[One morning, Haurchefant will wake to find a letter addressed to him slid under his door, sealed with a glittery snowflake sticker. The handwriting is painstakingly neat, almost a bit too formal considering the contents, but grows progressively more rushed as the author goes on.]
To my dearest Haurchefant,
I'm sorry.
I suspect even for you, with your boundless compassion for others, that isn't enough to make amends, but I wanted to apologize nonetheless. For all that I tried to convince you what a wretched creature I am, it's not really true. In the moment, it was cathartic, but the second I was alone again, I wanted so much to keel over and die for what I did to you.
Alas, life does not work that way... and so I am here, yet living and breathing, worthiness be damned. I had thought at first that in being cruel to you, I could escape the pain of losing everything again when my time ran out and we had to part once more, but it only enkindled a different and far more powerful pain, one that I had completely forgotten could ever exist. To have turned right around and done it to the one person who might have been able to absolve me of that feeling, who should never have been subject to that kind of cruelty, is indefensible.
I'm certain you have a bad taste in your mouth over this, over me, just as I intended in my infinite stupidity, and I've no right to convince you otherwise. But I still wanted to tell you how sorry I am for taking the love a distant man much like you once had for me and weaponizing it, when all you sought to do was preserve something you held dear even over your own life. That is just what a knight does, isn't it? Truly, that is why you will be known as a hero for generations to come, and why I will be the one forgotten by time. Those of us who experienced that are only here because of that sacrifice, because of you and how you loved us all in spite of our many differences. I don't know when I lost sight of that, but it is probably the greatest insult to you of all.
If there is naught else I can do in this shard, then when I meet you anew, I promise I'll do things right next time. I hope when things come full circle again, I can greet you properly and hold you tight right from the beginning like you always deserved. And later, I'll tell you all the things your family never told you, all the reasons why so many world-weary Warriors of Light returned your feelings... perhaps it would even be worth letting my heart run free for a change and trying harder to make you happy, even if I lose it all again later.
You will not remember me, not now or in the next world or maybe ever again, but let this be among the deeds I'll carve unto my own soul crystal, so that I may never make the same mistake again. I am no Warrior of Light anymore if the man I loved so much, who once saw so clearly through my tainted form as though it were glass, finds an empty, unlit corridor of hatred instead.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I hurt you. I wasted this chance. I'm sorry, truly.
-- Irhya Pendhula
[The last letter trails off into an unsteady line that extends past the edge of the page, a result of the uncertain lingering of the point of her pen.]
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action, early December
Date: 2018-12-01 09:39 pm (UTC)To my dearest Haurchefant,
I'm sorry.
I suspect even for you, with your boundless compassion for others, that isn't enough to make amends, but I wanted to apologize nonetheless. For all that I tried to convince you what a wretched creature I am, it's not really true. In the moment, it was cathartic, but the second I was alone again, I wanted so much to keel over and die for what I did to you.
Alas, life does not work that way... and so I am here, yet living and breathing, worthiness be damned. I had thought at first that in being cruel to you, I could escape the pain of losing everything again when my time ran out and we had to part once more, but it only enkindled a different and far more powerful pain, one that I had completely forgotten could ever exist. To have turned right around and done it to the one person who might have been able to absolve me of that feeling, who should never have been subject to that kind of cruelty, is indefensible.
I'm certain you have a bad taste in your mouth over this, over me, just as I intended in my infinite stupidity, and I've no right to convince you otherwise. But I still wanted to tell you how sorry I am for taking the love a distant man much like you once had for me and weaponizing it, when all you sought to do was preserve something you held dear even over your own life. That is just what a knight does, isn't it? Truly, that is why you will be known as a hero for generations to come, and why I will be the one forgotten by time. Those of us who experienced that are only here because of that sacrifice, because of you and how you loved us all in spite of our many differences. I don't know when I lost sight of that, but it is probably the greatest insult to you of all.
If there is naught else I can do in this shard, then when I meet you anew, I promise I'll do things right next time. I hope when things come full circle again, I can greet you properly and hold you tight right from the beginning like you always deserved. And later, I'll tell you all the things your family never told you, all the reasons why so many world-weary Warriors of Light returned your feelings... perhaps it would even be worth letting my heart run free for a change and trying harder to make you happy, even if I lose it all again later.
You will not remember me, not now or in the next world or maybe ever again, but let this be among the deeds I'll carve unto my own soul crystal, so that I may never make the same mistake again. I am no Warrior of Light anymore if the man I loved so much, who once saw so clearly through my tainted form as though it were glass, finds an empty, unlit corridor of hatred instead.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I hurt you. I wasted this chance. I'm sorry, truly.
-- Irhya Pendhula
[The last letter trails off into an unsteady line that extends past the edge of the page, a result of the uncertain lingering of the point of her pen.]