vallo

Yesterday I celebrated my third birthday here in Vallo, and was lucky enough to spend the evening in the company of my family. It was a far cry from how I spent my first birthday, a mere month after I'd arrived here.

It surprises me sometimes that I've already spent two years of my life in Vallo, and equally surprising that it has only been two years. So much has changed from those first early weeks, not least of all that I now spend my evenings with my kind, thoughtful husband and can watch Temeraire excel at his studies (even as I regret that I can provide him with very little instrumental help). I've made a good many friends, to whom I'm very grateful, and whom I hope I will never learn to take for granted. And while Vallo's whims have removed a great many people from my life as well, I am glad, very glad, to have known them.

I am not often so sentimental, and I hope you'll none of you hold my sudden loquaciousness against me. I just mean to say that I am filled with gratitude, to the bottom of my heart, that I am fortunate enough to spend my fortieth year here with all of you.

I guess these skeletons have a very specific idea of what a king should be like and sprinkled in cheeto dust before noon is not it. Anybody heard of a King Ashurbanipal?

[ GROUP TEXTS: CAROL / EMME / ELLA ]

» Hey.
» Either of you at home right now?

You know, Vallo, you're doing a great job of pushing me into having a damn villain era.

In war, I'd prefer a dishonest man to a man who was unreliably honest. Predictability goes a long way in tactics: you can't control the players, but you could rely on what you believe them most likely to do in the situation they're in. Which is one reason why Vallo is so maddening to me: the arrivals and departures don't make sense. They aren't predictable. No amount of logic, big brain, cunning or forethought can predict what will happen in the day-to-day, which makes for lousy endings. Heartbreak. Broken relationships. But Vallo gives you just enough to keep you hopeful. Because for some, there is hope. The waiting, the not knowing - it makes everything sharper. Brighter.

Which is all to say: I was gone for four months, taken to some strange world where I worked in a bar called the Mos Eisley Cantina. Luckily, I was the prettiest one there (save Earl, Earl had these gorgeous magenta fronds you would not believe), and I learned how to fly a spaceship and things were mostly fine, save how very much I missed the lot of you. And then one day, right when I was beginning to think I might never make my way back, I came back to this place just in time to see more departures.

See? Maddening.




But I am very glad to be back.