The Vampire Princess: Balancing The Elements

10. Vivacie

Caspian's POV

"Caspian, come on. You've been sitting inside for weeks. Come outside and do something," Jaelyn begged. 

"I don't feel like it, Jae," I said back, sighing. Her and Anastasia had been taking turns harassing me for hours and it was getting to be really draining. "I just want to sit here and write my letter."

"You haven't written anything down in the past two hours," she pointed out. 

"Well I'm working on it," I shot back. 

"Sure you are," she said, clearly not believing me, "why are you so hesitant to write to her anyway?"

I considered pretending that I didn't know what she was talking about, but decided against it. If I didn't tell her, then she would just have another thing to harass me about. "Because she never responds."

"She probably would if you actually sent any of the letters you write."

"I've sent every letter I've written," I defended, "she just hasn't replied. To any of them."

"Caspian," she said sadly, "if you don't want to send them then fine, but you don't need to lie to me about it."

"I'm not lying," I told her, getting annoyed, "she sends her wolf down here every few days, and I send all the letters I've written with him, and then she never responds. It doesn't even make sense to send the wolf in the first place if the communication is one-sided."

"So if you send all the letters, how do you explain the pile of them right there?" She asked, sounding irritated and pointing in the direction of Anastasia's corner of the cave. 

"Jaelyn, there isn't anything over there," I told her snappily, "even if I did never send the letters, why would I keep them with Anastasia's stuff?"

She huffed at me, walking away. I sighed in relief, turning back to the pen and paper in my hand. All I could do was stare at it blankly. What do you say to someone who's been avoiding you for 3 weeks? "Hi Zariah. Was just wondering why you've been ignoring me. Hope it wasn't that kiss"? I shook my head at the thought. That was stupid. 

There was suddenly a huge stack of letters thrown in my lap. "Still gonna keep lying to me?" Jaelyn asked irritably. 

"Lie about wh-" my sentence was cut off when I looked down at the letters. Zariah, the top one read. Ok, that's weird, I thought to myself. There was no way they were all labelled Zariah though. I had sent all the letters. That top one must have been a fluke. The second one also had her name on it. The third too, and the fourth. I was quickly shuffling through the massive pile, all of the envelopes having the same addressee on them. 

"This doesn't make any sense," I muttered to myself, "I sent them all. I put them in Statera's collar and watched him leave with them..."

"Wait, so you actually didn't deliberately not send them?" Jaelyn asked, shocked. 

"No," I said annoyed, "I've been telling you that for the past ten minutes."

"But then why are they here?" she questioned. 

"I'd like to know the same thing."

"And why are they with Anastasia's things?"

"Another good question," I responded, "maybe-wait!" I said, suddenly realizing something.

"What?" Jaelyn asked. 

"Kind of strange isn't it? How Anastasia doesn't like Zariah and the letters I thought I had sent to her have mysteriously ended up with Anastasia's stuff?"