**

Fragment of Missive 11459:

"I love you."

**

Gently, tiredly, the woman lowers the lid of the small box and latches it. With the box’s light extinguished, she is left in the safety of unbroken darkness.

At least something is unbroken, she thinks in a moment of rare bitterness. The momentary bitterness catches her off-guard, and she finally admits to herself that she is distraught and tired. She is overwhelmingly tired. She is tired of planning, tired of hiding, tired of being strong for the others. She is tired of the sound of her own dry, wracking sobs which echo in the solitude of her rooms, sobs that do nothing to assuage her sorrow.

It occurs to her that she cannot remember a time before this sorrow. Nor can she remember a time when every day was not a burden.

Every morning she wakes in darkness, knowing that her arms are empty, that they will always remain empty.

Every morning, she thinks that it should be against the laws of gods and nature for parents to survive their children, especially children such as hers: her son, wise beyond his years from the moment he took his first breath; and her daughter, from birth beautiful and gracious, both within and without.

Every morning, she thinks the same thing, that her beloved children were wrenched from her arms too soon.

And that she does not know how she will survive in this darkness without them.

**

Fragment of Missive 11457: "Help us."

**

As she locks the box into its protective canister, she remembers them. Her son, whose amber-dark eyes revealed the antiquity of his soul. Her daughter, whose golden hair shone with the beauty of her spirit. Their closest friend, whose jaw indicated the determination of his temper. The fourth, the bride who was the newest addition to their quartet, whose tiny figure hid a surprising strength.

From the first, she remembers, the two boys were friends. Although they were different in almost every way, they were inseparable. It was as if when they met, each boy recognized in the other a strength to match his weakness. Where one boy was a born leader, calm and rational almost to a fault, the other boy was a born warrior, loyal and fierce almost to a fault. They were destined to become friends, she had always thought, for each had what the other needed.

Their friendship remains, she knows, as storied among their people as their partnership. Her son, the beloved leader of their people, and his second-in-command, who was his most loyal friend and trusted partner ... who was also the betrothed of his sister, his sister who was also her daughter.

From the first moment her daughter was laid as a baby in her arms, she recognized the tiny girl as the daughter of her heart. As a child, her daughter spent hours sitting beside her, content to listen to the old stories of their people before the Enemy came. She would brush her daughter’s long golden hair and tell her of the joys and mundanities of womanhood, and her daughter would laugh and tell her of the joys and satisfactions of fighting for what she believed in....

The thought of golden hair reminds her of the fourth, her son’s young bride. Regretfully, she thinks that the fourth was torn away too soon, was too new in their lives for her to recall anything other than the fact that her son appeared to be happy.

The four were all happy, she remembers. They laughed and loved and led until the Enemy came, and then her four, her beloved ones, became four martyrs, perished heroes and heroines, commemorated in stories and songs.

The sob that clutches her throat at that thought startles her, jerks her rudely into the present. She realizes that she has been standing lost in memories for so long that the darkness has almost completely given way to daylight, taking with it its meager measure of safety. Almost paralyzed by fear, she hurries to hide once more.

As she stumbles across the pebble paths in the half-light, she scrubs at the tears on her cheeks; she cannot let their people see her despair. It would be unworthy of her children, who lived and died for all of them.

Within minutes, she is at the foot of the grassy hill. As she searches the side of the hill for the hidden entrance of the place where their people hide during the day, she thinks that for once she might welcome hearing the stories and songs the people use to revive their spirits and keep their fears at bay. The people, especially the children, still tell stories about her children and the ones they loved. The children, she recalls, are especially enchanted by the stories about the four’s destined return to help them, to free them from this hillside and its darkness.

Finally she finds the entrance and slips inside the hill.

As she winds her way through the underground passages, which are dark except for the circle of light cast by her torch, she changes her mind about wanting to hear the stories and songs. She decides that she cannot bear to hear them because she is afraid that her four beloved ones will never return to help.

She does not want to admit to herself that she cannot bear to hear the songs and stories because her memories are too painful and her arms too empty.

And because she is afraid that she will never again hold her children in her arms.

**

Fragment of Missive 11436:

"Learn enough to use your skills, your knowledge, your leadership to combat the Enemy, so you can come back and free us."

**

When she arrives at the encampment buried deep within the heart of the hillside, she smiles reassuringly at the people who look to her for reassurance, but her mind is elsewhere.

She is thinking about the missive she has just enclosed in the latched box, the box which she locked in its protective canister to keep it safe from the prying eyes and ears of their Enemy.

She hopes that her children will hear and understand her missive some day.

Their lives and the lives of their people depend on it.

Their people depend, she believes, on their realizing their destinies, on their learning enough about who they had been so they can return as who they are to help their people who are languishing in this darkness. The people need the combined skills, knowledge, and leadership of all her children.

Beyond a doubt, she thinks, their people are lost without her son’s leadership, his authority and decisiveness, his ability to think carefully and rationally. Their people also need her daughter’s knowledge, her ability to see into the conscious and subconscious minds and hearts of people. Their people also miss the skills of her son’s best friend and her daughter’s betrothed, who upon reaching adulthood had proven himself more powerful and skilled in using his abilities than any of them.

But are skills, knowledge, and leadership enough to defeat the Enemy and rescue a race? she wonders suddenly. She berates herself for forgetting to mention in her missive the most important lesson her children need to learn, which is that they need to follow their hearts with courage and conviction.

Without their hearts, she knows, all will be lost.

And all the skills, knowledge, and leadership in the worlds will not be enough to help their people.

**

Fragment of Missive 11450:

"And that I may once again hold you both in my arms ... I live for that moment."

**

She knows that when they see her image that is not her image that they will doubt it. Her profoundest pain is that her beloved children will not remember her. They will not remember that they are her martyred children. They will not know that every day her empty arms mock her.

As she tucks the canister containing the box which contains her missive to her children into a safe place behind a brick in her rooms, where it will wait for the day when they will activate its message, she wonders who will take her place in the new lives of her children.

Tears blind her as she wraps her empty arms around herself, wondering what new mother will hold her children in her arms.

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