"Well, my brother Eldred pesters me for money to support his latest scheme-it was breeding Teacup Hydra as pets for the nobility last time. I tell him they don't stop eating and growing heads, and all those heads require feeding, but he doesn't listen!
Johanna's in prison again-she was caught picking a High Septon's holy pockets. Quite a rich haul, if you can pull it off-or so she tells me. She sends me letters, asking for news and when I can get her out. I wish I could, but it's not going to be cheap this time...the new magistrate doesn't take bribes, you see, but he does take 'political donations'. And, he has designs upon a higher office.
Ingrid is doing very well for herself, though. She's got a royal sponsor now-she implied she had to do a bit of dancing for it-and is playing that lute of hers in Queen Hildergards Symphonic Aviary. She'll probably turn out the best of all her siblings, me included.
Jermia and Tandi have quit pecking around and finally are engaged to be married-a fair joke we can make of that one...Stem's back on the march, of course. There's always wars to fight, he says-and always gold to be earned. Obert...well, no ones heard from him since he went into the Snakeway to find the Percussion Root. I'm not one to count him out, though. He's gotten out of worse, and came back with stories to tell...
You remember when Ingrid played the Highlanders Lament at your wedding? She's only gotten better since, so I've heard. Ah, we were all together then, you know? My whole family...seems the Methodicals* are spread the length of the world, these days...I'm not sure if we'll ever find ourselves in one place ever again." Arvin contemplates, a bit sadly-thinking of family members that had vanished or succumbed to the tragedy in these years.
*Arvin's second name is literally "Methodical". He and his brothers and sisters (there are at least a dozen, probably more-though it's impossible they are all related by blood), were raised in a convent, after plague wiped out their only probable parents and left them all orphans. Shared hardship led to them forming friendships, and a family of their own, and most of them taking the name 'Methodical', after their convent mother-it's something of a dark joke, since she was a harsh, but fair taskmaster.