Chapter Text
June 30, 2017
Kodiak, Alaska
Dear Sir,
This afternoon, Yancy and I finished our qualifying exams and have the next week off to sleep and fret about their results. If everything goes well (knock on wood again) we’ll be Jaeger pilots—the Rangers Becket—and if our scores keep us at the top of the class, we’ll be launching with Gipsy Danger for her shakedown cruise on July 10th. Turns out that particular rumor was correct.
(I still can’t believe they call it a shakedown cruise by the way—she’s a Jaeger, not a boat. Do they break a bottle of champagne over her nose, too?)
At the request of your assistant, who visited us in person and whose eyebrows remain adequately intimidating, Yancy and I will be availing ourselves of your vacation home while we wait for the results. It will be nice to be somewhere that might take our minds off the stress of Not Knowing, so thank you kindly.
We’ve been instructed not to search for clues to your identity while we’re there, which just tells me that there are in fact clues there for the finding. I will absolutely hunt for them. Your nominal authority doesn't annoy me in the least; you are much too far away to do anything about it.
Yours,
Raleigh
July 3, 2017
Lock Willow Farm
Dear Sir,
"Lock Willow Farm" is such a charming name. Did you name it? Did you grow up here? There’s evidence that a child lived here at one point. You? Or your own? Your grandkids, perhaps?
Your assistant—whose name I am just now realizing I still don’t know—told us you hadn’t been here in many years, but I wouldn’t have been able to tell. Whoever you had open it up for us (Eyebrows?) did a fantastic job—it’s all in working order, though the rustic charm hasn’t been touched. The windows have to be propped open with dowels!
Have I told you I’m charmed by this place? I’m charmed. In a peaceful world, I could spend the rest of my days here. It even has its own library! (This is your house, I don’t know why I’m telling you this.)
I took a walk last night and met one of the neighbors—in the blue house near the road, the Semples? You’ll be pleased to know that they’ve been tight-lipped as to your identity (Eyebrows did a lovely job scaring them into silence), but they’re quite open about the history of the place itself so I know a little bit about the mysterious ancestors of the man I’m writing to, at least.
I can’t believe nobody lives here year-round; it’s incredible. The scenery is beautiful, what with the valley and the river and all the wooded hills, and way in the distance that tall blue mountain simply melts in your mouth. It doesn’t hurt that the neighbors are the type of friendly I thought only existed in books—Nancy actually brought some homemade bread over this morning. I think I love her.
Not as much as I love you, naturally. Thanks again for this.
Yours,
Raleigh
[Telegram, sent 3:09PM on July 7, 2017]
HELLO SIR STOP RECEIVED NEWS THAT I AM OFFICIALLY A JAEGER PILOT STOP WILL WRITE MORE LATER STOP FROM RANGER RALEIGH BECKET STOP
July 10, 2017
Anchorage, Alaska
Dear Sir,
I hope you're impressed that I managed to fulfill my penultimate reporting-to-you duties with a genuine telegram in the year 2017. I didn't think they still existed, but it turns out that the UN brought it back into use for high priority messages between Shatterdomes. Apparently there was one harrowing week when the internet was down everywhere and everybody panicked. Who knew?
As you will have noticed, I am not a Shatterdome, nor am I high priority. Did you have a moment of panic that I’d found out your identity? Don’t worry, your secret is still safe. I called in like all twelve of my owed favors to pull this off, and I got reamed out for pulling a "nonsense stunt" that "could have compromised security" and was half-seriously threatened with a court martial, so I hope you appreciated it. Tell me you at least smiled a little.
It’s all over now. Gipsy has had her shakedown, and she’s stunning. I’m writing to you from a bunk in the Anchorage Shatterdome (please note the location change at the top of this, my last contractually mandated letter to you). In Anchorage! Which I walked to! In a Jaeger!
It’s so incredibly surreal. Yancy and I just keep looking over at each other and grinning uncontrollably.
We were both sorry to leave Lock Willow, by the way, but I’m glad to have been there and appreciate you offering it to us all the more from this side of our visit. It was the perfect ending to such a very long year.
Thank you for sponsoring us this year, Sir. I’m not sure I’ve said it properly, at least not without swearing at you for it at the same time.
We couldn’t have gotten here without you. Neither of us ever even dreamed it could be an option, and then you came and dropped the opportunity in our laps as though we deserved it. As though we were the kind of people worth investing in.
I’ll never be able to articulate what that means to me, not if I wrote you letters every week for the next ten years. Thank you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Always yours,
Raleigh Becket
P.S. Would it be alright if I still wrote to you on occasion? Please let me know.