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// Epilogue 
// Story: The Pursuit of Penance 
// by Paracompact 
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Dear Gelfand,

I’m sorry if you wind up reading this note over and over again—if you wind up thinking back to these weeks I spent with you, time and time again—and still don’t fully understand why I came here, and why I now must leave. That’d be a reasonable reaction to have. Or maybe, you comprehend the situation much better than me, and you’ve been expecting this conclusion for a long time coming. That, too, would not be surprising to me.

I know I promised that I would stay with your family until you unequivocally dismissed me, which you did not. I realize now that such an arrangement wasn’t very fair to impose on you—to put it bluntly, I was only using you and your loved ones as a means to my own bizarre ends. But I also realize, that suddenly rupturing our agreement without advance notice is not very fair, either. So, I only hope that, if you cannot accept my words of apology, then you’ll accept these leftover gems (what would I have packed them for in the first place, if I didn’t foresee how unsustainable my plan was from the very beginning?) as payment for inconveniences incurred.

This isn’t to say I’ve found any closure, for my part. At least, not yet. But that’s all right, because I’ve learned that absolute resolutions to these things can’t be rushed. Or maybe, they can be, but they won’t be the resolutions you should really seek to bring about—after all, we always have a choice in the matter, and we have to trust that we are capable of making good choices. Even when we’ve made atrocious choices in the past.

I hope that whatever impressions I left on little Gamila will be remembered fondly. And that whatever impressions I left on your wife Gwendolyn, will be forgotten quickly. I know I will remember your family for the kindness and patience they showed to somepony who has wronged them not once, but twice now.

And whether you, Gelfand, choose to forget me or to remember me, to write back to me or even to invite me to visit sometime after I’ve attained a healthier state of mind... those choices, of course, I leave to you.