Dear Friend,
It’s been one month since the Demi’s of the North American enclave defeated the Graven threat that the Blacks and Julian posed at the Anchor Chamber. Everyone here is genuinely relieved that such a big threat was avoided, and Julian was finally laid to rest. But for many of us, the pain of Bast’s passing is also still far too close for it to feel like anything other than a pyrrhic victory. We know that the life of one Demi is a small price in order to protect the whole world, but emotions aren’t always logical, and losing someone as respected and loved as Bast really hit all of us hard. We had a funeral for her at the lost ruins of Thinis, according to her wishes, and demis from across the globe came to pay their respects. It was quite the sight to see people from myth like Diana, Vishnu and Ogma there, all with their own memories of Bast to share. We buried her body in a grand tomb that Michael created for her, and gave her all of the ancient burial rites befitting a Queen of Egypt. There were no dry eyes, even in the arid climate and Thea had some especially moving words to say about her long-lived friend as we sealed her away.
Once the funeral concluded, the whole of her remaining family and close friends gathered for a much more private wake in Cairo and many stories of her long life were shared. We all found out a lot about Bast that we’d never known while she was alive, but I won’t get into that here. Just know, dear friend, that the trait of curiosity often associated with cats was well earned by our dearly departed leader. Well-earned indeed.
And now we face tomorrow, we all know that she’s not really gone, and that somewhere out there she’s probably already helping some new demi as their guide, still just a curious as ever. But that doesn’t always help. Several of the demi’s living in the bunker chose to move to other enclaves, rather than rebuild. Several more decided to stay where they’d ended up after Bast closed the bunker, wanting to experience the world after years, and in some cases, decades of isolation. Only a few remain now.
Sarah keeps saying to just give it time, so that’s what we’ll have to do I guess. Wait and hope that the pain eventually fades, and only the happy memories remain of our beloved friend and leader.
In lighter news, I can safely say though that everyone is now fully recovered physically, if not emotionally, and are enjoying some much-needed rest after a wild couple of weeks.
Liam and Cindy continue to spend a lot of time together, despite constant teasing from Kat and Sarah about their newly found love life, and the women seem to already be planning a wedding, much to Liam’s annoyance. Although it is most likely Kat and Sarah planning, as Cindy already knows what she wants her wedding to look like. I’m told that it’s not uncommon for women to have something already in mind before even meeting their would-be spouses, but that’s neither here nor there.
The point is that life is moving on in the enclave.
As it happens, one of the after effects of Bast’s passing was that there was no North American representative in the global Demi Council of Atlantis. Thea, however stepped up quickly as the new enclave leader and was met with no resistance from any of the residents. There was some discussion of an older (if barely) Demi from the French enclave moving to the US to take over, since they were considered “more diplomatic” than Thea. The discussion was abandoned however, when all of the current residents of the enclave threatened to leave unless Thea was also recognized as the new voice for North America in the Demi Council. Apparently losing contact with what amounts to 5% of the known demis in the world is a big deal. It also helped that Tyr, a Norse demi that Bast had worked with back in the 17th and 18th centuries, also put his support behind Thea, as Bast’s protégé.
There were still some who opposed the posting, but they eventually shut up. That’s politics though. Nobody ever totally agrees on anything. Needless to say, the Demi from the French enclave, and her political allies were a bit put out.
Another event that happened just last week was the reading of Bast’s will. As was suspected, she had quite the fortune saved up. Thea was appointed as the executor of the estate, and nobody envied her job as the will had sections in six different languages. Apparently the will had been last updated and sealed by Bast after she’d adopted Cindy in the mid eighties. As such, she’d never bothered to update any sections that she didn’t actively change, so in the document were bits of Arabic, Greek, Latin, Middle and modern English as well as what a professor of archeology at Vanderbilt identified as cuneiform. It had taken a couple week for proper translations of the sections to finally be compiled into a readable document.
The lion’s share of everything went to Cindy as Bast’s adopted daughter, but she also left more than enough in a trust to the enclave itself to keep it running for several decades at least. The property itself and the rest of Bast’s substantial holdings were also left to Cindy with Thea as the “property manager” which also helped to cement her place as the next enclave leader. A smaller portion was left to each of the other Demis in the enclave, to be split equally among them. It was agreed afterwards to include Liam, Rich and Kat in what was bequeathed as well, so Liam was finally able to pay off his student loans and buy a halfway decent wardrobe. Granted, his girlfriend was now effectively a billionaire, but he said he wasn’t going to ask her for money when he could pay his debts off himself.
Kat and Rich moved into the bunker full time since their apartments were still known to the remnants of Julian’s Werepack and any cultists that may have survived the Acroterion. So, they’ve become familiar faces to its residents, with Rich recently disclosing his love of cooking. He’s been unofficially named Head Chef of the bunker kitchen. Between you and me though, it really just means that he likes to cook more than the others, so they let him do it whenever he wants, but don’t tell that to Rich. Sarah even ordered him one of the big white hats.
Kat has been learning as much as she can about the paranormal world and its secrets. She’s just as tenacious as ever, drinking up as much information as anyone will give her, which is quite a lot. She’s gotten particularly close to Sarah, and the two are rarely seen apart when they’re both awake. Unfortunately, this also means that it’s nearly impossible to hide anything from either of them. And with Kat’s tendency to plot and Sarah’s access to information, a rash of pranks have broken out over the last couple days.
So far we suspect they’ve gotten Jax, Steven, Liam, Peaches and Rich. All attempts at retaliation have failed, as Sarah, obviously knows when something’s about to go down. We’re still waiting to see if the incidents spread to Thea, Hansen or Michael.
All in all, everyone is finally winding down from the stress that they’ve been under. There’s even been talk of a group vacation in the works to help everyone de-compress. Cindy keeps talking about going somewhere warm, though nobody seems to agree as to where. I guess we will see what comes of that.
Hope all is well, and I will send you another update soon.
Until then, keep an open eye for those fairies, and don’t buy any magic beans.
Sincerely, your friend,
W. Rowland