Submission (#3125) Approved

Caspian’s fosters do their best to establish a healthy amount of worldliness in all their wards, so they dedicate several trips a year to taking the kittoms to every habitable corner of Eyre. He often snoozes their planned outings away, but thankfully they don’t seem to mind; one nap in every region is better than a dozen in the same place! 

This winter sees the small group heading to Ahza for the first time. While most of the kittoms are fascinated with the huge expanse of sand, sliding down hills and burying each other in the golden dunes, Caspian has a hard time traversing through the desert. It’s hot and bright and it makes him so, so sleepy - not in the comforting way that feels like a warm hug, but in the groggy, draining, yucky way that he really isn’t too fond of. He sleeps most of the journey curled up in the caravan under a cold blanket. 

He’s able to recover once they reach the small town surrounding the oasis in the center of the region. A nice splash in the cool, sparkling waters perks him right up! The day passes by slowly as everyone rests from the journey and mingles with the locals. 

Caspian doesn’t often have feelings of homesickness, but he finds himself missing a certain kittom. Though he and Yuki may have only met this past year, he’s grown quite attached to the prickly lone ‘nin. It’s the first winter since they begun spending a good amount of their time together and he never really thought about how he wouldn’t be able to see her for a whole season when his foster family set out for Ahza and left their home region behind. 

After expressing his newfound loneliness to his foster mom, she suggests that he write his friend a letter about his travels and she’ll send it off with the next Adventurer party. So that’s exactly what he does! He writes about how hot it is in Ahza and asks her if she’s ever been there. About how tired the walk across the desert made him. Oh, but he did find this really cool rock in the sand on the way. He wants to send that along with the letter so Yuki can get a better idea of his experience.

He wonders if she’s lonely and missing him, too. Maybe he can make her something to think of him through the long winter just in case she is. Ahza doesn’t have much foliage in the desert-y parts, but there are these really pretty blue and white flowers that grow around the oasis. He plucks a few and crafts them into a delicate crown she can wear, just like he always does with the various flora they find together in Enmir.

The water tastes different here, he’s noticed. It’s extra refreshing, but not as sweet as the water in Faerindell or as salty as Palu’au. He decides to include that in the letter. Actually… better yet, he’ll include the water itself! A quick trip back out to the oasis and he’s got a small bottle of the stuff.

This ‘letter’ of his was quickly turning more into a parcel, but he thinks everything is equally important and necessary to have. He sits down to write her name on the box: Yuki, with a flower replacing the dot below the i since her markings always reminded him of flowers, no matter how upset she gets whenever he points it out. It’s when he has to write the destination of the package that he realizes he has no idea exactly where she lives. He hopes her name and a crudely drawn map to their usual hangout spot will be enough for the mail carrier to go off of.

He and his foster mom pass it along to the helpful Adventurer caravan and watch as they lead their wagon out of town. It’s not the same as actually being able to see her, but writing that letter managed to ease a bit of his homesickness and he can’t wait to see if she sends one back.