A west wind blew through the trees, lifting the letter he had started, carrying it out of his sight.

That west wind blew that letter unfinished far and deep. Holding I tight in its grasp. Till the winds stopped anf lifted about the lone wind mage out alone in the shadows of the night sitting on the far shore line just a moment away from the inn with no name. The letter settled beside her, it wasn't uncommon for letters from home to find their way to her in such a manner. Her brows rose and gloved hands moved from her lap to take that parchment up, why else would a letter come to her if it was not meant for her she let her jade hues gaze tot he words penned in a hand she knew all too well.



The words I dare not speak would bring sweet tears to your gentle hues of green. Memories of love once shared, now only bring restless nights and questions without answers. Where the air for ye was once soft and carefree, now cause ye to struggle to breathe. I've no plan nor purpose in this realm and have only been the harbinger of sadness and despair. Where I was once dead to ye afore, I should be so again, that happiness may return to your days and peace fill your nights.

::Her eyes welled with soft tears for days on end she had not really slept, no matter if it were her dreams that kept her awake or not. Shea needed his friendship, but it was never that simple with them. Those memories meant more to her than just mere memories...They meant so much more to her. She didn't not wish to torment him or make his stay in Rhydin painful. It was painful for her as well, to look upon him and not wish for just moment to make things as they were.::

::Would she rise to go and find him or sit there and think it over? She read the last part over again, she wished him not to be dead, she wished her self to be ten thousand feet in the grave so deep hat the earth would eat her....alive. No she would not stand to go and find him yet tuck that letter she did in to the folds of her cloak and a blank parchment did she pull out and look to, she needed no pen no ink to write with she would use that touch of magic to write the letter;;

The words that I have read would bring my eyes much sadness....and that they do. I think it is high time we talked, really talked, not as friends or past lovers but tlaked,if things cannot be sorted out.... I shall go, and ye shall never have to see me again nor think of me..... for tis I should be dead not ye..... if I could take it all back..... beg ye to stay.... know that i would....but 'tis not so ... please i would like to speak with ye.... even if it is the last time.... find me at the inn with no name.... this is between ye and I and Victor shall have no part...

::Shea didn't sign it she knew she didn't have to ... she sent it away on the winds and the winds would take it to him, they always had that way about finding those she wanted to find::

Her love was like something he had never known. It gave him refuge from the storms...a place to call home. And what now remained was a hole...a hole in his world, which he tried to ignore, pretending that it wasn't there...until it gaped open wide plumetting him to depths unlike he had ever visited afore.

"I've no business being here, Shea. I am nothing but a
distraction to ye...an intrusion upon ye and Victor. I am not making anyone my enemy...I am just..."He stopped, looking at her..."...I should not be here."

Shea paced towards the lake her sliver gaze shifting to the water
now. "Ye are not a distration Connar... nor an intrusion...":She paced back towards him and placed her hands upon his shoulders once more. "Ye are here beacuse ye must be here, should and should not have nothing to do with it... if ye leave again with out saying goodbye, if ye leave again.... it will crush me Connar, ye left once beacuse of me, do not do it again."

He stood motionless, looking at her...though his mind saw her wrapped in wings of black...as if symbolically she had left him for that which was the furthest from him. "I did not leave because of ye, Shea...It had nothing to do with you...I've a work to do...tis that and only that....It was before ye ever were and will be long after what we were is but a faint and hazy memory."

Shea stepped back again and took a breath and relaxed her self when her eyes opened once mroe they were ajde in color once again. "Aye, tis what ye said to me then as well... yet i still do not beileve it.... honor and duty, aye i understand those well all too well...."


"Believe what ye will, Shea...but I did not leave because of ye. If ye know anything of honor and duty then ye know that some things are more important than what two people may share..."

Jade hues rested upon him as he looked at her. "Yet now ye look upon me with different eyes... as if the woman ye see before you is not Shea the woman ye once loved.... ocne shared so much with but as something else... some foul creature.... I think i was right to say that ye were dead... for the man before me now is not the Connar I knew."

"Ye are not some foul creature, Shea...but ye are different...and so am I. We are but shadows of the people we once were. If we are to be friends...then ye can't see me as the man ye once loved...else no progress shall ever occur."

She gazed to him, "I do not see ye as such any longer Connar.... so progress has been made."

He nodded, her words biting and hard...the truth hurts... "Tis how it should be."

She pulled that hood of that cloak over her head, "The hour grows late... i shall return to Nosgoth now.... Namaarie Connar... Quel Du...Tenna' ento lye omenta."

"Safe journeys to ye, Shea..."

She gave him one last look before thsoe winds wrapped her up
in to their arms and Shea slowly faded away, she knew he had told her that he had forgotten all the elvish he ever knew... and things he never knew so she used it.

As she vanished from his view, he spat on the ground, feeling bitterness in his mouth. He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, closing his eyes to the breeze moving through the glen. The gentle sweep of air fresh and scented of pines and green forest.

"So this is what good-bye feels like..."

::The winds her ever faithful friend brought another letter to her hand as she sat perche din west end,ona mission. Yet this letter took presidence over the mission at hand. :; Go on ahead of me,I'll catch up. :; Said to ehr comrades in arms as they seemed to nod and flank off to duty. She would know who this letter was from with out even flipping the wind blow page open to glance att he penmanship. But as she slwoly sat upon the roof top she did unfold the paper and begin.::

"Dearest Shea,

I pray this letter finds ye happy and well. I have felt a great amount of malaise since we last spoke at the South Glen lake. Ye need to know that I was wrestling with a number of issues and my nights were filled with anything but sleep. But I feel, since my return, that events have not unfolded between us as I would have wished.

The heartache and abandonment ye must have felt at our parting so many months ago must have been unbearable. I more fully understand what my actions must have put ye through now. I knew that it would happen, that the day would surely come, when I would return to this realm and discover that ye had found someone. I wanted that for ye more than anything else, to know that ye were loved and looked after.

I?ve reflected back upon all the bad luck, and the struggles we went through and how I was lost and how I was found by you.

I never imagined the struggle would be this hard, to love and to lose love. I'm learning to live without ye now, but I miss ye sometimes, I miss what we once shared.

The more I know, the less I seem to understand. There is an emptiness all around with an unquenchable thirst. All the things I thought I knew, I'm learning again. At times I feel as though my will begins to weaken and my thoughts seem to roam freely, taking me back, only to run hard against the present.

Of late, by our words, actions and appearance we have been sending a message, that we are not who we once were. We?ve been less than kind one to another, for which I am sorry. Being ?friends? simply was not in our grasp, perhaps, someday, it will be.

In the end, I believe tis all about...forgiveness - even if the love is no longer there ? we can forgive each other our weaknesses and failings. It never ceases to amaze me that love can survive in such a graceless age.

I know that my work and purpose came between us, that we both had different paths to follow. And for a moment on our separate journeys, our paths converged, and we were able to share each other for a short while, hold hands, and help each other til our paths parted once again.

There are people in your life who've come and gone, we have let ye down, caused ye pain and hurt. But ye put it all behind, and your life goes on. I do not wish to carry any anger, any resentment, any wishing for things to be different, for this will only fester and devour me from within.

I would ask ye for forgiveness, for what I may have said or done since returning that may have caused ye pain. My flesh is weak and calmness and reason have not been steadfast companions these past weeks. But the ashes have scattered, the nightmares are gone, and the sky is bright and warm once again.

I know not whether I shall tarry much longer in this realm. Do not think that my absence is on account of ye or anything that has transpired between us. Darkness has all but consumed my world, as it grows, my power to work against it weakens ? as does the desire to help where help is not welcomed nor wanted. There is an emptiness there as well as here for me. Tis perhaps what I search for now, something to put in that emptiness where service and devotion formerly resided.

My love and prayers go with ye and your family ? always and forever,


Connar"


::She smiled to the letter, as if touched so deeply by the words there in which she had read. She would have to reply to it,but would it be simpler to seek him out,nae Shea thoguht not.So parchment taken out,time to kill. She wrote with no ink no quill but touces of wind magic a skill she ahd learend in the past few months::

"Dearest Connar

Your letter did find me well,on business as I often am these days in west end.I do not regret what went on int he glen,I think of it often and wish ye had told me what ye saw,but I do not push.Your nights were never filled with much sleep Connar,it has always bene that way. my heart did ache from the time you left till the time you came back. But ye did not abandon me,ye had to go and I was fine with it. I understood sometimes duty takes over all else,ye know I know this better than most. I never expected you to come back,I knew some how that even if you did things would remain as they always were in love so deeply was I with you that so blind was I too all I had done to you,keeping you from your duty. I am loved and looked after now,and happy.

All the things we went through I shall always remember fond memeories for me through my long life shall they be. Not a moment will pass when I do not think of ye and wonder if all is well. Not just beacuse I loved ye,but beacuse we are to be friends. I miss ye as well,sometimes more than others. I see ye and I don't know what to say nor what to do.I have been avoiding it. Avoiding you. Though that is impossible. I shall always think of what we shared and miss many times,the closeness the danger the whole lot of things I can not express in mere words.



We are not who we once were, you and I have greatly changed. But in some ways we are ever the same as we were,some where deep in my ehart there is the woamn I was when I loved ye,waiting forever for her vallaint warrior to return to her,witht he deep guilt I have long felt. I am sorry as well, things have been rather stressful.Much goes on in my life,and I share the most of it with Victor. But even my beloved husband can not know everything.

Someday we can be friends,maybe not today or tomorrow but maybe some day,Im not getting any older,and shall be around for ever.

It is about forgiveness- and to forgive ye I must do it in person.And I am sure the same is true with ye. Love is strong and brave tis how it survives.

Do not think much over what happened, in the end you were always right,ye said that no matter if I could change things or wait that things would be the same, and its true they would be. What you do is important. Just as what I do is. I carry no hate nor anger or sadness for what was. I ahve let it go in hopes that we can be friends. No what ifs no talk of the past unless it is good talk. Ye are always forgiven Connar,know that.
Do what ye must do. If your time ehre is again coming to an end I bid you safe passage home,and know that if you ever need me I am here,as a friend.Rhydin falls deeper in tod arkness and I have many battles to fight. We are still on the same side even though we are different,I know how it feels to help and feel helpless I feel it every hour here in Rhydin.




My love and prayers go with ye ,always. The winds shall always guide and guard you.


Shea"

::She let the letter go,it would find its way to him,no matter if he was in Rhyin or not.::

How does one argue with a spirit, with a phantom of the wind? Is she really there or has the cold and deprivation finally taken the mind past sound reason? Or, worse yet, were the spirits of darkness mocking him once more, trying to draw him into a lie?

The door to the Inn hung open suspended in the warm breeze. Connar looked around, dropping the hood to his shoulders to better hear the swirling voices on the breeze. Black hair cut across his face as his head turned against the wind, straining to see or hear what might be lurking in the darkness.

Shea was no illusion, she had long ago made a promise and would keep to it. Jumping to the ground from her perch on the rooftop she walked up to him and smiled. ?You are no man?s nor god?s pawn in this life Connar.? Her hand rose to grace his cheek. Connar?s eyes widened at the apparition?she was different from the last time he saw her?no longer heavy with child, she appeared as he pictured her in his mind. Surely, he was dreaming.

?A higher power not one of god makes sure of this.? He might feel a wash of warmth race over him a wash of old memories long forgotten in the ages that had passed, good memories, warm ones.

Connar stared at her, the memories past and present were all too familiar to him. ?There is none higher than my god, Shea?tis by his hand and will alone that my life is preserved and given purpose.?

Her hand fell and she took a few steps back, I brought you back from near death once, little did I know ye did not need it then. Little did I know that as much as you distaste magic and the like, you?re as bound to it as I am.?

Before he could argue the point as to whether he distasted magic or was bound to it, the the wind shifted and Shea stood closer, pressing her fingers to her lips then pressing those same fingers to his cheek. ?Be no ones pawn as long as the powers of the Seldarine and I look after you. I should have seen it, but you defeated it. A well deserved rest is needed, and do not argue with me on that point. Ye are not dead yet but rest ye can still take.? The winds shifted again still warm but in them Shea was gone.

His eyes followed the empty wind, his jaw tightening. He shook his head as he looked out into the stormy night sky, his voice chasing after the wind, ?There will be plenty of time to rest when I?m dead!? That was his stock response when told all he needed was rest.

Connar did not know who or what the Seldarine represented, nor why it would have any interest in a wayward mortal from earth?s middle ages. ?And I am not anyone?s pawn?though I often wonder if I am becoming yours?.? His voice trailed off as he leaned against the cold stone wall of the inn and looked down at the snow-covered ground at his feet.

Shea was not alone in her desire to look over him, it seemed as though he was becoming Rhydin?s charity case?or basket case?depending on who was doing the watching. He raised his gaze to stare out into the blackness of the forest in the distance, appearing as a solid silhouette against the moonlit sky. He wondered what unknown dangers yet lurked therein.

After a long moment of silent reflection, he pushed off the wall and walked through the inn door pulling it shut behind him. Connar paused outside the door to his room, looking down the dark and empty corridor. His hand gripped the door handle, but it was soon released, the cool worn metal sliding through his fingers, the door left unopened. He would pass what remained of the night sitting before a hearth and a fire.


- - -