Chapter Text
...it is impossible that their motions should be made in opposite directions without their resisting each other.
*
Dear Karkat,
or I suppose that should be Don Karkat, now. The rules of etiquette are quite strict, as I understand them. But I have been calling you Karkat for too long to care. One simple ceremony cannot change that. I don't think a hundred could.
The spring is coming on here. The blossom is on the apple and the flowers in Mama's garden are quite lovely. I have started taking my Virgil outside again, to read in the courtyard. And if, on occasion, my Virgil contains a useful pamphlet on astronomy, or chemistry, or a coded letter from Rose, or one of Serenita's messages, well then so much the better. Last week I received a copy of Copernicus' book, smuggled through two countries to land on my doorstep. It's genius, Karkat. I mean, he hasn't proved it yet, not completely, but I'm sure he's right. And the writers I speak to through Serenita agree with me. If only I could do something useful, to help him and Galileo.
I'm sorry. I'm blathering. I write because I don't know what else to do. If only I could be there with you. If only I could be by your side. You have no idea how jealous I am of men, with your freedom to travel the world. There is so much I want to see and do. But I must stay here, and wait.
Come back to me soon, Karkat. I know how important this war is to you, but honour is not worth death. I would rather you were poor and here in Genoa than the wealthiest man in Spain. I am thinking of you, and in my own way, I am praying for you.
Jade
Dear Jade,
if we're going to discuss breaches of propriety like rational adults I should probably remind you that your breach is nowhere as serious as mine, stupid. You're the daughter of a Marchese, in case you've forgotten, and I'm just a foster son, born and raised to be a mendicant cavalier. So unless you'd like me to start calling you Donna Jade Harley, you'll leave off the honorifics immediately. Damn it to hell, that wasn't what I meant to write. I had an exquisite, superlative letter in my head, all about how beautiful Valencia is. We docked here yesterday, and were given just enough shore time for me to post the last letter, on a ship headed back home. I wanted to look for something to send with it, but John told me I was being silly, and then spent hours dragging me through narrow alleys and paved squares where fat old women with more wrinkles than teeth fan themselves and follow the shade. He was as unbearably exuberant as always, and it was completely nauseating, but it did provide good writing fodder, so I guess I'll forgive him. He sends his love, I should add. I'll try to get him to write himself, the lazy sot. You wouldn't miss travelling if you'd been on a boat as long as I have, eating withered apples and vomiting them back up every time a storm hits, which is every two days, as far as I can tell. John, that disgusting cretin, never gets seasick, no matter how sharply the boat lurches. Which I suppose goes to show that some men were born to be pissant merchant sailors and some men were born to be warriors and leaders. You know I can't come home. There's nothing for me in Italy, not now that all our wars have dried up. War is the only way for a man like me to get ahead in life. When I'm laden with jewels and titles and men acknowledging my riches, then I'll come visit, fifty swooning girls on each arm. On second thought, scratch the girls. I'll come at dawn, and slip through the kitchen gate. I'll throw gravel at your window, and you'll come down in your nightdress, and we'll sneak out to watch the sun rise, and you can blather about heliocentrism all you like. That sounds like a much better idea.
Karkat.
*
Jade turned the letter over in her hands, pressing her finger to the last sentence, feeling the rough tug of the parchment against her skin, the softness where the ink had dried. Like all of Karkat's letters, it was splashed with ink in a hundred places, with smears and scratches where the nib of his pen had broken. He was no great calligrapher. It didn't matter. She added the letter to her box. Two years, two hundred letters. She treasured them all, though she couldn't help wishing each one was the last.