Ma'avise, I hope this finds you safe and well, and that the road has been kinder to you than my fretful dreams see fit to show me. Were you here I am sure you would pluck this quill from my hands and bid me rest, but if I do not send you this news now there will be no possibility of sleep for me tonight. There still may not be. Our second child arrived today--a daughter, Atreion, and she's everything we hoped for! Healthy, beautiful, and bright, and already such a spark. It's as if she couldn't
‘Anonymous’ Love Letters || Not Accepting
—-He could read no further than that. In a tent at the end of the world, buffeted by winds and lit by the light of a single lantern, the parchment shook in Atreion’s hand, unsteady hands sparing him from reading any more. Outside, the winds of the Kocari Wilds howled their displeasure, but Atreion heard none of it, the words repeating themselves over and over again in his mind.
Our second child arrived today–a daughter. A daughter! If he had breath in his lungs he would have laughed aloud, but it had all been driven from him, his heart still in his chest. A daughter. A sweet little girl of their very own… He forced his hands still, read the words again. Healthy and beautiful and bright… and hundreds of miles away. His heart’s desire, his first-born, and now another little life whose first breath he had missed entirely.
Later he would weep; he would dance and sing as the thrill of it took him, but he felt none of it now. The joy filling his heart was so blindingly bright, so fierce and terrible that it could not translate to mortal emotion, his heart soaring and breaking all at once. Now he read the words again and again, smoothing the precious paper before his shaky hand could damage his love’s words, alone in his tent with his delight and his grief.
A daughter… His daughter. And he had not been there to see it.
He thought he had left two pieces of his heart behind him that day, bags packed and heart hardened to the task he must do - but now he knew he had misjudged. The whole of his heart was there, it was merely split into three.
