Hello little brother.
I know you hate that, but that midwife always said you came out second, but I was second best! I know we used to joke that way, but when I left all those years ago, a part of me was trying to escape that story, I think.

It doesn’t matter, now about who was right or wrong. The army taught me that, and being a henchman to the wealthy taught me even more.

At first being filled with all that purpose felt good. New identity. Rebuilt. The power invested in weapons was a useful distraction. But as I write this, on route with the same circus home who visited us all those years ago, I write you as one who realizes that they were wearing another player’s mask.

The last palace I worked at, owned by a wealthy and arrogant wizard, had a library to make a scholar blush. That was my charge: guard the books, scrolls, and keep my mouth shut. It didn’t hurt that I was tall enough to hand the wizard his books, sparing him the use of the ladder. Wizards are creatures of comfort and convenience, really, especially the rich ones.

On late, lonely nights, I eventually tired of staring at the spines of the books and started to study their contents. A new world unfurled itself and I learned that the mind is the body in ways I could have never predicted. I learned to move without moving, speak without speaking, and fly without flying. This last gift stings the most, actually. For some time now, and for reasons I have yet to unravel, I cannot move the same as I once could. We’re both too young (even you, little brother!) to have age be the reason for this. You’ll see what I mean if you want to meet.

I wasn’t sure how you’d be about me coming back after all this time, so I have left this letter for you to read alone and to make your choice. I take no slight if you choose not to meet me.

Lives are painfully short and our paths our own. If, as I truly hope, that you want to reconnect, you can find me staying behind the main tent. I’m not getting paid to guard this circus, but it helps to be within it to learn about what might have happened to us both.

You know where to find me. I’m still too tall and too blue for my own good, as the old Aunties used to say.

until then, Badal