Lady Blackthorne

“I am sorry to tell you that Lady Blackthorne has passed away. She died in childbirth”

Right. You’re from Millen, I know you are, because you told me. So, do I know Lady Blackthorne? Bah, who am I kidding. The number of Millenese noblewomen I know I could fit on the fingers of my head. Fiona’s taking it a bit hard, but she’s always had more connections with Millen than I have. Blackthorne … Blackthorn?… I’m sure I don’t know. It’ll bug me for a while, though. However, things to do, people to see. For a start, Dreamer’s been telling me to visit the Golden Dragon since the new year, I should do that…

And the evening passed, and with it the daylight, and W. Detail Marshall wanderered up and down the event site, talking to people, collecting information, spreading information, checking in on people he needed to speak to, and eventually:

“Millen is a bit fraught at the moment, with the Comte being away and Ansellina’s death…”

Someone more tactful than I would not describe the following silence as pregnant.

“Ansellina’s… dead?”

“I assumed you’d heard, she died in childbirth a fe” and at this point he might have well have ceased to exist. I nodded, and I smiled, and I breezed though until he went away, and when he did…

Lady Blackthorne. Ansellina. Oh my lady, I’m sorry.

Oh, Fiona, I’m so very sorry. The news of a close friend treated as a random aquaintance.

Ansellina was dead. There were five people in the new world who put me down the path I follow today, and none of them will ever know it. Toramaline, Erin, Amlie and now Ansillina are all gone, and not only did I not even realise, I’m going to be too busy to go to her wake. Or Mechna’s. Or Jig’s.

Right. This isn’t working. Time to get something… done.