Write a letter to anyone about anything...
Jan. 9th, 2006 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
birthrightgreenWrite a letter to anyone about anything. Say what you have always wanted to say but have been afraid to.
Surreal sat with the pen poised above the paper for a very long time before she could even bring herself to start writing. So many things she'd held back for so long until there wasn't any honorable way to say them. Not that she had any illusions they would have been well received had she said them at any time.
But now, with a new future, a new path laid out before her, she couldn't help but think that it was time to be honest, at least with herself.
Dear Sadi,
I can't tell you how many times I've tried to say the words I'm writing down. First fear, then honor, then love itself stopped me. I can only bring myself to write them now knowing neither you nor anyone else will ever see them.
But they still want to be said. Need to be said.
I had a dream once, years, no centuries, ago. I was just a child, and so hopefully I can be forgiven for such romantic fantasies. Just a child, who'd only known cold and hunger and fear until one day the Prince came and took her away and made it all better, at least for a little while. A handsome prince, with eyes that were warm and kind when they looked at her, who was kind to her mother and gentle to the madwoman they sometimes took in. I used to dream that I'd grow up to be worthy of your regard. Your love.
On the streets after Titian died, my childhood died, and with it my dreams. There was no hope. Just survival.
Only, then the Prince came again. And once again, he took the girl away from all of that. He saw that she was clean and warm and had enough food and was back at the lessons she'd learned to love so much. The work she fed herself with didn't matter so much, because the Prince was there, at least sometimes. He came sweeping in and brightened the rest. Never asked anything from her, but gave her so much.
And I dreamed more. Dreamed that one day he'd--you'd--come and we'd leave it all behind and go somewhere, just us, and live happily ever after. Sad isn't it, that I was still capable of such dreams after what we'd seen. I learned. I grew. I had them stripped away as I saw the web we were both caught in.
But those times you came, the nights we spent sitting around talking about books and art and the foibles of some of my clients, just being together...those were the happiest times I'd ever known and part of me wished they'd never end, even though I knew they had to.
I didn't have a word for it until recently, when it hit me so hard, what I'd felt. What I felt. What I wanted. I think I only realized it when I realized I had lost it.
Lost you.
Not that I ever had you, but it was there. The dream that one day you'd want me the way I wanted you. Love me the way I loved you.
Because I do love you. Not as a sister. Not as a cousin. As a woman loves a man.
But even as I write the words, there's a wash of shame, because I know you can't ever be mine, and it feels like treason to the Sister who has made me part of her family to even give the words voice.
You belong with Jaenelle. Not to her, for all contracts signed. With her. You were born to love her, born to be with her, as you always said, always knew. The two of you amaze me everytime I see you together.
You deserve her. Deserve to have Witch's love. To have Jaenelle's love. And she deserves yours.
You complete each other. Balance each other. Fix the broken places inside each other and make each other whole.
And that's what I want for you, my friend. My love. For you to have all the happiness you deserve. What I want for her as well, the Sister of my heart.
Love each other. Live the life you were meant to live and be happy together. If I can see that, then I can be happy, too.
For myself...the end of the dream isn't the end of the world, love. There's a new dream. A new hope that's there. I know you're not fond of Samael, but I love him. And it's a new love, a fresh start for both of us. None of the baggage that clouds the roads between you and me. Both of us broken, too, and maybe he's the one I can help. The one I can be there for in the ways I was never able to be there for you. And maybe he's what I have been searching for all along.
There are maybes and hopes instead of just fear and loathing myself and trying so hard to hide.
I don't have to hide from him. Telling him I love him doesn't bring either the contempt or the pity I imagine when I try to think of what would happen should I tell you how I feel.
Parts of it are hard, though. It's safer, if less fulfilling, to cling to the dream of you. You're known. You're already part of me in ways no one else will ever be able to be.
But you aren't mine and you can't ever be. Because you deserve far better than I, and you love her so very much, and she loves you so much and it's...it's what love should be. What we all dream of, even with all the broken shards of both of you.
And so, it's time. I have to walk away from the safety that are my hopeless dreams of you and push forward and make new dreams and new hopes and a new future. I have to take my chance at finding that, too.
But before I do, I had to say it once. I love you. I have always loved you. And part of me will always love you. You can't just...stop nearly 400 years of love, even if you weren't sure what to call it before.
Be happy. Love her. Let her love you. Make a wonderful life together, and grab hold of everything in life that should have been yours all along. I'll do everything in my power to see that it is so for both of you, because you both deserve the world.
Yours,
Surreal
She stared at the letter for a long, long time, hands shaking a bit. Then, wiping away the tears, she conjured a small ball of witchfire and lit one edge of it. She held it until the fire licked at her fingers, ashes falling on the table.
Then she let go.
Surreal sat with the pen poised above the paper for a very long time before she could even bring herself to start writing. So many things she'd held back for so long until there wasn't any honorable way to say them. Not that she had any illusions they would have been well received had she said them at any time.
But now, with a new future, a new path laid out before her, she couldn't help but think that it was time to be honest, at least with herself.
Dear Sadi,
I can't tell you how many times I've tried to say the words I'm writing down. First fear, then honor, then love itself stopped me. I can only bring myself to write them now knowing neither you nor anyone else will ever see them.
But they still want to be said. Need to be said.
I had a dream once, years, no centuries, ago. I was just a child, and so hopefully I can be forgiven for such romantic fantasies. Just a child, who'd only known cold and hunger and fear until one day the Prince came and took her away and made it all better, at least for a little while. A handsome prince, with eyes that were warm and kind when they looked at her, who was kind to her mother and gentle to the madwoman they sometimes took in. I used to dream that I'd grow up to be worthy of your regard. Your love.
On the streets after Titian died, my childhood died, and with it my dreams. There was no hope. Just survival.
Only, then the Prince came again. And once again, he took the girl away from all of that. He saw that she was clean and warm and had enough food and was back at the lessons she'd learned to love so much. The work she fed herself with didn't matter so much, because the Prince was there, at least sometimes. He came sweeping in and brightened the rest. Never asked anything from her, but gave her so much.
And I dreamed more. Dreamed that one day he'd--you'd--come and we'd leave it all behind and go somewhere, just us, and live happily ever after. Sad isn't it, that I was still capable of such dreams after what we'd seen. I learned. I grew. I had them stripped away as I saw the web we were both caught in.
But those times you came, the nights we spent sitting around talking about books and art and the foibles of some of my clients, just being together...those were the happiest times I'd ever known and part of me wished they'd never end, even though I knew they had to.
I didn't have a word for it until recently, when it hit me so hard, what I'd felt. What I felt. What I wanted. I think I only realized it when I realized I had lost it.
Lost you.
Not that I ever had you, but it was there. The dream that one day you'd want me the way I wanted you. Love me the way I loved you.
Because I do love you. Not as a sister. Not as a cousin. As a woman loves a man.
But even as I write the words, there's a wash of shame, because I know you can't ever be mine, and it feels like treason to the Sister who has made me part of her family to even give the words voice.
You belong with Jaenelle. Not to her, for all contracts signed. With her. You were born to love her, born to be with her, as you always said, always knew. The two of you amaze me everytime I see you together.
You deserve her. Deserve to have Witch's love. To have Jaenelle's love. And she deserves yours.
You complete each other. Balance each other. Fix the broken places inside each other and make each other whole.
And that's what I want for you, my friend. My love. For you to have all the happiness you deserve. What I want for her as well, the Sister of my heart.
Love each other. Live the life you were meant to live and be happy together. If I can see that, then I can be happy, too.
For myself...the end of the dream isn't the end of the world, love. There's a new dream. A new hope that's there. I know you're not fond of Samael, but I love him. And it's a new love, a fresh start for both of us. None of the baggage that clouds the roads between you and me. Both of us broken, too, and maybe he's the one I can help. The one I can be there for in the ways I was never able to be there for you. And maybe he's what I have been searching for all along.
There are maybes and hopes instead of just fear and loathing myself and trying so hard to hide.
I don't have to hide from him. Telling him I love him doesn't bring either the contempt or the pity I imagine when I try to think of what would happen should I tell you how I feel.
Parts of it are hard, though. It's safer, if less fulfilling, to cling to the dream of you. You're known. You're already part of me in ways no one else will ever be able to be.
But you aren't mine and you can't ever be. Because you deserve far better than I, and you love her so very much, and she loves you so much and it's...it's what love should be. What we all dream of, even with all the broken shards of both of you.
And so, it's time. I have to walk away from the safety that are my hopeless dreams of you and push forward and make new dreams and new hopes and a new future. I have to take my chance at finding that, too.
But before I do, I had to say it once. I love you. I have always loved you. And part of me will always love you. You can't just...stop nearly 400 years of love, even if you weren't sure what to call it before.
Be happy. Love her. Let her love you. Make a wonderful life together, and grab hold of everything in life that should have been yours all along. I'll do everything in my power to see that it is so for both of you, because you both deserve the world.
Yours,
Surreal
She stared at the letter for a long, long time, hands shaking a bit. Then, wiping away the tears, she conjured a small ball of witchfire and lit one edge of it. She held it until the fire licked at her fingers, ashes falling on the table.
Then she let go.
