To: Luke Trenner
East Ward, Paddlewick
Courier-sealed.
Hey Luke,
It’s been a while. I’m on a long-term assignment, classified, censored, very hush-hush. Can’t share where or what. Just know I’m alive and still writing with all ten fingers, which is saying something.
But hey, if I told you I nearly burned a carrot, bruised my knuckle on a grater, and accidentally welded meat into one giant lump... would you believe me? Of course you wouldn’t. You know no one would let me near the galley.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about bath houses more these days, don’t ask why, but I often remember Brassier Bay now. Not the barracks. I mean that night.
We were participating in the military exchange program with Cleavendale and passing through the bay city. You remember how the fog rolled in just before curfew? We figured the steam baths were open. A local flyer said “Moonrise Co-Soak,” and you showed up already barefoot, shirt slung over your shoulder. You couldn’t wait to see the Cleavendale women in their swimsuits, you perv.
We followed the scent, thinking it was eucalyptus from the springs. Made sense at the time. Instead, we stumbled straight into the side portion of the springs, half-covered in mist and half-swallowed by a Frillcraver Bra Dragon.
There were signs, sure, but they were in Cleavendale script. Same letters, yeah, but “Quarantine: Bra Dragon Keep” doesn’t jump out when it’s in their weird script and covered in glitter.
The door was jammed. That should’ve been the clue, but you muscled it open anyway with the power of hornyness.
Inside? Lace hanging like moss, everything smelled like warm laundry and panic. Inside, the place was a wreck of racks and silks. Bras strewn everywhere. Piles. Towers. Like someone had hoarded every unclaimed underwire on the coast. That should’ve tipped us off. But you picked one up, it was lace, teal, lightly steamed, and you sniffed it like it might have answers.
Then we heard it. The soft growl. That suctioned purr.
Behind the back counter, resting in a nest of sports bras and balconettes, lay a baby Bra Dragon. No longer than a rowboat, but already shimmering with that signature lavender frill. You froze. I stared. It blinked one golden eye, opened its mouth, and slurped a push-up bra clean off its horn.
Some dragons hoard gold. Bra dragons hoard anything with cup support. Frilly things. Comforting things. Bras, corsets, maternity wraps; it snatched and curled around them all like a cat in heat.
You backed up. Slowly. Too slowly. A tower of bra boxes tumbled behind you, and suddenly the dragon was slithering down from its nest, frill on display, nostrils flared. You turned, but the aisle was too narrow. You were trapped, one hand still clutching a D-cup bra like it might shield your soul.
You said, “Maybe we back out slow.”
I said, “You can’t back anywhere.”
I scanned the room, grabbed the shiniest bra I could find. Golden satin. Huge. Probably ceremonial. I yanked it from a velvet hook, whispered a prayer to Viridicus, and flung it toward the open window like a blessed frisbee.
The dragon snapped toward it like a toddler chasing a balloon. It whipped past you, coils brushing your arm, and launched itself through the foggy air in hot pursuit of the bra. The window shattered as it leapt, glitter trailing behind it like a flirty comet.
You bolted. I followed. We tore down the alley, slipping on cobblestones and discarded corset ties. You dropped your towel halfway through, but you kept running like the moon was judging you.
Then came the roar, small but furious. The baby Bra-Dragon burst through the window in a spiral of frill and fury, eyes locked not on me… but on you.
You screamed, “Why me?!”
I shouted, “Because you still have the bra you idiot!”
You patted your chest, then your side pocket, and pulled out a black lace DD-cup monstrosity, still tangled in the price tag.
“Wanted a souvenir!”
I shoved you forward. “Drop it or that thing’ll carry you back like a princess in a kids' book!”
You threw it into a storm drain and nearly followed it in. The dragon screeched, veered, and dove after the bra like it had been personally wronged. We didn’t stop running until we hit the bar, The Bottomless-Bustier, smoke in our lungs, glitter in our shoes, and your towel and our dignity nowhere in sight.
THE BOTTOMLESS BUSTIER, you remember, the one where Gilly Pinesmuggle works. The fog had thinned, but we still looked like walking laundry racks. You were barefoot, dripping, and I had a lace imprint stuck to my forehead.
Gilly didn’t even flinch. She took one look at us from behind the bar and said,
“Steam bath closed early, boys.”
You tried to order plum wine. She raised one eyebrow, then two, then leaned forward slightly, just enough. And you, of course, locked eyes with her chest like it had betrayed our homeland.
She snapped her dish towel in your direction and said,
“Flattered, sweetheart but no eye contact equals no drink. Pull yourself together or step outside and finish your fantasy out there.”
You went red all the way to your collarbones and asked for wine.
I asked for a ginger tonic. She brought me both, plus a sigh. The goblets were shaped like bra cups, and mine refilled itself magically as I was a hero that day. I had three. You had to keep reordering yours because, as Gilly said, “you’re spirit wasn’t worthy”.
We didn’t talk much after that. Not because we were ashamed but because we were both just so damn tired. Everything smelled like hot fabric and failure. We’d missed curfew, but Sergeant Hendrow didn’t press. He bought the “fallen into the pond behind the harbor” excuse. Guess we looked too tired to be lying.
Anyway. I still think about it. Not just the escape though, yeah, that too, but that feeling like we were untethered for once. Not pinned to duty or reports or tradition. Just us, in the fog, laughing like the young, carefree idiots we were.
I don’t get nights like that anymore.
Not sure when I’ll write again. Things are shifting fast. But if I don’t, thanks. For running. For not telling. For being there, before everything got so… classified.
— Cameron Alistar
P.S.
I saved your life so I think technically that makes you my servant for life!
And if you ever smell lavender and eucalyptus again?
Run.
Candy sat back in her chair, the letter still warm from her final signature. She read it through once more, carefully, almost ceremonially, then gave a small, crooked smile.
“Yeah,” she murmured aloud, “that really did happen.”
It was a good memory. A ridiculous one, maybe. Embarrassing, certainly. But good. She folded the page, slid it into a Ministry-cleared envelope, and sealed it with the tiny flick required to trigger the identity lock. Her fingers hesitated at the address line, just long enough for the ache to slip in. Then she wrote it out:
Private Luke Trenner.
Company L, East Ward.
“Well… another one down,” she said softly.
She placed the envelope in the outgoing stack, then lingered for a moment, eyes still resting on the corner of Luke’s name. Would he write back? Did he even want to? She didn’t know, but she hoped.
With a quiet sigh, she reached for a fresh sheet of paper. Her handwriting was smaller now, had been since the transformation. Different hands. Different life.
She dipped her pen again and began the next.
Dear Owen,
Portions of the letter were redacted, of course. What actually reached Luke was:
(Disloyalty to Station. Exempt from courier)
If you enjoy seeing Cameron before the transformation, he has a brief cameo here: -the-tithe-chronicles-book---the-trials-of-travis-tithe/chapter/1714102/
My Pitch? Ahem...
"When Penny Spankswell is assigned to observe a noble tribunal in Cleavendale, she expects polite ceremony, not a cultural tug-of-war over who gets to choose whom. With her cousin Marcus chaperoning and her clipboard ever-ready, Penny finds herself in culture shock, swept into a sharp, heartfelt debate as young nobles like Kasey Busselton push to modernize outdated courtship laws. Old matriarchs resist, alliances fray, and love, though judged by some, takes the floor. The Brazen Assembly is a story of reform and tradition, where soft voices begin to shift the seams of power."
In short, Cameron has a quick cameo, Marcus is present, and Penny asks a young Cleavendalian noblewoman about getting spanked:
“...and when you are married,” Penny said with furrowed sincerity, “how will your, um, maintenance spankings be delivered?”
Kasey deadpanned. “My what now?”
Conversely, if you're not in love with the flashbacks and Cleavendale tie-ins, I'll say the next 2 chapters will be the letters from Cameron to his old friends, written under the Ministry’s radar before he’s officially declared missing in action. These moments might feel a little different from what you’ve come to expect, less punishment and discovery, more memory, but they matter.
These letters give us a glimpse into who Cameron was and what he leaves behind as he truly becomes Candy; they help inform the journey. They also connect to broader events across the Cone (yes, even Brassier Bay).
I was going to space them out a bit more, but with the 4th of July this month and planning / hosting my wife's Graduation party (she got her master's degree!), plus doing a vacation the first week of August is a lot, so I won't have time. So if things feel a little off, hang in there. We’ll return to the daily humiliations, awkward curtsies, and deeply Paddlewickian rituals designed to slowly grind Candy into submission, soon enough. But for now… Cam still has a couple of things he'd like to get off his chest.