The story of a fiery avatar

Link

Hey, I'm back! Has it been a year now? I had been so busy in the last one in the mountains that I had forgotten it had been more than a year since I had mailed you. My apologies. I had been stuck in a bit with some stonework and I had the chance to have a small chat with Khala and Ral. They told me that Jarno was pretty busy too, which was why I haven't heard from him before. At least that's why Khala and Ral thought so, but that's not what I think. I think Jarno was just lazy as usual.

So, the way I see it, they were all up to the same of the things they used to do in the past. They told me they were all together, but I don't see them together unless one of them stopped by their house. Doesn't sound like a party to me, really.

I hadn't seen Cenara, of course, but Jarno seemed to go everywhere Ikker opened his doors to the world. You would have thought he had been dedicated to Ikker's work or something. It's not like they were all bragging about their achievements. There is still that barrier there. Not so much in Jarno, but in Kaibeth. I remember the same barrier being there when I had worked with her, but I think it has been become even bigger in those two years since then.

It's been a year now, and I haven't heard a word from Na'atran, but that's to be expected. It's been a year, and you would expect them to be longer in their grieving process. It's not that we aren't sad about them, even if we are somewhat disappointed that we haven't heard from them since then. We've been too busy. We've had too much work to do for us to worry about them. This is why I'm also not willing to go and check up on them. It would be a whole lot of trouble just to see that they are O.K. I don't think I have mentioned this to you, but Kaibeth and Jarno have also had this hidden distrust between them. It's not so hidden anymore with them now. It's actually very visible between them now that they're busy to return to their lives. I don't suppose that I should say anything wrong about Jarno, though. He's the only one out of our group to go above the rest in his achievements. Well, it's not like he failed the rest of us. I suppose it's just his personality. He likes to be busy for this reason. Unlike Ral, who is just busy in taking every spare moment it had to do something. Ral actually likes to do things, Jarno just likes to be busy. It's a reason why they are so different, but yet they are still so alike.

I still don't know what to make of Ral. Looking back to the past, I realize I had taken her as a child, a kid, a teenager maybe, but she wasn't. She is the same age as me. No older than any of us, but no younger either. (I'm not denying that I still find her as someone I can call a friend. I'm not denying that I think about her as something completely different.)

Back to the story.

When I saw Ral, I immediately sent a message to Karen, telling her that I would be coming back to the city to open up the new shop. It will be the new business I had talked about in the beginning, Cartography, that is, mapping. I had to come back, because I needed to show Ikker what I could do, so he would take me on. It was too late for this. It had become the last resort for me, to go back and show Ikker that I was capable of doing the things I had taught him when working with him.