Year of the Emperor 267, Yule
My Lord Otto,
I write not in defiance, but in augury. Alaric, our son, is upon his seventh year. It is time for him to leave his mother and proceed to his father's forge. Yet I fear his softness leaves him exposed to the world he is about to enter.
He watches ants in the garden and speaks of their journeys as if they were knights on pilgrimage. He listens to tales of dragons not with the cold eye of a tactician, but with the heart of one who dreams. I do not say this to soften him, but to warn that such sentiment, if left untempered, may become a chink in his armor.
There is strength in wonder, my lord. But wonder must be forged into steel. I ask that you apply your discipline not to extinguish his flame, but to shape it—to make him strong without making him hollow.
He will be Hesan, yes. But let him be ready.
Yours in duty and devotion,
Mechthild