Letter 04a, 03 May 2523
Text of a letter from Marina Kseniya Sebastien to Christian Edge
Christian Edge, RC
Lucifer’s Landing, Angel
Kalidasa (Xuan Wu) system
Monday, 03 May 2523
Sihnon, White Sun (Bai Hu) system
Christian,
As you can probably guess by the arrival of this letter, dorogoi moi, I am coming home. And as Lem might have already told you, I am not coming home alone.
I've got my family, Christian, as many as I could get out of Sihnon with me. While they are not fugitives, exactly, I cannot truthfully say they left under felicitous circumstances. They were held political prisoner by a self-appointed dictator of the Enclave and I cannot tell you everything that woman has done. There wouldn't be enough paper in the universe for the words it would take to do the task justice. Suffice to say for now, my family is out from under her thumb.
And you are right, there is a but lurking in all this: this dictator arrested my brother Nikolai and sent him covertly into an Alliance reconditioning program geared to make supersoldiers for the war effort. Needless to say, they did not require his consent and therefore did not ask. I don't know where he is. I don't even know if he is still alive. By all the reliable information I have, I came six months too late to save him and I will have to live with that until I die, Christian. Even if I find him, free him, and rehabilitate him from whatever the Feds have done to him, I can never erase the fact that he suffered needlessly because I dragged my heels coming home.
Such a fact is not lost on my mother, either. I expect to pay the price there too, though so far she has held off from exacting full payment from me. She is still in shock. In less than 24 hours, she's gone from being a political prisoner with a live son in lock-up to having a dead daughter returned to her and her son revealed to be missing and presumed dead. She has gone from comfortable surroundings, despite her lack of freedom, to having nowhere to go and owning nothing but the clothes she stands in. She is … Words fail me, Christian. She's keeping her head up and shoulders back and feelings down. Her pride would require nothing less, but she's hurting. Trust me, I know the signs all too well.
And since we all know just how amazing I am with other people's feelings, I am sorry to say that you might have some tricky work landing in your lap as soon as we kiss dirt. I'm sorry to ask this of you but if you could talk to her, if only for a few minutes, I would forever be in your debt. I won't presume to tell you what to say or how to say it, I will only get down on my knees and beg you to do what you think is best.
My father has suffered emotional stress as well and if what Mother has told me is correct, my disappearance fourteen years ago was the beginning of his decline. That is something else I will have to carry with me to the grave. He is not too badly off but it has affected his mind—his memory, mostly. He's lost track of time more than once since I've been reunited with him and I fear that he will get worse. I haven't a way of determining the rate of his decline but I hope that Arden might be able to examine him and suggest proper care so as to slow down his mental deterioration. Since we are leaving the Core as soon as we can, I do not know if the proper care to halt the ongoing health issues will be available, but at the moment he is free and that is a valuable asset in his favor.
My brothers Dmitri and Aleksandr are still at liberty and for what it's worth, they apparently seem to have adjusted to my sudden reappearance in their lives a little better than my parents—which might not by much but at least it's something. Mitya has a wife, Svetlana, and three lovely children and we were able to get them out with us. Sasha has made it out as well, but he's told me he must go back to the Enclave to expose what Anna—the dictator—has done to our brother and countless others she's arrested over the years. Everyone with a daughter or son in Anna's prison was incarcerated with the implicit hope that they would someday return to their families. No one who has gone into that reconditioning program has ever been heard from again. Sasha believes their families deserve to know the truth about the crime Anna's committed against them. So, my brother is walking back into the lion's den. I didn't even try to argue him out of it because while I may be stubborn, my rest of my family is even more so, and it would have been an argument I would lose. Badly. Sasha has a smart head on his shoulders and if anyone could accomplish what he's set out to do, it would be him. But I fear for him, Christian, and I fear what will happen to my parents if they lose yet another son. If you're of a mind to pray for anyone, please let it be my family.
There is one other person in need of intervention, divine or otherwise: Nika. She's been through an amazing amount of shit this past year and a half and she's not bouncing back from it as she's hoped. Her eyes—they bother her and not just on the physical level, though there are some lingering effects still, but there's something about them bothers her … like they aren't her own, yet. Add to the fact that I think she's still suffering nightmares—and I know she's going through a personal crisis of faith over this war. From what I've seen in events leading up to this point, I know this war isn't going to be as cut and dried, black and white, as the last one. And we've been through one morally ambiguous job after another lately. None of this is helping her figure out a course of action, of a place to stand and plant her moral compass. To make matters worse, she's shutting the rest of us out. All these little things from the past 18 months are piling up and it's getting harder and harder to get through to her, enough so that I'm worried.
Worried. Me. Little Miss Oblivious in the Personal Affairs Department.
And speaking of personal affairs … You will have seen from Lem's letter that I've finally come to a decision about my own personal affairs. Joshua's a good man, Christian, and I believe in him. Somehow, don't ask me why, he feels the same about me. He's asked me to marry him. I've said yes. Nika's willing to officiate. And I'm hoping everyone will attend—you, Lem, friends from Lucifer's Landing, the crew, my family. Everyone as can make it. I know I need not list the people who won't be coming. Yet another thing I will carry with me to my grave.
I can hear you asking: Why now? And I'll answer: If not now, then when? I've finally learned I can't wait for things to be perfect before I commit. Waiting for perfect lost me Mike. It lost me my brother. It lost me I don’t know how many chances at happiness and good fortune that otherwise would have been mine. I can't wait any longer lest I lose Joshua too. And if I do, I cannot say if I could come back from that. I'm a fighter, a resister, hardheaded and driven, qualities that have enabled me to survive a crap-ton of shit over a lifetime, but even I have my limits. If I don't go forward with this and take that leap of faith, I will never be anything but broken. You saw it years ago, Christian, long before I ever could and where I am now, I owe in large measure to you and your faith in me. So I'm getting married to a man who loves me, a man I love back in equal measure. Thank you. Saying thank you seems appallingly insufficient when measured against the magnitude of what you've done for me, Christian, but I'm afraid until I can think of better, it will have to do.
And on that note, I must close. If I don't stop now, I'll get maudlin and cry on this letter and ruin it.
Ever gratefully yours,
Rina
P.S. I'm sorry I didn't remember to thank you for your assistance with the Temple in the main body of my letter, but thank you. They've been very kind to us here and I will be sad to leave.
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