Sender: unknown
Origin: unknown
Received: 20 October, Tuesday
Decrypted message reads:
My dear Mother and Father,
It has been too long since we have last spoken. I am glad you are in good spirits, and that Father’s health has been improving. I look forward to the day when I can invite you out here to live with me in Minneapolis, my newly adopted home. This city has much to recommend it, and I am certain you will find it as pleasant as I do.
Unfortunately, I do think it will be a while yet before I can officially welcome you. For one thing, I do not currently have a permanent residence. I have been looking for a suitable place, both to live and to set up the new ReginaPro offices, but it is slow going. Faced with the choice of living in the home of my recently departed wife or moving long-term into a hotel, I have chosen the hotel. I find that I sleep more soundly when not surrounded by somewhat oppressive memories of her.
The complications with the insurance company are close to being fully resolved. My attorneys are confident that I will receive the full settlement, since the inspectors have blamed the building explosion on a gas leak. The state of Minnesota is actually changing its inspection policies to ensure that such a disaster does not occur again. Once the financial end is complete, I will begin searching in earnest for an appropriate new property.
I shall now switch to news of a more delicate nature. I have finalized my meeting plans with the two former Waking Guardians, the mentors of the girls who suffered in the crossfire of my altercation with my wife. They have agreed to meet me, alone but in a public space, four days hence.
I have given long thought to what I wish to say and to ask them about the history of their organization in the millennia since you and your generation went into its deep sleep. I will ask them some of the questions you suggested, but not all. I hesitate to say this, but I believe that some of the questions you would like the Waking Guardians to answer would be appropriate to their forebears but not to them. Remember, although you were there at the time of the appointing of the original Waking Guard, hundreds of generations have passed in the interim since. Even as the world has changed, so too I expect that the Waking Guard is very little like what you remember it to be.
I remain very busy here, but it is good to be in command of my own destiny and able to make choices about the direction of my life. I will try to find time to call at a reasonable hour, soon.
Stay safe, and find strength in my love for you.
Your only one,
Da’ashalenne
(Continue to Brook's outbox.)
