The Depth of Perception

Viducia

Mom,

I wanted to write to you as soon as I arrived in Viducia, but I couldn't be sure I was out of danger. It's been quiet for so long now I have to I imagine they've lost track of me. I hope you'll forgive my silence...

Anyway, I wrote this letter to catch you up on my life, not to dwell on the past. I think you knew I was well, as my capture would have been big news in Owvry.

I spent a couple years in Garrabrae, with a family of Romantics. They're such wonderful people. I hope you get to meet them all someday. I learned to dance and cook and whittle and repair a carriage... well, the normal kind anyway. They have mechanical ones here, that move on their own power, but I don't understand how they work even after years of my friend Wrench trying to force it into my head.

But eventually, I needed to move on. Even though Wrench and her family wouldn't have cared about my eyes, I couldn't risk them finding out. It would put them in too much danger.

I was originally going to come back to Mardok, since I've been learning a lot about defending myself and could probably pass myself off as a Cynic anyway, but I wasn't sure if, even then, people would still be looking for me there. So when Wrench suggested I go to Genethan with her when she left home for school—since I could probably hear news of home from there—I thought it was a great idea.

And it really was! Genethan is so huge, you wouldn't believe it! You could fit Owvry Village into it a hundred hundred times! There is so much to see and do here you wouldn't be able to experience it all in your entire lifetime. And there are wonderful machines everywhere, like nothing you've ever seen. You should really visit one day.

I got so caught up in everything and loved it here so much I didn't want to leave. But when I talked to a traveller who had come from Mardok and she said that the 'two eyed monster' had vanished without a trace and that most of them thought it hadn't really existed, I had to at least send you a letter so you'd know how I've been.

I'm going to stay here for another year so Wrench isn't alone while she finishes school, but then I will come back home, I promise. Whether it's dangerous or not.

I hope this letter finds you well, and you can always write me back at the Rusty Cog boarding house in the Engineering district of Genethan. I love you, and I miss you!

Oriana Gale

× × ×

"I hope yer almost done, Ori. We've got ta get ta da post quick if we're goin' ta have time ta do some sigh'seein'."

"Coming!" Oriana jerked the letter back and forth in front of her, drying the ink. She folded it and stamped the wax closed using the seal she'd bought in Owvry village years ago. The seal and register, once hated reminders of the worst of Cynic society, had become sentimental purely because they were some of the very few things she had left from her old life.

The door of their room nearly closed on the jacket trailing behind her as she rushed into the hall to find Wrench waiting for her. Wrench laughed.

"No need ta panic! We got a few minutes 'til she slips her moorin's."

"I know, but I really don't want to miss it again," Oriana panted, already heading down the hall. "Last time it left early."

Wrench followed Oriana down the hall, chuckling. "She do disappear in a real hurry sometimes, don't she? Used ta be ya could see her in da dock for days before she left, but I guess summa dem hoity toity types complained about da sun and now dey hide her away 'til she's ready ta go."

They waved to the proprietor of the boarding house on their way out the front door, Wrench with a hearty motion and a smile, Oriana without so much as a sideways glance or a cursory twinkle of fingers. The street outside was crowded with midday goings-on—citizens shopping and rushing around for work or errands—and Oriana found herself unable to maintain a satisfactory pace.