Dearest Lara,

On the matter of dates, I concede you that the War of the Worldreaver happened in the preceding Dance, and not in this one. However, any self-respecting historian would tell you that it is the ebb and flow of mortal actions and their consequences that matter over the clear-set Dances of the vault, and that the events of this Dance were a direct consequence of the preceding. In many years, we will look back, and question whether our century really started in 601, or if it actually begun with the defeat of Bal'Met. 601 being a non-event, I sincerely doubt it will serve as anything else but a convenient starting point for the situation of events within what is known as the seventh-century After the Fall. But I digress, my dear.

My memory lingers of many a night when, at the darkest hour and with no souls to witness, I saw you sit down in the Lucretian Athenaeum. Unaware of my presence, you picked a book and read, as if searching for the meaning of life, and so did I peer over your shoulder. You have read many things over the years, fed your mind with facts and certainties, yet in the end were struck by the multiplicity of Sapience's point of views. This led you to believe that there was no simple truth, and that in the end it was preferable to adopt a neutral stance.

Let me tell you this, my dear: I smiled, because the truth was under your eyes all along. Not within those pages, but on the edge of your desk. A simple, unalienable truth hidden under the guise of a timid candle: without Fire and Light, the words within your books would be lost to the darkness of incertitude, subject to the fickleness of mortal memories.

I find it ironic that you spoke in words akin to the tired rhetorics of the so-called savants of freedom, evoking a truism relying on blind fear reflexes. Fire and Light may sear and daze, indeed, but never forget that without them, there would be no life on Sapience.

The soothing warmth of the hearth keeps us alive in the dead of winter.
The light of the sun nourishes the gardens of Creation, granting abundance to all.
The weakest candle illuminates both the historian and the archivist on their desks.
And it is they who, every morning, illuminate the marvels of the world for your eyes to wonder.

And yet these are only attributes of mundane fire and light.

The Fire and Light of the Bloodsworn divines act in similar ways, but affect our mortal souls.
He who stares into the rays of the sun for too long may be physically blinded, but he who looks with his inner eyes into the Lightbringer's radiance will find true sight, and clarity of purpose.
The same goes to he who walks into flames: his body will soon be turned to ashes, yet he who surrenders his soul to the Righteous Fire will rise anew from the ashes of his old self like the phoenix, purified of past sins and stronger again.

The choice is then yours to make: Shed your fears and walk the straight path that leads to Fire and Light, or succumb before Their pure majesty.

I am no prophet, merely a watcher, but I know that the Dawnspear will one day possess a Library, and should you one day see the errors of your feigned neutrality, we will welcome your talents with open arms.

Forever Their witness,
Siduri Azagnanna

Penned by my hand on the 9th of Aeguary, in the year 644 AF.