(Once spoken. Later remembered. Etched into the quiet places of her memory—never unread.)

Elara,

The day we wandered the market and laughed in the shadow of the Ashwood trees, I felt the shape of something I haven’t known in a long time—something real, not conjured by melody or memory. You were speaking of songs again—of the one that followed us along the eastern road, the one we both knew before we ever spoke it aloud.

I wanted to write to you. Not to define it—gods know I couldn’t—but to speak plainly before the sky changes again.

You must know: what happened to you… I carry the ache of it in my bones, even if it is not mine. Loss changes the shape of a person. It alters what we believe about safety, permanence, even love. Before the dragon came for me—before the fire of my past ever touched your world—I would not have known how heavy grief could make a soul. Now, I know it intimately. It resets everything, and there’s no choice in the matter.

We simply do our best after.

You and I… we met at a strong junction. I feel it. Loud and clear. Not something made, but something uncovered—as if it had always existed beneath the surface of our lives, waiting. Denying it feels like denying truth itself. But neither of us are helpless dreamers. We are not children, Elara. We are songsmiths. We know the power of naming something too soon.

So I must speak honestly, and gently: I am still in the dark. I wear the ring of a life I once promised, and there are conversations I have not yet faced. I do not know what lies on the other side of them. I cannot promise who I’ll be when I come through.

Should the fire of the past burn out, should I find I am truly free… I will be raw. Lost for a while. And I will not ask you to wait for that version of me, broken and uncertain. I would never wish you to live in the tragic orbit of my undoing.

And I will not ask your heart to wait while I walk through fire.

I fear what my presence might do to you. I fear I will pull you into my shadow, into the ache I carry. I see the way your fingers twitch near your lute, the way silence sits heavier now. I know the danger of closeness before clarity.

Let us still speak. Let us still share the quiet. But let there be space. I want to come to you not with chaos trailing behind me, but whole—and honest—and truly free.

Our bond is real. Our song is not imagined.
And even if the world changes again…
I will always know the shape of your voice in the dark.

—Kaelen