Oh—you may enjoy this. While spending time with Gweyir, there were two skirmishes on the Rynsandoral border that we dealt with together. Neither time did I so much as draw my sword. One use for my truly dismal reputation as a merciless killer: when I show up on a battlefield, there are a significant number of people who suddenly would like to be anywhere other than that battlefield. My unexpected presence has thus saved a number of lives already, and all I had to do was to look intimidating, which I think I do quite well. It's certainly easier than being placating, at least for me.

The pressed flower is a fox-rose. There was a small hot spring along our route (truly more of a lukewarm spring, but still), and the ground around it was warm enough that some of the late-autumn wildflowers were still blooming. Fox-roses only stand a handspan high, and as you can see the flowers are the size of a thumbnail (yours, not mine) and look nothing like roses, but maybe it still carries enough scent that you can tell how it got the name. In lieu of a bouquet, as we are being friends and not paramours, perhaps this will prove to you that I am as fond of wildflowers as I said.

Either way, I saw it and was reminded of you telling me to come home, and to look forward to orchids and hot springs. It is not an orchid, nor is it rare, and as I said the hot spring wasn't very hot, but it still felt like hope, so I picked one for you. I hope you like it. Sending you a gift, however small, makes it feel less like I'm riding towards doom and more like I am on a grand adventure, so I may start collecting small things to drop into your hands if and when I get to see you again. I doubt I will find more flowers, but maybe like a boy-child I will collect some shiny rocks, an acorn or three, a few small bones, and a lock of hair or tuft of wool, and give them to you as if they are great treasures instead of momentary pleasures.

Again I have rambled my way into strangeness, because it feels like you are only a heartbeat away while I'm writing to you. I am, however, reaching the end of how much paper Gweyir's flicker-bird can flicker long distances with, so this time I suppose I'll have to actually stop.