By Heart

13th of Curuhen

In’elah dalah’surfal,

We are besieged at Nijel’s Point. The undead swarmed all over us upon our arrival and we fought desperately to keep from being overrun. We managed to beat them back eventually and with no casualties. Some wounded though, myself included. There is no need for you to worry, as my wounds have been tended to by the most capable of healers. I miss you and I wish you could have fought by my side. I will eagerly await your return. Forever and always.

Yours,
Tinwëtar

~ * ~

15th of Curuhen

In’elah dalah’surfal,

I was, perhaps, a bit too hasty in declaring myself fine in my last letter. It seems my wound has festered somehow and that I have contracted some sort of disease. So far I mostly feel extremely tired, but I can feel the menace that is the disease stirring and eating away at me. It is not a pleasant sensation. I pray that this is the worst it will get and that the Nightblades will manage to find a cure for it soon enough. I hope that you are well and that you have found the peace you were seeking when you left. I hold you in my heart, always.

Yours,
Tinwëtar

~ * ~

16th of Curuhen

In’elah dalah’surfal,

My condition has taken a turn for the worse and I have been put into quarantine with the rest of the sick. I can feel the disease spreading through my body, withering everything it touches. I am so tired, my love. I only want to sleep…but I keep holding on. For you. For us.

There is no gentle way to say this, but I fear I may be dying. It has been days and a cure has yet to be found. This plague has taken hold and spread so quickly. We are running out of time. It will not be long now before I will be too exhausted to continue fighting. I wish…I wish I could have seen you and rested in your arms one last time before I go.

Just remember that I am yours, forever and always. I love you.

I will wait for you,
Tinwëtar

~ * ~

24th of Curuhen

Aroki,

Did not die. Near thing. Very weak. Barely hold a quill. I live though. Miss you.

Tinwëtar

~ * ~

20th of Norothil

Dalah’surfal,

I am recovering. Slowly. Tonight is the celebration of Illthanyn, traditionally a time where we cleanse ourselves of our shadows that we have carried this past year. I am still too weak to participate in the festivities, but allow me to make a wish on your behalf. I wish that your journeys have helped you cleanse those doubts and shadows that haunted you before you left. I wish that you will return to me one day, renewed and free of the burdens that were weighing you down. I wish you happiness and light for all the years to come.

Yours,
Tinwëtar

~ * ~

9th of Xallvar

Aroki,

You have been gone for almost two moons now. I miss you, my love. Where are you?

Tinwëtar

~ * ~

The letter in my hands was crumpled and my tears had stained it and smeared the ink here and there, making it almost impossible to read. But I did not need to. I had memorised its contents and knew the entire thing by heart. Each word etched into my memory. If I closed my eyes I knew I would be able to see those words, the familiar script untainted by tears or creases in the parchment. It had been two moons since he sent me that last letter and I had had no other word from him. I had sent letter after letter and I had yet to receive a single reply to any of them. Nimloth always returned without the letter I sent him off with, so I knew someone was receiving them…what I could not understand, however, was why I never received a reply. Aroki had always replied to my letters before, no matter how far away we had been from one another, no matter what state our relationship had been in at the time. He would always reply. Not this time though and I could not understand why.

I refused to believe that he was dead. My mind would immediately shy away as soon as the mere suggestion entered my thoughts. He. Was. Not. Dead. He was alive and out there, somewhere. As I sat by my window, still too weak to do much of anything as I recovered from the plague, I toyed with the idea of heading out to search for him. In my mind I would leave the stronghold behind and travel all over the world, never stopping until I found him. It was, of course, pure fantasy and not something I would ever be able to do. First of all, I was too weak to go anywhere at present. The plague had brought me to the very brink of death and I had teetered there for days before I was saved and the illness cleansed from my system. My body, being over ten millennia old, had taken its sweet time recovering from the battlefield it had become. Secondly, I could not leave the Nightblades. I had made vows to them and to the Sisterhood, and as much as I hated it, in that moment, I could not forsake duty to chase after a male that had not deigned to respond to a single one of my letters. No matter how much I loved him and no matter how much my heart broke each day I was apart from him.

For it did break. Little by little my heart was tearing itself apart and it did not matter how desperately I tried to cling to the hope and the blind faith that Aroki would one day return to me. Millennia of heartbreak and doubt would not leave me so easily and I had been abandoned before, countless times. What if this was more of the same? What if he had come to the realisation that he never loved me at all and would never return? What if these past few, and infinitely precious, years were all I would ever have? What if I had been right all along and love and a happy ending was never truly in the cards for me? What if a small taste of it was all I would ever get? My mind was tugged back and forth between the brightest hope and the darkest despair and it was exhausting. The day would dawn and I could not sleep. Night would fall and I would still be awake: thoughts churning endlessly inside my mind. Now that my work had been confiscated I did not even have that to occupy myself with, so instead I paced. I walked in circles in my office, I walked around inside the stronghold and I walked outside the stronghold. Never far, and always in circles. Around and around, like some forlorn ghost. The dark smudges beneath my eyes were getting worse day by day, but sleep rarely claimed me. When it finally did, it was restless and the next morning the cycle would start over again.

As the days and nights passed by without any replies to my letters, the despair slowly began to overtake the hope little by little. I fought against it with all I had in me, I tried to keep it at bay as best I could. But I could feel my hope slowly being extinguished, crushed beneath the weight of my despair. In such moments all I had to cling to was that final letter and the words in it. The words I knew by heart. They would keep hope alive just a little bit longer. Just a little bit.

Tinwëtar, my strength.
I am sorry for not being able to contact you until now. I understand if you are upset, but it appears my own doubts have gotten the better of me. Should you need me for anything urgent, have Nimloth deliver a letter, he will know where to find me.
I’m sorry.
I love you and I always will.
A.W