Chapter Text
Salutations,
I do not know who I am writing this letter to exactly. Mayhaps it will simply be the void into which my words will drift. I am quite sure that some rogue animal will eat up this parchment entirely before another human soul will find it, but I am penning it nonetheless.
Why pain myself to such a foolhardy and pointless task, you may ask? Well, I have several reasons, none of which are very interesting and most of which are the complaints of a silly, foolish girl who truly is in no position to complain. But these thoughts, these feelings, rattle in my brain and keep me awake into the early morning hours and must be evicted from my mind. They are relentless, echoing constantly, and I cannot take it much longer. It is nearly the heart of autumn and as the days cool, my melancholy creeps in like a winter storm.
I am unhappy. I have no right to be, but I am. Loneliness has become a familiar bedfellow that I did not invite. There are times I feel like an outsider in my own social groups, never quite taken seriously enough to feel useful or valued. I have but one friend, a dear one, that I have expressed these feelings to on more than one occasion. He says he understands and as much as I want to believe him there is a part of me that knows he cannot fathom the trenches of my growing despondency.
There is, unfortunately, no easy solution to my plight. So I sit under this old tree on this cool afternoon penning this– isn’t this such a beautiful tree?– and I write in hopes that, like this tree, I can shed these feelings as leaves of a dead year and come into spring a happier woman. Perhaps once I have sealed this and tucked it away in its terrestrial home I will be able to move forward instead of being rooted to my misery.
I truly believe, however, this whole charade to be a fool’s errand. I have never been much of a starry-eyed dreamer, there is yet another part of me that hopes that everything will turn around. That I will wake up and no longer feel the weight of despair upon my chest.
So my dear reader, if you do exist. Do you have any words of wisdom for a lonely soul? Do you think that I am just being silly in this endeavour? You can be honest, if you exist at all. I’m a big girl.
Alas, I am running out of room and ink so I suppose I shall wrap this up. Thank you, stranger, if you have indeed read this. If you are some woodland creature on which these words fall deaf upon, I hope you find your belly full and your home warm during the coming winter months.
Best,
K
Caitlyn let out a sigh, setting her ink bottle and quill aside in the grass as she fanned the ink on the page, willing for it to dry faster. The wind ruffled the branches overhead, the leaves dropping in a small shower of golds, oranges, reds, and yellows as autumn had pressed upon the city with a swift hand. Soon the snows would begin and she would have to give up her favourite reading spot for a warmer situation. Perhaps that’s why she so stubbornly picked that spot that day.
Rolling up the letter, she secured it with a thin, fine blue ribbon, more for her own benefit than anything. She pulled at her skirts as she stood, ensuring that the fabric wouldn’t get tangled up in her impossibly long legs and regarded the tree with a deep reverence. The sprawling, beautiful old oak had been a staple of her childhood. A space to sit and escape the woes and expectations of the Ton, its branches stretching out wide, their cool shade creating a bubble for a young girl to exist in. She always found solace here, for trees did not care who you were. She envied them for this fact.
Her mind was too full of worrying about what she should and shouldn’t do, how to be a proper Lady, how to be a proper daughter of one of the most influential families in Piltover. The whole season had been an exhausting charade of being lovely enough to not give her family a bad reputation, but just boring enough that no man would call after her a second time. Perhaps she was the author of her own suffering, but she would rather revel in misery than marry someone for anything but a love match. She would be a spinster before then, and at the rate she was going that was sure to be her reality, much to her parents’ –specifically her mother’s– chagrin.
Pacing the trunk, her hands felt around the surface until she found the knot she was looking for. It wasn’t too large to be immediately obvious but it was sizable enough to hold her piece of parchment. Caitlyn wasn’t quite sure why she was doing this to begin with and should she tell anyone, they would colour her quite mad, but she didn’t care. She had tried everything else; perhaps just getting it out there and off to the wilds beyond would be just what she needed.
She slipped the letter in, the top barely peeking out from the hole, just high enough that a wandering eye wouldn’t catch it right away.
“Lady Caitlyn! It’s time to come in for tea! The Baroness is here.” The housekeeper, Mrs. Hastur, called out. It was time for the monthly visit of Baroness Grayson, an old family friend of the Kiramman’s. Caitlyn liked the Baroness very much, even if she was sometimes quite cryptic in her advice to the young woman. Mrs. Hastur let out an impatient huff. “Lady Caitlyn, it is not wise to keep our guest waiting. Your mother–”
“I’m coming!” She called out, pulling up her skirts and hurrying across the yard towards the estate.
Mrs. Hastur, scowled at her as she took the stairs up to the door, muttering about mud on Caitlyn’s boots and fussed with the excess strands of hair that fell from her bun. Caitlyn didn’t care. If those were her sole acts of independence, so be it. Give her the scrub brush to clean them herself if it was such a trouble. It would be far more exciting than anything else she’d done in the last twenty years of her life.