Excerpts from Fatima's Journal (Post Corwin's Departure)
Oh, Allah, most high and most beneficent. Please hear my prayer and look kindly upon it's recipient. Please, oh merciful Allah, shed your grace upon my brother, Merlin. Guide and guard him in this his time of suffering. Heal him of his woes and wounds. And stand by him until he is once more able to stand on his own. Oh, please Allah, let him be well once more.
Omen.
I... oh, my dear brother. Please, *please* be alright. Please be healed. I... cannot lose both you and he in one day... Merlin.
I... it's almost enough to make one laugh. Having made my decision to feel once more, to come out of the guarded shell of manners and give myself to the passions of life... suddenly there are enough passions to try any heart.
Or perhaps, I am just so unused to feeling that I don't do it well.
Today... today, today, today.
Today has been an interesting day. In the Hanese manner.
It began when I was awoke from a much-needed slumber to discover that...
Do you know, my brother, I had discussed this possibility with another of our siblings? Entirely in the abstract, I assure you. Were our father and yourself to become unavailable to Argent, what would we do?
I... the answer that we arrived at mirrors our father's decision uncomfortably. And thus, in actuality instead of cold theorizing, my father is gone. And I am named Regent of Argent. And although I disagree with your reasons for not stepping into that roll, oh my brother, I will accept them as it is your right to not wish for this.
And then, of course, while my siblings and I were standing around discussing this, our Home was attacked. Again. Endlessly and for ever again. Though, thank Allah, our attackers did not seem to be aware of the changes that had occurred that very morning.
That did not prevent them, though, from striking at you... most cruelly and effectively, oh my brother.
Your trump call... so weak. It tore at my heart. And when I came to you... your blood... everywhere and burning. And so, as nearly my first act as Regent, I -- as Kevin so succinctly put it -- panicked.
As I have ever been aware that you are a different nature of being than myself, oh my brother, I... could not determine the nature of your injury. Nor how to treat it. As I held you cradled to me, all I could remember was that even as the Well of Souls was a place of Death, the Font was a place of Life. (I have since been informed that I was incorrect in this assumption.)
It was Sterling, though my brother, who thought clearly and brought us both along with Rune, to a place where you ceased to burn. For that, I will ever be eternally grateful.
From there, my... misjudgments compounded upon one another. It was our Uncle Brand, my brother, who did the stitchery upon your back and whom (with Rune's assistance) provided the transfusion that saved your life. I...
I... pray, I *pray* that it is only myself from whom our Uncle chooses to exact his price from for this incident. I do not fear for Rune, but yourself and Sterling... ai, I wish that I had thought more clearly than to involve that... thing in our lives even one iota more.
And now... and now yet again, I owe him. For while any could have saved your life, my dear brother, it *was* he that did so. And at my request... shit.
It's the little things, my brother. The little things.
At the end of a day full of confusion, full of... feelings, full of fire and fluster, a single sight seems to have set my feet forward from this moment.
Our father's liquor cabinet, in our father's office. Filled... not with scotch, but with Ouzo. I... I don't recall asking anyone to do that. It just... happened. Fatima's will in the place of Corwin's.
At first the sight filled me with misgivings. I felt like a small child standing in her father's shoes. It seemed... somehow wrong to me, that the Castle or anyone should accept me as a substitute for the... what? Magnificence, glory? No, perhaps just the sheer vitality that is our father. I am in no way comparable.
And yet.... 'the great and powerful Fatima' whispers my brother's voice in my heart.
And I have to smile. No, I am not my father. I am not comparable to him. *Because* I am young.
Because I am young I will make stupid mistakes. I will take you into Brand's hands. I will not be able to anticipate the guiles of the ancient enemies arrayed against us. I will not be able to hold the power our god-like opponents hold in my hands. I will choose from the heart instead of from the mind. And I pray that these are things that won't kill us all before our father returns.
*But* but... because I am young, I am not weighed down by millennia of regret and remorse. Because I am young, I can still -- occasionally -- forgive myself. Because I am young, I can look an enemy in the face and hold my hand until I understand what is at stake. Because I am young, because we are all still very young, we can love one another and trust one another. And I think that it is these are things that will actually let us *live* until our father returns.
Ouzo in the place of scotch. Hope in the place of despair.
I am *glad* that I was named Regent in our father's absence. And I am *glad* that father is actively working on the... mire that is Argent's reality. I know that it is tied to his heart, and I wish, I wish him all the best, all the happiness he can find. I also wish that he was able to work on that here, with his family, in his city. But if he is not... then, well he is not.
And what has been left seems to me to be the best of answers.
And I am very happy that *you* are still here to aid me, oh my brother. I am happy that Kevin sits there, smiles and takes over all of the foreign affairs. I am happy that Rune teases me with his gentle laugh. I am happy that Kei asks how she may aid. I am happy that Sterling nods curtly. I... do not know how Penelope or Wynn will take this news. But that the majority of my siblings seem... okay with this... transition is a blessing. Perhaps the greatest blessing that I could ever have been given.
Thank Allah, in his infinite wisdom, mercy and patience.
