Good Mother

[shosen]

Dear Mother,

I don’t know for certain you’re out there, but I suppose it hardly matters. I’m just going to burn this letter anyway. Let the smoke and ash carry the thoughts where they will.

You never said much about your life before. I know you hinted at and encouraged certain lines of speculation, but I’ve never believed them. I think your life was a lot harder than you wanted any of us to know or believe. I think that’s why you were able to work so harder to get what you wanted, even if it meant not caring about what the people around you needed.

I think it left you just cold enough that you would have made a wonderful noblewoman. I just wish it hadn’t also made you such a horrible mother. To be honest, I can’t decide whether or not I blame you for it. Maybe the feelings we have for family are too simple and too complicated for that. I hate you as much as I love you, and it’s not likely to be resolved.

There are people I have met who have been changed by their life experiences. By their death experiences, even. Sometimes, I wonder if you would have been like Anastascia. From what she says, you had everything except breeding in common. Maybe your life would have made such a change impossible, but I like to think that you could have begun to care.

But I wouldn’t wish this fate on you just to achieve that. I prefer to think that you left, are somewhere safe, maybe Stormwind, and that you’re alive and well. Don’t worry, I don’t want to find you so I’m not going to try looking. I’ve said before that if you wouldn’t have accepted me in life, you wouldn’t accept me now. I know that, but I think seeing it played out would break something in me, so I won’t give it the opportunity.

I don’t fit your image anymore. You know exactly what you think you should look and act and talk like. It’s all image, though. You aren’t anything like Solielle. You’d never believe that a Lady could still be a Lady in armour and arms, but she is. And she loves her son, no matter what his form, not matter what it looks like to those that don’t know or understand. That isn’t you.

It’s all right. I understand that you just don’t have that capacity. Though, I do like to think that you wish you could. It wouldn’t have saved anything for us, but maybe it would have changed things enough that you could have loved another child. I know you can’t have anymore, but there are orphans here and I’m certain there are some in Stormwind. In every city in both empires, actually, and not all of them are too poor for you to bother with.

So I understand, I do, and I wish you well wherever you are and in whatever your doing. I want to you be happy. I want you to have everything you wanted. I want you to life the life you dreamed of. But I don’t forgive you, and I won’t. And I need to accept that. I can’t feel guilty for it anymore. I won’t.

Your daughter,

Koani