In Which Farilon Chooses the Letter

April 17, 1160

His son, daughter-in-law, and many of the servants had offered to relieve him, urging him to get some sleep, but Farilon would not hear of it. He doubted that he could sleep anyway--he would not rest soundly until his daughter was up and about.

In the bed behind him, Holladrin tossed and turned frequently, the rustle of the sheets forming a horrid cacophony with the occasional cough. This sound, however, fell to Farilon's ears as a beautiful song--when the noises stopped, then he would worry.

Oh, the poor girl! Her mother too had been plagued by whatever illness this was, and it was to this curse that she had eventually succumbed. This was exactly why he had not packaged her off to Cambrin or Karlspan or anyone else; he did not know how long she had, and did not want to sort out the remainder of her life against her own wishes.

The remainder of her life. He could hardly bear the thought. No parent should have had to live in terror of outliving their own child, yet he had a nagging, ever-present fear in the back of his mind that he would be the one placing flowers atop her coffin. Not for the first time, he wondered just how aware of her own frail condition Holladrin really was; did she live in blissful ignorance, or did she merely put on a brave face, a mask of happiness and vitality meant to distract herself and all others from the waning girl she truly was? Either way, he himself did not think he was strong enough to lose her. These concerns, of course, he had not voiced to a soul--not to Oswald, not to Roderick...

Roderick. Naroni. That was it.

A few years ago now, Farilon had recieved a letter from his niece, which had been shortly followed by another from his late wife's nephew, both of whom now resided in Naroni. For the most part, they had been unremarkable--how the children were doing, how the villages were growing, how so-and-so was expecting a baby--but the two letters had contained one common element, one that Farilon had noticed at the time, but had long-since forgotten.

Both Celina and Severin had told of a man--Fyrdin? Felron? something along those lines--who had been slowly dying of some malady or another since before he had arrived in Naroni with Roderick's party. His condition had worsened to the point at which they feared he had days, maybe even hours left... but was then miraculously cured.

Things happened in Naroni. The rate at which couples had babies there was considerably higher than in Dovia. Livestock never went hungry. Even in the dead of winter, the leaves remained on the trees, green as any new spring shoot.

It was true that Farilon did not think much of the idea of his beloved daughter in a land that seemed so far away, where he would likely never see her again. However, if it came down to the choice between seeing her name on a letter or on a headstone, he would much rather take the letter.

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