The Mat-Zemlya Companion, Part 3

 Beloved Gerald, 

The time I have spent apart from you has been torturous. Even though I recall many adventures apart, these last few months have felt far more disheartening than usual. I have resigned myself to this life in this strange land to some extent. Still, most of my body and soul are devoted to reuniting with you and reaching home again. I miss many of the mundane routines we kept while we were together, and I cannot wait until we can indulge in them again. 

Thankfully, Elise and Mellan have been a small blessing to keep my hopes high during this time. Elise especially, even with the new addition to the house. Not another child, thank the gods. Although it acts like a child. It appears to be a golden dragon hatchling that Elise has named Balthazar. (Bal for short, as Elise has asked me to specify to you. She is watching me write this.) Balthazar -Bal- has been a handful, but also a wonder to watch Elise raise. It has grasped onto both Dracconic and Common fairly quickly, as well as another language I am not familiar with. It seems that Elise and her friend Deanne taught Bal recently. Children and their secret languages. (Elise wants me to clarify that they are not children. Both she and Deanne are 15 years old. Barely starting their secondary education, as she puts it.) Thankfully, all I have had to do is purchase food to keep Bal fed, which has been easy given that Elise won all that money when she got Bal, and Bal being a gold dragon that is willing to randomly produce money when needed. I don’t know where it gets said money from, but I don’t really want to know. 

What I actually wanted to write to you about was something Mellan and I discovered. Mellan and I have been studying this phenomenon called Nodo Fati. I know I asked you to use this phrase in a question to our pesky Time Walker without really explaining it. The way it was told to me by Mellan, Nodo Fati are parts of time and space where multiple realities and even timelines of said realities collide. Mellan has told me there are two major ways to have it happen: by blood or by bond. And he thinks this may help us. 

Mellan and Elise have been observing your group and noticed that you interacted with a dragon. A gold dragon, even. Mellan mentioned that said gold dragon may have an item that is connected to another item that Bal can find in this world. And the bond between said items could trigger a connection between our worlds that could allow us to reunite! I am so giddy with even the prospect of this being a possibility! Mellan and I are going to take Elise to a special natural space in this world. While Elise is out with her new friends, Mellan and I are going to conduct a test with an item that Mellan has from another world. I didn’t realize this could be a real thing, all of this “other worlds” and “other timelines” stuff. I thought that pesky Time Walker was just… mentally disturbed, for lack of a more polite phrase. She still might be though, given what we both know of her. Regardless, Mellan and I are going to conduct a test, then hopefully Bal will find the item we need to reunite again.

Hope to see you soon! 

Your love, 

Vivian

~ ~ ~

    To be in a world that is not your own is an odd feeling. Sure, it's a world you can adjust to, but it's not your world. It's like going on a vacation or travel for work in a new country. You know you will be fine, you know you will be able to take care of yourself, but it is not home. It is not where you feel your core being. 

    But there is always a way back. You just have to use it.