My dear sister,
I hope that this letter finds you well. Please write to me and let me know how you're doing. I regret that I haven't been able to visit again, but I still want an update. The academy would only allow the one absence, but I promise I still care about you. I thought about skipping (it's better to ask forgiveness than permission, you know), but I knew you'd only badger me about it until I returned to the academy if you knew I neglected my classes to visit.
As for me, classes are going well. It's an odd mixture of easy but busy. There's nothing particularly hard in my lessons so far, but the amount of paperwork is ridiculous. It's like once I inherit they think all I'll do is sit at a desk and review paperwork. One of my professors came in one day and dumped a whole stack, half my height, on each person's desk and said we had to get through it by class the following day.
I'm hoping that they load the boring stuff at the beginning and it gets better later. It's all budgets this and budgets that. The house staff, the gardeners, the knights, the stable hands, the list goes on forever, and they've all got to be paid and the ledger balanced.
That's not all either. You have to hold balls every so often. Those require clothes, and food, and decorations, and musicians, and so on for another endless list.
So much paperwork. It never ends. Sometimes I wish I could attend balls, like you're free to do right now. Which were never words I thought I'd write. You know how much I dislike them... Or maybe you don't remember, in which case I'm sorry for my phrasing.
Well I do dislike them. Or I did in the past. Having to dress up and ask ladies to dance as they giggled one word replies and blushed. But also having to keep track and make sure I asked no one more than once for fear they'd get the wrong idea. I learned the rules of civility, but they didn't come naturally.
Still, if I could, I'd like to go back to a ball now. Now that all I'm doing is planning and learning to pay for them, doing all the paperwork without any of the reward. I'd like to enjoy the frivolity, and take some time off work.
I've made it sound like everything I do is boring, but that's not quite true. It feels like it sometimes, and it's a lot of it, but I still have some enjoyable activities. We spend some time on sword training and horseback riding. Too much time is spent sitting in a chair, but at least they allow us some exercise.
In fact, there's even more excitement than that recently. You'll never guess it. In fact, you might not care enough to guess it, but I'll tell you anyway. Lord Carmine has come to the academy.
It's all the buzz now. It's an odd time to join, there's only about a month until the semester ends, but apparently he's here taking accelerated classes to catch up and be ready to start next semester.
There's a rumor going around that he's vying to be the Duke's heir. I'm not sure how likely that is. His brother is excelling at the academy, and almost done with his studies, so I'm not sure that Lord Carmine will gain any favor with the duke by coming now. But time will tell, I suppose, whether the rumors are true.
Anyway sister, I hope you're doing well. You told me when I left that I should write to you, and I finally am. So write me back and let me know how you're doing.
Your overworked brother,
Alvize
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