“One day. One letter. Several years later that pink fucken’ envelope is worth more than myself.”

(«^») Iris Exurrana

8E/438Y/10M/77D 7:30 PM

I yelped as I was thrown into a brick wall. I spat some blood onto the pavement. I looked around to find a crowd of people staring, and whispering. ‘It's that girl again…’ ‘Is she starting another fight’ ‘Serves the bitch right’, “Castiva give me the fucken’ letter you dickless coward!”

That turned his smile into a deep frown, “What'd you say, bitch?!” He walked up to me as I pushed myself off of the ground. I kneed hum in the crotch, then slammed his face into my knee as he fell. “Did I fucken’ stutter?”

He fell onto the asphalt, and pulled my foot out from under me, then pushed my head into the ground, forming a large crack where it hit.

I pushed his hand out of the way, “Castiva don't make me do it.”

He glared at me, “Do it. If this letter is more important to you than a prison sentence then I win either way.”

“Tch.” Quickly, I made a small gesture with my hands and a spoke a short chant, “Yi sefe Iris ana jene exurra’ayr veylin’jun jene lethana’ayr, Storm Shatter!” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I kicked Castiva’s shin, pulsing it with a massive burst of lightning.

Castiva screamed, and fell to the ground, unconscious. I picked myself up off the ground, and searched Castiva. In front of everyone too, but I didn't care. He didn't have much on him besides a pouch of 40,000 vials and the pink enveloped letter I was looking for.

Being the upstanding good citizen that I am I took both, and bolted before the guards got there. I was already a wanted person. They didn't know who the Hell they wanted, but I didn't wanna’ test those waters by getting caught breaking the law.

I didn't get very far before the adrenaline ran out and I had to stop running. Castiva hit like a fucken’ train. One or two more hits from him and I would've been done for. However, in Alexandria it wasn't fighting that was against the law. No no, it was using magic in a fight that’s much more powerful than whoever you're fighting’s capable of.

I ran at full speed for a few minutes before the pain started settling in. Eventually I started leaning on walls as a crutch. People were staring but it didn't matter. I just needed to make it to the tower.

I lived in the capital of Alexandria, Exana. In Paradox a large portion of the population was confined to a handful of cities per country. Most of the landmass that made up Paradox was untamed, untouched by society. Instead we just made three, four, maybe five extremely large cities and expand them as needed. Exana was the largest city in the world, sitting at around thirty seven billion people, and was around 6,600 by 6,600 miles.

People from all over the world came to Alexandria. On the streets you could see infernals, celestials, dragons, lacuna, humans, faeries, fey, nymphs, sylphs, daevas, seraphs, daemons, exandris and every other race in equal measure. Music blanketed the city, and it was lively at any time of day or night. The city was a special kind of chaos that I grew to love with every ounce of my being.

I was headed to one of the abandoned guard towers in between the market and the red light district. I considered it more home than where I lived on paper. I spent one day a week with my god awful mother so she couldn't legally disown me. But other than that, I lived in that tower. It was on the very edge of the city. The red light district was teeming with low lifes and the market was heavily guarded, yeah, but it gave me easy access to Vaeri and A.

Eventually I got to the tower. The tower was made of white stone. On the inside the floor was a dark brown wood. It was three stories tall, and each floor was about twelve feet high.The walls were also crumbling in places except on the third floor. Slowly, I climbed the stairs, trailing blood on the reinforced stone. And once I got to the top, I collapsed. I crawled over to a seemingly inconspicuous bag laying on the ground and smeared my blood on the latch whispering “I will,” then opened it revealing a 40x40x10 room, and dropped the bags of vials I was carrying on me inside. I've been robbed too many times to keep too much money on me. The bag costed Raisa a fortune, but she insisted she didn't mind.

I closed the bag and put it under my head to serve as a pillow, and opened the letter, being very careful not to get blood on it.

Dear Iris

I apologize greatly for not having written in a few weeks… I know we agreed that once a week would be our correspondence schedule.

Life, as usual, has been hectic. So full, yet so boring. It's mind numbing…

I truly do wish for a life like yours. Something, no anything for excitement. The life I was given is naught but learning the ways of “properness”. Learning how to present yourself properly, how to speak properly, and on and on…

You always speak of how you're constantly at risk… how death lurks in every corner… how you live on the cusp of the shadows… of society, and law…

It always sounds so romantic…

Please write back soon… your letters are the only things that keep me going…

Aurora

I sighed as I finished the letter, “Stupid girl…”

I pulled out a purple envelope, and a purple piece of paper and got to writing. When I was finished I folded the letter and sealed it in the envelope.

(«^») Aurora Faelina

8E/438Y/10M/84D 18:32 AM

One of the few joys I had in my life was sparring with Miss Lotfi. Or General Lotfi, if you prefer. Her full name was Yalina Lotfi Excalibryanna. She was from Yn Dyr but became the Alexandrian General for some unknown reason. She was quite beautiful. Pink eyes. Shoulder length blonde hair done up in an ornate bun. Her hair was braided to make a small crown. And two white dragon horns, as well as a white tail. She had white scales on the back of her hands and her chest. She was a seraph, or a half celestial half dragon. She lived in Fort Charm. She did most of her work as a general from there too. She was one of my only friends since I wasn't allowed to leave Fort Charm. Mother wouldn't allow it. The entire day felt like a waste of my time. It was exhausting. The days where Miss Lotfi would spar with me were precious. One of the only two great joys in my life.

Long ago she tried teaching me how to use a longsword, but I could never get the technique right, so nowadays I spar using naught but a simple dagger. I was decent with it, too, but I could never compare to Miss Lotfi. She could probably break me using that wooden sword.

Clack clack! She brought the sword down onto my head, and I was barely able to parry it to the side. Keeping her momentum she swung across my chest, and I stopped the swing while backstepping. She kept pushing, and I kept parrying and dodging, although I was barely able to keep up.

After about a minute of this, she stopped took a step back. “You've improved, Aurora. I'm still going easy on you, but you haven't let me hit you once.”

“I’ve kept in mind all the tips you've given me… not getting hit is more important than getting hit, no..?” I gave her a soft smile.

She grinned at me, “You're a good student. Maybe one day you'll make for a good warrior, and a good queen. The days when our queen would ride into battle would always end in heavy boasting. But sadly that queen hasn't been seen since the seventh era…” Her grin turned into a sad look.

“That was the legendary Storm Goddess-Queen of Alexandria that disappeared after the World Shift, right..?”

“Yes. It seems you're well learned too.”

“It's only because I learn these things on my own… my tutors never teach me anything other than the necessities of being queen… economics, law, etc… I guess it's nice knowing these things, but it'd be nice to learn about other things too…”

“That's what the library and the MCS is for isn't it?”

“Of course..! But they act like these things aren't important…”

She put her hand on my shoulder “You can handle, Aurora. It's not like you're some thief causing chaos out in the world who's being hunted down by several kingdoms and a handful of shadow organizations.” She gave me grin.

“That's… oddly specific…”

She gave me a bright smile, “C'mon let's do your physical training.”

(«^») 3:07 PM

After doing my physical training I bathed and laid on my bed reading a book on the World Shift. The wind blew through my window slowly swaying the curtains back and forth. I put the book down, and waited for something I could sense was coming.

It was my gift after all.

Seeing a few seconds into the future wasn't very useful outside of combat. I couldn't really think of any other use for it. Unlike my late great-great-great-grandfather who could see hundreds of years into the future.

I could see every moment, and every possible moment 85 seconds into the future and distinguish them all perfectly in my mind. And what I saw just now was a dove carrying a purple letter into my room. And sure enough a little over a minute later it happened. The well trained dove dropped the envelope directly into my hands.

This was the other greatest joy of my life at the time.

Eagerly I opened the letter and read it.

Dear Aurora,

You had me worried there for a while. I thought maybe something had happened to you… I'm glad you're okay though, and that I was worried for nothing.

You're the only one I know that wishes for a life like mine. A life where death is a constant worry. As I'm writing this I just got home from a duel. I ended up breaking the law by using one of my gifts, where the poor sod barely had a lunar aura to speak of. I would've died if I hadn't, so I guess that makes it self defense, but the law around here would never listen to the likes of me…

I'm soaked in blood right now… I can't even walk… Hopefully I won't need to see a doctor…

I always think it odd how you yearn for my life. It's dangerous living like I do. I could die at any moment. I mean, yes, I'm free, but that freedom comes at cost. I want to live, but I also don't really care if I die, but I feel like you should value your life more than I do. Given what your life is, you're probably more important than I ever will be.

Stay safe,

Iris

The letter made me smile. They always did. Iris was a person I had started a correspondence with by pure chance. One day I let a dove carrying a letter loose. I told it to find someone interesting and give them the letter. A week later the dove returned with a response.

Iris was hesitant at first, but slowly she warmed up to me. Although, neither of us has really told each other what our lives were exactly like. Iris doesn't know I'm the heiress, and I don't know what Iris’ life is like other than it's dangerous. She could be a policemen, a soldier, a huntress, a criminal. But neither of us wanted to pry.

We could just as easily use the MCS to speak to each other, but I liked the feeling of sending letters like this.