Letter to Ary's Defense Crew, about Loving Ellywen

As she became aware that fear and cruelty wasn't working for her in The Ellywen Incident, Sheearyn sent this letter to the people actively helping to defend her from the necromancer's threat:

<Name>,

I deeply appreciate your help and support in protecting me from the...advances...of the necromancer Ellywen Al'thor. I hope that I can continue counting you among my supporters in the future, through the change that I'm writing to you about.

I am, at heart, an empath. By guild and by nature. My role in this world is to love, to build community, to ease suffering. Ellywen is clearly suffering, and clearly in need of love. While her particular kind of affections tear my body to shreds, meeting them with fear and cruelty is rending my soul just as badly.

She's not all bad, and I know some of you have seen that. And focusing only on her flaws encourages her to turn into a monster - and more importantly, turns me into the sort of monster that I'm afraid of. I want to be courageous. I want to be loving. I want to stand in the face of threats with compassion and care, not cruelty and hatred. I want to be able to encourage her in her kinder moments, and try to call her back to caring in the moments where she seems to have forgotten it.

That said, her treatment of Diane (and I'm sure others like her - now and in the future) is abhorrent. I need to also stand with compassion toward those she harms in her dealings with evil. And I will not excuse her choices to use others for her own gain, without regard for their right to choose their own paths. Nor will I pretend that choosing to love others absolves them of responsibility for the choices they've made, and the consequences of those choices.

As much as I am committed to a life of care and compassion, and am going to strive to treat her in accordance with that - I will also stand with any of you who are willing in defense of everyone's right to choose their own path. A value which she does not seem to share. I hope you'll stand with me, against her (as yet, small-scale) tyranny. I intend to continue to stand behind those using force to combat her, with my support and my healing. And, I expect she will continue hunting me, because she knows no other way.

I also understand if your involvement was purely to protect me, and it's too difficult to watch me put myself in harm's way, as I pursue this path.

With Love, Sheearyn