To my Darling,

I know it has been several weeks since we last departed, but I still feel the heat of your palm in my hand as we said our goodbyes. I was told that time dulls all pain, but still I feel the ache in my heart at not seeing your smile as the sun rises on our morning rides together.

Please allow me a moment to distract myself from my own heavy heart and write of other love that I have found between the clashing of swords as I fight for my Lady. While you will not get my letters till I return and read them to you myself, I do not want to forget what I have witnessed here. Even in the North, where the ice is the heaviest and winters the most frigid, love blossoms under the lack of light!

The first tale I weave is one that I have heard of my companion Lucian Greenfield. He is a quiet fellow in my company, though after pestering him with questions I hear of his true love Angela! And while their love is one of courtship and devotion, even producing a child named Peter as a symbol of their affection, it was…Well…I am to be bold, if I am going to write of it I will need to add a stroke of poetic liberty. I wanted to transform the tale of their meeting to be equivalent to that of the power I felt in his words and the love beating in his heart!

~ They met when their carriage was attacked by BANDITS. Two individuals connected by not a strand of fate, but by the will to survive! Individually traveling in a merchant’s carriage, not even names shared between them before the first bolt of an arrow of fire was launched at them! The door was lit aflame and the two of them jumped into action. It was at the edge of a cliff, the horses threatening to pull the carriage off the cliff sides if not for the quick wit of Angela (The aforementioned soon-to-be-lover) who opened the opposite door of the carriage and leaned out of it, stopping it from caterwauling off the side!!!!!! But the bandits were just as cunning as they were vile. They had in their sights the ransom payments for such a beautiful woman in her prime with a large dowry, who knows how much she would fetch?!

But Lucian would not allow it! He leapt forward and atop the carriage fought off not one, not two, but THREE bandits with nothing but his love and fists (Obviously he should have used his weapons, there was no time to draw them)! And after he threw them all off the sides, narrowly catching the hand of his beloved (THE FIRST TIME THEY HELD HANDS) before she fell beneath the thunderous spinning wheels of the carriage. And as they looked into each other’s eyes, truly their Souls, for the first time…The Bandits sent a final poisoned arrow flying from their cursed bow and POISONED HIM.

How could death try and steal him, when he had just met his beloved? But perhaps all in the fate of Love. Though she was entranced by his willingness to fight for her, when not a Knight himself, it was their conversation while she nursed him back to help that knitted their lives together in a beautiful tapestry. And who would not be seduced by the passion of the moment followed by caring for another, cleaning the bleeding and festered wound? Because what is one kind of love if not a bond kindled by battle but then softly fed by tender moments of conversation, a smile. A shared joke while pushing through a moment of pain. ~

I miss you, my Beloved. While a story like this one does bring a smile to my face, I truly miss yours.

With all my love and soul,

Lorelei