To the Regency of Hashan,

Like the Ensign, I too was recently severed and would like to once more have the privilege of its elegant power. I think I make a decent argument. I have enduring ties to your citizens, I am a leader of one of your Houses. I am productive tax-payer given my shops. I've also written a great deal of your scholarship, including on this very topic.

I also am not a big fan of Radiation, which you know. Not my style. I'm more of a Spatial or Nocturne kinda lady.

Why do I want it? Well that's complicated:

In the first, I am the Shepherdess of the Stars. It is a star. Silly, I know.

In the second, the first time I beheld it I wept at the beauty it held, its majesty, and the unlimited possibility it held. And so we wielded it! Through Woe, the Undead, the battle against the Soulbleed, against Thiesekh. Many of these projects I led, and along with Zorina and Kaburia, we developed the method of channeling it into the Golem.

Remember when we tried to name him and we landed on Oytemir? I always liked my name better. Tor'teth, the Tower of War. I liked it for it sounded like "Tortoise" but with a lisp. So I called the multi-story monster "my little turtle." Very cute.

I know damn well why you don't want random 'alchemists' who have only the vaguest notions regarding it to wield it. I feel that, I was a gleefully aggressive Seneschal of the Wellspring, I hunted these people down. I also feel the same way about clueless depthswalkers so on some level I'm probably kind of elitist.

Even worse is when they do know and are filled with bad intent. You and I know the math that follows catastrophe and that can't be allowed to happen. Keeping it from these people is a public service most will never understand.

But the worst, let me tell you, was the disrespect. I hated it. The way the zealots were perplexed that we have a care for our identity.

I had one which rings forever in my mind, I will share: so this man sends me a random tell out of the blue and when I tell you I don't talk to him, I mean we aggressively avoid it. We know each other. We hate each other. And yet, politics is a job and there is a history of mutual benefit with the group that claims him. Lets not be hasty, lets hear him out.

I very reasonably explained to him that having stood before this miracle, it was an incredible experience and to me it was sacred.

You know what this man said? You aren't going to believe it, but then again they have probably said it to you too:

"Uh, actually, no it isn't."

Regents, I hit that button so hard I thought I broke it. Took a week for the numbness in my hand to fade. He was already working at a deficit given years of intentional animosity, and he picked that?

I don't know who you consider the expert on the Wellspring these days, but if we're being honest we'd agree I'm on the list of the well-studied, theoretical and practical.

You also know that I respect its might, not simply looking for a new flavor of pyrotechnics. I may not be a citizen and yet there is no one among you who can honestly claim I have ill-intent toward Hashan. Some of its citizens I may not be fond of but those are individual conflicts.

Should you find yourself nodding, may I humbly ask to know that warmth that one feels when the Strong-Spirit-Sea become a storm within your blood, for old times' sake?

And if not, alright, very fair for all the reasons listed above. Sentiment isn't really how we do things anyway.

I'm sure some people around there have unkind words for me, but I am undeniably a formidable asset. Should a time or situation arise where we must make a deal, you may consider this the opening price. Alas I can't rejoin as no one wants me and the aforementioned to share a CT anymore, especially not me. No one would be able to hear themselves think, it's awful.

In the meanwhile, tell Tsuura I love her and miss her. Sometimes on quiet nights, I can sill hear the thrum of her power, and see phantom motes of starlight at the corner of my eyes. I can still hear the faint rasp of claws on the iron door behind me.

That is what peace and serenity sounds like, Regents; unfathomable power, and the claws of mindless horrors yearning to rip you apart.

Home sweet home.

Countess Nezaya Visindi,
Witch

Penned by my hand on the 14th of Sarapin, in the year 1000 AF.