A missive awaits him, written with immaculate penmanship and bearing a familiar wax seal. 'Dearest Adrian, I hope this finds you well. Another year has passed and it seems like our kind grows up too soon. The book of magical weapons is to your liking, I hope. It would be wonderful if perhaps you could visit Styria someday. Your friend, Lenore.'
The parchment bends in his hand, bowing to the gentle persuasion of a breeze that blows carelessly through an open window. Beyond the window’s frame, the sun sinks beneath the serrated forest-line of trees that fork the saffron sky, casting a peremptory lambency that encourages something foolish in him.
His eyes trace the fine writing, neat and delicately-depicted and hardly rushed, with what Adrian very much wants to believe is a modicum of care. Every year, she cares enough to remember his birthday, and every year, he can expect a thoughtfully-chosen gift to commemorate it. There has never been anyone apart from his parents to show him such attentiveness. And every year his appreciation for her regard colors a little differently, a little brilliantly, as excruciating as it is exquisite.
He scours the words and wording over and again, frozen to the spot, only noticing the passage of time when the sun disappears and the lack of illumination compels him to find the candlelight at his writing desk.
The plume he holds in his fingers dries as he holds it over the parchment, deliberating upon his own words, that they might match the elegance of hers. When at last he accepts that he will never succeed in a similar artfulness, inspiration comes as easily as plăcintă.
I hope that I may be so bold as to address you without title. I’ve come to think of us as friends, you see, and the formality sits unwell with me. I think you might be my only friend, though that is not so much a consolation as it is a blessing to me. Anyone should hope to acquaint themselves with a persona of your grace and intelligence, and would be more than lucky to count them as an ally.
I wonder if I’ve ever mentioned to you that I had been interested in this particular tome. I know that I’ve certainly discussed my interest in the subject matter, and your recollection and solicitude in my many studies only endears me more, my dearest Lenore. I thank you for your gift, and in return, please find enclosed a very poor watercolor I’d done of our local flora inspired by our last letter about landscapes: a very pretty Rosa canina that exists very impudently outside my mother’s study and has managed to escape her poultice harvesting.
Perhaps one day, we might exchange such notions in person. That would please me very much. One day.
