Te Chi Hela Owanyake Whaste, Mr. Andur-man...

I will never forget the day I came running into Mystic Shadows Inn as a leggy colt of a young girl and crashing into the man I would one day call my fiance. I was searching for my uncle Seth or uncle Locke that were constantly teasing me and saying I was too chicken to do this. Never one to watch where I was going and very excited about having rode on the back of a dragon and shooting a bow and arrow my first time.  Mother and Tseran nearly had an attack of fright. I could only smile and wonder what else I could possibly do to enflame them even more. Anyway, I ran into the Inn and literally crashed into a man.  I took in his violet eyes as he caught me and said "Are you alright?" He helped me gain my footing and all I could do was stare at him as if I saw the face of a god.  I tried to speak but was not able to do more than just stammer. He only smiled at me as one would a foolish child, and he politely dismissed me. Did I dismiss him? No, how could I? I had seen him several times there and was always awed by him.  A flush of my cheeks and my heart would quicken seeing him. My breath would catch in my throat and I would turn away. Time went by as it is fated to do and I grew up. After the attack of Digitalis I became even more introverted and shy. I took to my writing and drawing more. Filling up a half of a book on just Andur's face and smile alone.  I found myself sitting one afternoon at the bar and was daydreaming as normal when he came in. He moved fluidly in every motion and I was unable to do more than stare in awe at him. He sat beside me and gave off the most heart-rendering smile.  Here I was a tomboy, my hair was a mess and for the first time in all my days I wished I was dressed more feminine. He looked at me and asked how I was doing. All that was racing through my myriad of thoughts was he was talking to me!! That day started many conversations and walks.  He listened to me as I spun the tale of the attack by Digitalis at the encouraging of James Flint.  Perhaps his protective nature of an innocent like me was what triggered his tenderness to me, for me I was in bliss and knew nothing more than the moments I spent with him; I was more than sure I was falling in love with him. Andur was going to teach me to fight and battle. It started off as most likely his humoring me for I can be rather stubborn when I wish to be. Then he realized I was very serious. One day while on the green, just he and I,  he was solemnly explaining to me how to never look down or away from my opponent. I caught his eyes looking into mine in a way he had not before.  Because of my impish nature I held his gaze and slipped a foot between his ankles to pull back, pushing on his shoulders to show him I had payed attention. He was too quick for me and pulled me down with him as he fell back. I landed on top of him. I thought my heart was going to leap through my chest when this happened. Andur only smiled with that innocent-devil-look he has and said "Sahyber, are we going to make a habit of my catching you when you fall?" Another time I still fondly will recall as the most joyous of occaisions was the day Andur was walking with me in the woods. As habit I picked a flower and plucked the petals off as we walked. We sat on a fallen tree and he smiled at me.  He just stared at me for what seemed like a lifetime. I knew somehow deep down I would be bonded to him for a long lifetime. He touched my cheek softly with a gentle caress-like touch of his thumb over my cheekbone and leaned over to kiss me sweetly and tenderly. Andur saw past all the walls and boundaries I put up as my "mask". His patience and attentiveness caused me to bloom like a lone orchid in the garden of many other roses and flowers. More time progressed and I professed my love for him. He felt something in return but he was not sure if it was love at that time or not. I became confused and in my fear I left Pria for some time.  Upon my return, I found Andur was with another. To describe how I felt that day would be like asking someone that was buried alive to explain that sinking feeling of knowing that they were never going to see the light of day again, nor walk in the sunshine holding the hand of the man they loved deeply and soulfully.  I resigned myself that if I truly loved this man, his ultimate happiness was my top priority. I refused to speak to him though.  I avoided Andur for a long time, yet always found out somehow from either my brother Molydeus, or one of the thousands of Morgans, how he was doing and any bit of information on him. It was then that I found the abandoned cabin in the woods and I started pouring myself into fixing it up. I made curtains, I cleaned it top to bottom. I rethached the roof myself. I planted a herb garden and flowers around the front.  I made it a secret home. Sometimes living in the keep can be constricting and confining. It was there that I began to work on a painting that I will to this day call my grandest work of art. It was a painting of Andur on a horse, and me standing beside him and his warhorse, reaching up with my hand, he taking it and smiling at me. I had captured him so perfectly there on the canvas and kept it hidden from all other eyes, until the day came when I was to present it to him.  Things being as they were, I saw that day as one that would never come. Time changes two people as the tide changes the sand. I had been sought after by many and none ever met my notions of what I wanted in a man and a love. No one ever compared to Andur. Despite my trying to not notice him, he still always greeted me; and each time I took all the reserve in myself to not run to him to just touch his hand as if a friendly jesture.  Convincing myself "no one will notice. Just a quick, light touch to his hand and saying 'hello....'" I finally realized what a fool I was. I devised to start becoming a fighter. I put heart and soul into that and it changed me as well.  All the while I was blossoming into a desirable woman and I never paid attention to it all. Did I become bitter? Somehow, I was saved from totally losing myself to the darkness I knew was inside me all along. I watched for him when he would go away. I sat by the window and waited, hoping he would return uninjured and safe. I watched the woman he had loved return to her previous husband while Andur was gone on one of his travels.  I was horrified, for all I could think of was... "what will he do?" I was panicked once I found he was going to leave the brave new world we all seemed to have moved to. I did not know what to do or think. I had never felt that lost in my life. I braved his presence at the bar one afternoon and stared at him wide-eyed; he looked back at me. I sat beside him and looked at him and said softly "If you ever wish to talk, I will just listen." He looked up at me like I had handed him the key to the heavens or something. We started talking again and I just had to pour out that which had been bottled up for so long and it just came forth like a water fall.  I told him how I missed him , how I loved him. I told him I tried to be a fighter to forget him. I told him I tried to drink to forget him.  I told him I had been courted and never found a man on the green of the world that was anything near comparable to him. I told him all the things and vises I tried to forget him. I told him he was just part of me. It was like falling back into step on a walk we had once before. Neither one leading the walk, neither one falling behind, just in perfect step once more, side by side. I resolved to just be his friend in effort to have his closeness. I began traveling the world with him. His patience as well as his protectiveness were tested repeatedly. The day came, when he could do nothing to stop my death.  Though only a temporary one, it was enough to frighten us both into knowing that all things come full circle. That when two people are meant for each other, Fate has a way of stepping in and taking over the reins.  It seems the scare of that day changed him and he opened up to me in heart, mind and soul. On the week before Yule we were engaged to wed. Andur asked me the question I longed to hear from his lips for so many long years it seemed. Would I be his wife. Perhaps the heavens rejoiced with me or so it seemed.  The world took on a new outlook for me. I had lost him and he was back. I had faced death and came back from that. My heart, my spirit, my mind were all lined up and I was sailing higher than any hawk.  I began preparing for Yule and I remembered the painting. I knew then that it was finally time to give him this painting of he and I.   One should always consider that all things come full circle that are meant to be. One has to consider that when the right one is in your life, nothing, not even death, can separate them. I sit by the window of the tavern as I write this and although he is not here, I feel his presence, and know its only a matter of time. Only a matter of time that I will see him wander in and who knows, he may crash into me this time.  If not, when I lay in my bed for my final breath, I will see Andur again. He will be dressed in garb of white and shall be holding his hand out to me; and I will leave this earthly plane and walk with him once more. The rest, gentle reader, is history. History in the making, and I, as the writer of this, can only hope...