Fiends forever

Dear Mother and Father,

I have a few urgent questions, and I really wish I knew where to send these letters so that you could answer them. I've passed the post office many times, each time growing more frustrated at being so close to communicating with you and yet unable to do so, until I stopped going down that street.
My dreams have been marginally stranger than usual lately. I'm not sure what to make of the sudden change. People speak in non-sequiturs and ask ask me for incomprehensible favors. Whippoorwills are everywhere, talking to me and rhyming at me in foreign languages. Funny shapes that must mean something but that I have no meaning for show up on the scenery. Sometimes I hear music that makes me sick to my stomach. (Why would music do that?)
I tried to draw some of the symbols and work out the notes to some of the songs, and I tried to remember the strange words I heard, but when I did, Mr. Shadow showed up and interrupted me. I told him that I thought that mirages like him could only be seen when a person was awake for many days at a time, but he said that he can be seen by people who are sleepy OR utterly mad. I know that sometimes I remember things that never happened, like when you didn't spank me but I thought you did, and sometimes I don't remember things that did happen, like some of the parties I've been to, but I don't think I'm utterly mad, do you? It would be so dreadfully inconvenient if I were! If I were utterly mad, I would never be able to find out what was real and what was imaginary!
I asked Mr. Shadow if he would please go away, but he wouldn't. It's so peculiar to see him side-by-side with an undistorted world. Nothing is inexplicably melting or floating or shifting or breathing, and yet here he is! He says he wants to be my friend--and maybe even marry me when I grow up. He says he really, really needs to be somebody's typist and if I could get the scary cape lady to go away, he and I could help each other. He says his last avatar isn't living in the Steamlands anymore, so without me he's just a disembodied bit of ectoplasm. He also still thinks you two are dead. He says that his last avatar was my godfather and the same Sparkperson we often visited for your (Father's) studies, and so he also says that he inherited guardianship of my person. I don't remember ever hearing that that man was my godfather. Is that true? I'm can't imagine how my subconscious comes up with all of this madness.
But if you ever, ever, ever get any communication from me, please answer and straighten everything out!
I love you and I miss your insight.

Love,
Your Shaqad

Lost time

Dear Mother and Father,

Although the mountain and the city were snowy not too long ago, it's gotten much warmer recently and almost all of the snow has become water. It's been flowing down into the river and then into the ocean, or else just flowing down to the ocean. Normally I wouldn't think much of this, only delight in the fact that I don't need to bundle up whenever I'm out of doors in my threadbare remnant of a dress, but there is also a sad implication. My birthday is in the winter, but if it's no longer winter, it must be past my birthday. I must be twelve.
What does a twelve-year-old do? Is it different than what an eleven-year-old does? Should I dress differently? Should I learn to speak more eloquently? Should I become betrothed? It's difficult because I don't sense anything intrinsically different about myself. I'm not even one hundred percent certain that I'm twelve. If only I had you to explain everything to me!
I'm also disappointed that I missed the opportunity to throw a party. I know you would have invited important people and introduced them to me. I haven't even gone to the parties of the important people I already know in quite some time! I really wish that you were here to sort out my life. I sometimes think it's losing its shape and running out of my hands like melting snow.

Love always,
Your Shaqad

Rejection! And also a monster

Dear Mother and Father,

The all-consuming chasm that forms my social skills has gotten me into trouble again. I thought you would want to know.
Several days ago, Loki from the mines informed me that he had met an unusual humanoid on the tip-top of the mountain. He was frightened by its appearance and fled from it before they could get acquainted, even though the Steamlands are absolutely full of people who look intimidating but are perfectly kind. From his account, it was unusually massive and very spiky like armor. It was just standing around by itself up there!
Naturally, I thought to myself that it must be awfully cold and hungry up there, so I killed several dozen mimmoths to make a blanket and meat for it. I bundled all those up in the skins of more mimmoths and took a long walk up the mountain. I've never had to climb to the top before, so it took extra time for me to find a way up. At one point, I even had to tie my skins and meat onto my back and crawl with my hands and feet against the rocks like a bug. (I'm very glad my shoes and gloves are flexible!)
But when I reached the top where the armored person was, and I introduced myself and offered him his blanket and his grilled mimmoth, he roared and made angry fighting gestures at me! Then he came toward me, so I dropped everything I had and ran away as fast as possible. I didn't mean to upset him so much! I've met other intimidating-looking people before, but I managed never to make them angry! I had no idea he would want to fight with me!
Thus I got down to the bottom of the mountain with as much speed as I could manage (which resulted in me accidentally running further on into the river, but I don't think anyone saw that), fleeing my responsibility to un-offend the mountain person.
Now I'm trying my hardest to sort out how I might make it up to the mountain person, but as I'm not sure how I offended him or her or it in the first place, there is a very big risk that my apology would offend him or her or it even more. What should I do?

Love and repentance,
Your Shaqad