(2025-11-25) Heartfelt Congratulations

Details

Author:	inkie
Summary:	Siamus writes to Isla to commend her on her prizewinning Hallow's End story.
Rating:	T for Teen

25 November 29

Dear Isla -

Her Grace forwarded to me a copy of your prizewinning short story. Please accept my heartfelt congratulations on your success. I am not myself well-versed in the conventions of fiction, but I trust that if you better apply yourself to your fact-checking and chronology in future you will achieve still greater victories. (I understand that Her Grace has already raised with you the issue of electrical conductivity in water, and I am sure that you have also by now considered the viable industrial applications of obsidian.)

I understand the story’s subject matter was meant to be appropriate for Hallow’s End, and I did enjoy your ominous treatment of the lake setting, devoid as it was of both weather and natural life. I must confess that I remain unclear as to the reasons for the lake’s opacity — as you know, mountain lakes are most often characterized by very clear water, due to their lower temperatures and the shorter growing season — and I suspect you may inadvertently have omitted that part of the story’s resolution wherein you explained the reasons for the lake’s singularly barren state. (I assume it was due to the villainess’s continual abuses of sorcery and disrespect for natural order.) I thought the central cautionary tale about a gentleman of honor’s seduction by witchcraft was well-conceived and -intended, and the story no doubt only required a little clarity and discipline to put it into first place.

In the library at home is a copy of S. Vallier’s A Comparative Study of Freshwater Habitats, which you may find valuable in your future work. (Vallier has a very fine series on aquatic habitats and species, in fact, all of which you may enjoy.) Miss Curran can also find for you Helmand’s Meteorological Principles, which is rudimentary but makes a commendable introduction to the subject, and The Haunted Mountains, an excellent folk history of Drustvar.

I look forward to reading more of your work in future.

Kind regards,
S. Fallon

P.S. We are proud of you.