Five Letters From Mathias (Year 8:34)

Originally posted on Ko-Fi in March 2024.

Five Letters From Mathias — a look at your first month at the Academia of the Dragon Order (Year 8:34)

A bundle of letters was left atop your trunk on the morning of your 31st day at the Academia. As it’s custom, the first month sees the new recruits cut off from friends and family, so they have an opportunity to bond with their fellow “hatchlings” and “dragonlings,” the lowest rankings in the Dragon Order.

Among a few curt letters from your family (one from your older brother, one from your mother, and one from your little sister, all of them mentioning things your father had said), you find a royal-looking package wrapped in expensive silk and filled with half-crumbled, delicious-looking biscuits.

The First Letter:

To my Favorite Future Knight (don’t show this to Mandra),

Master Curio told me to write to you, and I think it is truly a grand idea. They seem to think I miss you too much (not true) and that verbalizing whatever’s in my head will help me focus more on my studies. He also thinks that's what I urgently need if I’m to learn anything at all until your next visit.

He is dictating this; I’m under threat of receiving a low mark in Astral Studies if I disobey.

Child, I didn’t tell you to write that. Mathias, stop. Mathias, stop writing what I’m saying or else.

Mathias, if you write one my word, I swear I’m gonna—

The Second Letter:

To my Favorite Future Knight (again, please don’t show this to Mandra),

Very well, now this is truly from me. I decided to send the earlier letter along with this one, for I thought it might lift your spirits. I hope things are faring better for you there than they did here.

A few hours passed. Now I’m alone in my room, way after bedtime, looking from the moon to the blank parchment in front of me and wondering what in the Bogs I can write about. 

I suppose I should blame you for that. If you were here, we’d be whispering about some odd story we heard from the servants or following Mand through the dark corridors of the castle. Holding hands. Maybe.

If you were here, I wouldn’t be missing you.

(The letter stops here. The parchment is scarred like a stained glass window. This letter was crumpled, then reopened.)

The Third Letter:

To my Favorite Future Knight (show this to Mandra if you want; it’s late here, I don’t care),

Master Curio tried to force me to write a letter, but as usual, I found ways to circumvent that. It’s a whole story, you wouldn’t understand, and I don’t have it in me to tell it. Master seemed quite miffed, actually (you told me to tell you when that happened), but it was only marginally funny without you to point that out and laugh with me. 

Still, I suppose I do agree with them on some of the things he said. 

I need to find a way to focus more on my studies, and if a letter to you can do that—although it escapes me why he’d think this would help—then so be it. I’ll write it.

Today we read about physics in Arcane structures and, more specifically, how to use them to play with fire. (!!!) This is my favorite element to work with, as you well know—it’s warm, it can’t be extinguished, and it’s stable enough to create even the most complex alchemical concoctions and most impressive kingdoms.

In other words, everything I’m not. 

Which is absolutely fine, of course, for I can now use it to create better shapes! The book is called “Mundane Mass Correlation in Arcane-based Carbon Structures,” and all I learned from it is how to sculpt your charming face in arcane fire, so I won’t miss your smile so mu—

The fourth letter:

To My Most HATED, the one I still can’t believe I’m missing so much in this Goddess-damned, cold-ass, terrible night filled with sobs and a silence so deafening—cause after all I can’t sleep, but can’t make any sound either, and I’m alone, and Mel is sleeping, and I won’t wake her up to go raid the kitchen as we used to do—a silence so deafening I think I’m going absolutely crazy and before you ask, no, I won’t stop writing this, which should be the proper greetings for one villain like YOU, who left ME alone in this massive castle with NO ONE for company, you ungrateful little warm sweet friend I miss you so much, please come back, I can’t stand this anymore, and Father is such an absolute monster, please don’t blame me for never rescuing you, it consumes me, I cannot, I’m sleep deprived and lonely, just come back, please don’t make any more friends for whom you’ll trade me for and then forget me, Future Knight,

Today I learned stuff.

Signed, 

My Royal foot and a middle finger.

The Fifth Letter:

To a dear friend, whom I like (adequately, in a proper manner) as much as my Sibling (please show this to Mandra),

Things are flowing well here, despite your absence. My studies continue to improve, and so do my powers. 

I hope your training is going well and that you manage to become the Knight you’ve always wanted to be. 

The sunrise is especially beautiful today. I wish you were here to watch it with me.

Always by your side, truly yours,

Mathias

A note awaits at the bottom of the bundle:

You recognize Melike’s hand, the careful and curvy vowels of a ten-year-old:

I hope you had fun reading these; I know I had. 

Wishing you well and missing you very much,

— Mel

P.S.: Mattie has started several new hobbies since you moved to the Academia. I’m sending you some biscuits that he baked for me. 

P.S.S.: They’re awful.