Sylvirah had never been one for voluntary shopping, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

With Zyphire away and a newborn to care for, on top of a toddler and two older children, Sylvirah was beyond overwhelmed. She’d written to her partner multiple times only for each week to yield similar results. Either Zyphire had been horribly maimed and couldn’t return or the letters were missing.

While she was receiving as much help as possible from the Ild’vann and extended family Sylvirah still worried. She’d written to him halfway through her pregnancy because the symptoms were slow to come on and hadn’t stopped even after their daughter had come into the world. Her letters may not have been the most articulate, but Sylvirah had tried and more often than not Yngvara was the one to proof read them before a courier would pick them up. He should have been here by now. Even with the snows as they were the paths weren’t impassable, and several of the hunters, her own children included, had taken to extra patrols just to keep an eye out. Still, Zyphire was no where to be seen and Sylvirah was trying to cope.

When Silfi reached her third week and had taken to staying awake when Revna was sleeping, and vice versa, leaving their mother sleep deprived Sylvirah reached a breaking point.

It was early in the day when she’d strapped the infant to her chest and stalked toward the courier’s office. Originally the night before she was supposed to drop Yngvara and Ziya off with their Uncle and his family. Instead, she’d ended up falling asleep on their couch and waking up to a blanket tucked around her with the girls safely snuggled up for the night. Instead of knocking Sylvirah burst through the doorway and looked around the room until her eyes landed on the boy who’d taken her letters.

He was a teenager, all gangly limbs and elbows, with a nose that was too big for his face. While most couriers preferred to stay away from the Ild’vann he’d taken to coming around the village once every two weeks and had developed a relationship with them. One that had taken a hard blow as of late. As soon as he saw her the lad shrank down behind the counter. “M-Miss Sylvirah, what-“

“I wrote dozens of letters-“ Stalking up to the counter, Sylvirah slammed her hands down on top of it and looked over the top at him. Silfi didn’t so much as stir. “-and yesterday I was told you couldn’t DELIVER THREE OF THEM?! When were you planning on telling me?! Why couldn’t you deliver them?”

Unbeknownst to her the longer Sylvirah’s tirade went on the more she started to slip into her native tongue. By the end of it she was cursing the lad, the entire establishment, and the city itself while her newborn slept on.

In fact, the mother was gathering a number of onlookers. Whether it was because she was clearly exhausted and yelling, the indecipherable language, or the frightened teenager no one could truly tell.

“Well, uhm…it’s the way you write? I can’t really tell where I need to send it…” He dug around his pack for a little bit before pulling up one of her letters and sliding the folded parchment onto the table. “This isn’t Zenan; I don’t even know what this is. Some of them I was able to send, but these…are they runes? Letters? I don’t know.”

“It CLEARLY says ‘Zyphire of the Ild’vann’”. She tapped the paper a few times with her index finger while the other hand moved up to press against Silfi. She’d started to slip around as Sylvirah went on her tirade and without breaking eye contact with the courier she started to fix the papoose.

“….Does it though?”

“Do you think I’m stupid?”

“No! I just think we had a miscommunication.” The teen held his hands up and took a deep breath. “A few of the letters I was able to send out so he should have either gotten them or would be getting them anytime now. I just…didn’t know the Ild’vann spoke another language before I took the job and I’m sorry!”
Now that she was starting to calm down Sylvirah looked over the letters as he pulled them out of his satchel and laid them across the counter. Each one that hadn’t been delivered was indeed in her native language, or at least, as best she could write it down. The Ild’vann didn’t any form of written communication so it was a mixture of common and how her own words could be translated which meant it was, indeed, a mess. Maybe in her rush to bring Zyphire home she hadn’t noticed? None of them looked like the ones that Yngvara had proofread so evidently her daughter caught on to the mistakes.

“Well…next time say something before you leave!” Sylvirah snatched up the letters and gave the teen one last hard look before stomping out.

[837]