard Threebl's Inspiration.

The light in the room casts everything in a rich amber glow, for we are sailing east and away from the setting sun. Too, I have already lighted the lamp on my desk in anticipation of the waning sun. Already, in the softly groaning corners of my cabin, the threat of fright is gathering itself inside the dark shadows as they lengthen to herald the inevitable. It will be an excellent night for ghost stories.

For once, I find that there is a strange sort of comfort in the faint aroma of burning oil, though still not as much as I find in the subtle sway and heave of the deck beneath me. I have departed Smouge, leaving behind the Academy of Arts and Sciences with its perpetual smell of coal smoke and machine oil. As expected, I not only swept the honors in my class, but graduated leaps and bounds ahead of them all in my cumulative class marks. My only challenge over this last year was in staving off the boredom! Of course, I owe all of this to your insistence that I spend every free moment of my childhood ensconced within the library stacks, exploring anything that even remotely caught my interest.

Overall, as I look back on my time at the academy, I find that I am encouraged for the future. The rapid progress that is being made in understanding this new discovery of Theeksfur will eventually change the way our world operates. It is only a matter of time until we learn how to regulate, scale, and control this amazing new source of energy. But for now, the engineers and machinists will have their power, no matter the cost imposed on the health of Smouge's people. ( I do not even dare to mention the health of the island itself, and the waters around it.) Fortunately, the interest that the graduate board showed in my final project suggests that they are -- at least as a bridge measure -- equally as interested in harnessing the power of the violent winds that thread through the rocky canyons of Smouge.

As I write, the fading sun has given way to the rich violet of coming night. Twilight is upon us and the evening of the Winter Solstice has begun. I am deeply grateful to be aboard a ship this year, for the celbrations of sailors are more to my taste these last few years. Where once I always looked forward to the all-night celebrations, the dazzling displays of fireworks, the endless banquets of sweets and bottomless barrels of rum punch, now the very thought of such things leaves the taste of ashen embers heavy on my tongue. Even the richest maple pecan nutcakes cannot cut through the taste of my sorrow, for they all just remind me of the ones Mum used to make.

I miss her so much, Shiv. It all still feels so fresh and raw, as though it happened only yesterday. They say that these things fade with time, but how much time? Does the brief span of a life make it easier to find perspective beyond the grief? And if so, what does that say for those of us who are facing the long side of a seemingly endless life? These are the dark thoughts that race around in my head at night, like a rat running in a wheel.

Sometimes, when I'm in a particularly foul mood over it all, I look around the world that continues without her, at the people who remember her without thinking of her, and I feel angry. I feel angry that they can all go on with their lives wholly unchanged. I feel angry because they are as unaffected by her death as they were by her life. She was their queen, distant and unknowable. And now that she is dead, she is still just as distant and unknowable. Worse, I fear she will forever be remembered as the queen who broke the united nation.

In those moments, those awful, dark moments, I hate them. I hate them all. I hate their laughter and I hate their connectedness and I hate the careless attitude with which they abandon those precious little every day moments under the perceived offense of being only commonplace.

I hate them for not understanding what I would give to have just one of those precious little every day oh-so-commonplace moments with her.

It does seem to me that it is not age that determines when we are no longer children. It is experience, it must be. When I look at my peers in the light of my life, they all seem like children. So happy and carefree and ignorant of the harshness of getting on in a world that cares neither whit nor whim for anyone or anything. The last embers of the raging fires have yet to cool, and they laugh and joke about how they would have done if they'd faced the onslaught of a dragon.

Dear sister, I cannot lie to you and therefore, I absolutely cannot lie to myself. In the truth of my heart, I must admit that I envy them their ignorance. I know, were it not for my own tragedies, that I would be among them with my own boasts and brags and japes and jests. Mingled with my mourning for Mum, I also lament the loss of my own carefree, childish heart. I hate them because I want to return to being like them. And I am angry because I fear never moving beyond this grief into a state of being where I can once more feel joy.

Is there any path into adulthood that does not involve tragedy? (I ask this on behalf of a close friend.)

It will not surprise you, knowing me as you do, to learn that this is not the first inkling of these feelings that I've had. In fact, they filled every minute that was not actively devoted to my studies at the academy. And fear not, for my big, dumb sister's advice has served me well through those long, sleepless nights in the rat wheel. 'Satyan, if your thoughts are running in circles, then its because they're looking for an answer. Acknowledge that, and see where you can take action to change the situation.'

And so, whenever I have found myself caught up in this wheel to nowhere, I have redirected my thoughts into developing a plan of action. Action to combat this feeling of anger, of undeservedness. This new idea -- rather, this novel passion -- became ever more consuming with each moment I dared devote to dreaming. I'm certain you will guess that I have already decided on the best course for me to chart through this coming age. And now that I've achieved my goals at the academy, I'm free to pursue this new direction.

Looking forward into the centuries, the millenia, before us...well, there is a point on the horizon where extended life looks like eternity, and I cannot right now see beyond it. And it seems like such an easy thing to waste to the common disdain for the ordinary little moments.

That waste feels like a crime, blatant, deliberate, and pre-meditated. The fear of it weighs on my heart and soul, dragging upon me like sodden velvet in an undertow, threatening to drown me in the sorrow of my own wasted existence. An existence that was denied to so many who may have deserved it more than me. And so it falls to me to make sure that I focus on spending every minute of every day doing the very best I can to make the most of the future. Not just my future, but the future of Argentii's people.

I will spend this time we have been given learning and doing everything that I can. I will go everywhere. I will study everything. I will do as much as I am physically capable of doing. Because that is the debt I owe not only to those who died, but to those who might have been, but now can never be.

The sun has well and truly set, and we are shrouded in the thick cloak of the longest night. Above deck, the sailors have begun to sing, and the creaking, rolling groan of the ship agianst the waves is resonant with their song. Some think that sailors sing off key, but in truth, they sing in harmony with the tune of their ship. It is why I wanted to spend the solstice at sea, for the salty old sailors believe that this time is best spent in memorium and the Inspiration keens in mourning with their laments. And so as the skies alight on every horizon with the colorful, glittering explosions of fireworks, the silence is filled with the groaning of the ship and the heart-stopping harmonies of sailors who've seen and experienced the loves and losses of generations.

The song that began in the rigging has spread into the galley, and the mess, and the hold. The very bones of the ship shiver in resonance with the might of their sound. Every creak of the hull and snap of the sail adds a haunting and soulful orchestration to their beautiful, vocal melody. (Please pardon the tear stains on the ink. I'll pause here to address myself before ruining the entire page with the outporuings of my soul.)

Of course, you will not know this but I have been gone from this letter for quite some time. In the end, Shiv, there was nothing I could do except join in the singing. It began as a thought, then it became a drive, and finally a compulsion. It was as if the song became a geas that would not be denied. And so I gave in, and I joined the song.

I sang, and I sang, and I sang. As the tears streamed down my cheeks, I sang. As my heart skipped beats in my breast, I sang. Until the very end of the song when I was breathless and winded and gasping from the emotion of it all -- from the weeping, mourning, crying joy of release -- I sang. It felt good. It felt...right, just letting all of the emotion sweep through me and out into the song. And I think I understand, now, why you've always had such an affinity for music. You tried to explain it to me, years ago. But I never got it, I never felt the calling of song and story the way that you do.

I understand now, Shiv. I see what it means to you, collecting the stories of the people of Argentii, and how the drive is more critical than anything else. I see how it's bigger than me and all of us. Because that's what this new plan means to me.

Music is not the calling of my soul the way it is for you, but tonight brought me a closer perspective to what I imagine it must be like for you. It was like there was an energy in the song, in the way that the harmonies resonated with each other and with the ship itself. It was something transformational and transcendent.

It was, in a word...magic. Purely, simply, truly magic.

And so, with all of this said, I will end this letter with a promise. A promise to myself, to you, and to the memory of the mother we shared. I will not waste this time we have been given. I will learn and do and see as much as I possibly can. And I will use that knowledge and education to make a positive impact whenever, wherever, and however I can. I owe it to those whose futures were stolen from them in The Conflagration. I owe it to you, who must suffer the same seeming of eternity as I, with only the words of others to keep you informed of the world beyond Crossroads Island. And I owe it to myself to not waste the gift that I have been given.

The songs are calling to me again, Shiv. And because I know that joining in will feel good, I must heed the lyrical summons. I am on my way home, and will see you soon, and we can continue this discussion in person. I very much look forward to your input on the long-term direction of my studies so that we can best plan for the future of the people of Argentii. We owe it to them, as well.

Ever faithfully,

Satyan Windblown

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  Winter Solstice, Year 5