A Letter to Vrinn Love-Dawn, left between two pages and smudged by the pigment of a pressed flower

Vrinn,
I wish I'd been able to say more before we were parted. I wish especially that I'd had the courage to do better by you, and the presence of mind to carry it out without making the same mistakes I had before. I don't think I've ever been the same comfort to you that you were to me, and it's something I'll always wish I could change.
I met your mother, and my blood boiled over her callousness, over the way she... I'd heard stories of her manner, but I thought surely, somehow, seeing you would have dented her. Seeing the wonderful person you've become, the strength of it. I would have thought seeing you, her own, might have challenged her to pause and reflect.
I was wrong. I was so wrong Millie nearly called Severine I was so upset. I can't imagine what that was like for you, and I'm sorry all I can do is try to. I shouldn't have waited outside. I should have tried to have been there for you, even if I lacked words for it, and even if Cinder had been present. None of that should have mattered. Showing you someone else saw the hurt put to you and denouncing it as wrong should have been of more import than my own petty fears.
You're strong, though, Vrinn. And you don't need that from me. Still, I wish you had it anyway; the comfort of the knowledge that so many others see you for who you've become, and who cherish you for it.
One day, I hope we can meet again. That the Company might come back together to finish what we started. Selfishly, there are no group of people I'd rather finish this out with, even if we have the support of many nations behind us now. It was your steadfast belief that a dawn could come for Crypha that gave me the courage to believe in the same when all felt lost, and even if that came from a place of starkly different beliefs than you hold now, I still cherish it.
There's no one else I'd rather be beside when the skies finally part.
I keep an ear pinned for news from Lux these days, after the attack by the Heralds. The moment a need for aid becomes clear, I intend to press that we offer to the Black Guard everything we can manage. It's the least we can do after the aid Lux has been to us in the past, and will be on the front once the united forces rally.
At the restaurant I went to this evening, the decorative flowerbed between our table and the next held snowbells. Larger, of course, than any of the smaller flowers we happened to see in Crypha, but they reminded me of the Company... of you all the same. I suppose it's why I'm writing this thing I'll never send.
Things are changing... have changed... more than I would have thought. It's finally sunk in that being home is a reality, and it hasn't required the complete mental divorce from what happened in Crypha the way I thought it would. Whenever there are times I begin to doubt myself, though, I think back to the faith you all placed in me; back to the night you told me you thought I'd make a good Empress.
As painful as many memories of Crypha are, I don't want to forget a single one of them. I don't want to forget a single one of you I didn't know before, even though we may be miles, even worlds apart now.
You're missed. And never for the type of comfort you feared you'd be reduced to.
Wherever you are, I hope you're well.
Yours,
Illara

Type

Journal, Personal