Hi Bart. I don’t know if you’re getting my letters, but I’m going to keep writing them anyway. It's stupid but at least writing things down... I don't know, it helps things make more since sense.

Magic must have been created to put curses on people. I am sure of it. 

This past month has been… eventful. From learning to sail a ship to arriving in the largest city I have seen, I have learned a lot. I learned that blinding prisoners makes them useless; little more than a dead man walking. I learned that not every person in a difficult situation can be helped without consequences. And, no matter how often you call me stubborn, I learned that my mind is a fragile thing. 

I learned all that the hard way... I still dream about it, it's like I can't escape what it felt like to not have control over my own mind. Can you imagine, everything being gone? I barely knew my own name anymore. I was staring at the floor, not even aware I was there standing on it. My companions called my name, but I didn't have the presence of mind to respond to it. Words escaped me entirely. I hated it.

I know I’m not smart, or particularly wise. I know I shouldn’t only rely on my instinct, but it is the only thing around here I understand. I know how to use a knife and hide and sneak up on those who try to hurt me and my friends. I know where to find good sweets and how to hide them from those who mean harm. I know how to be dangerous.

But when my mind was taken from me, I woke up scared. 

If magic can do that, what else can it do? What can’t it do? I was stuck mindless for days, and I do not know if I can stop it from happening again, or if my friends are being honest about what I missed in those days. 

I’m scared. I want to be back in Fernsworth, where things made sense. "Oh but things are too easy there," f*ck that, in no world should having your mind taken from you be a normal thing. F*ck.

I want to be back in my country, where I don’t find my name on the walls of a f*ing cult’s hideout.

Cus yeah, that happened. For some reason, our good Moonmother's twin - the Moondark - is playing with our party. So of course, the cults of this weird land know my name, as I pray to her. Well, a part of her. Whatever. I don't know, we always talked about adventure, but... I feel like I'm in the wrong one. Don't get me wrong, I love my companions, they're great and troubled and all worthy of their own story. But I can't help but feel that I'm in the wrong place. I just want to find Taegan.

Lila put down her pen and glanced at her sleeping companions. Months had passed in the new land, yet she still had no idea; it was her turn for what? To have a story? Then why was she in this odd place? Every night, she heard that voice repeat that phrase in her dreams.

If her dreams were right, Taegan wasn't much further. She scoffed at herself - dreams couldn't be 'right' or 'wrong'. Yet she kept dreaming he was somewhere up in the mountains. The snow blanketed the forest around their makeshift campsite, making everything just a little more quiet than usual. The moon shone down at her through the spaces between the branches, making the snow glow almost blue. She felt protected in the moonlight, even moreso than in the daylight, yet her companions never failed to repeat to her that the Moondark knew as much.

As frustrating as it was, they had every reason to. 

Lila looked up to the moons in the sky, full that night. "Are you testing me? Is the Moondark? I don't understand what is happening, I keep asking and asking and it's like I was thrown into a play without any lines of my own, but everyone's waiting for me to know what to say." 

"You are learning the rules, little one."

"Ugh stop SAYING that!" Lila groaned, forgetting that her companions were still asleep. Every time she prayed to the Moonmother, that she begged to know more, she heard that phrase. Rules of what? Some giant chess game? 

Why was finding her friend treated like a game?