The Absolute Last and Final Letter to Him Ever

I shake my body holding a letter I just read for the last and final time. My hands take me to my study to grab a piece of stationery to write my response. I use my most expensive and regal form to prove my point. One he will recognize.

The Page of Everlasting.

Sealed in incorruptible patience and virtue. The color of the paper reads well with all inks and the words written upon it speak truth for an eternity if meant from the heart. I will seal it with my personal insignia. One that only he will remember and I will paint it with my perfume that he will recognize from aeons past.

Along with an old ink that will not degrade, disappear, or disintegrate ever again. Then I will set a spell on it so that it cannot be destroyed once opened and read. It will also force him to read it completely to be burned into his memory forever and always, until his death. I take no responsibility for what happens afterward.

The Ink of Incorrigible Continence of Plenty.

The words fly out of my pen with such ferocity and elegance that I am proud of what comes forth as it does. With words that form freely and succinctly without sadness, restraint, or malice. Okay, maybe a little bit of malice, but I feel like it’s earned.

---

Byheeran,

I am telling you that this is my last letter. If you send another, I will not read it. I will not open the envelope. I will not give you the time of day. I say this, because I cannot do this anymore. I need you to understand that.

What we had was definitely something. I don’t regret it. It was real, and it happened, and it used to hurt more than it does now, but it has come down to neither of us wanting to see each other in person any longer, and I am tired, Byheeran.

My sweet, goofy Byheeran. I can still taste the Melgrove wine on your tongue. Hear the sound of your armor clinking and clanking as you walk down the road. Feel the roar of your voice reverberate through my spine as you protect me from Sildagog Crawlers or Pallagian Mourners. I can smell the stink of your underclothes as we hold each other in the cold nights long ago.

But now we haven’t felt each other’s caress in many ages, and it’s time we move on. It doesn’t feel real anymore. Your words don’t bring emotion to my heart when you spout off poetry on the page, and I haven’t heard it from your lips since even before our third to last excursion as teammates. Before even our last fight. Our last night holding each other. Not even then.

I know it may seem cold, or even heartless, but that’s because it has to be. We don’t love each other anymore, and we can’t keep trying. If we do, I’m afraid that both of us will be worse for the wear. An old festering wound that’s unable and unwilling to heal. Not even allowed to scab over or scar. It must be dealt with so that it doesn’t get infected with plague or else we could end up with an arm or leg cut off or even death.

I know that’s a little theatric, and a bit histrionic, operatic and sensationally dramaturgical, or other such words of fancy that don’t mean shit, but the meaning still holds firm against my aching body and disturbed mind.

Do you remember what happened at the Callingrine Plateau? Where you blasted open the exit before we could figure out the portal inscription? You knew the consequences, but chose to not care at all for the rest of us. We could have gone home with something beautiful, powerful, or even just expensive, but we only had our lives left to us. It was selfish. It was childish. It was damn idiotic, and that’s what has become of our interactions with each other.

So if I can’t fucking stand to even see your face again, how can we keep writing these letters that cling to something that has long since departed into the Nightborn Realm where King Thedandrus uses fleshcraft as cover for being one of the Baleful Profane?

So, yes, Byheeran, I cannot and will not forgive you for loving me, loving us, but even worse, I will forgive you for trying. So don’t respond to this letter, it will not reach me. I will flee from even the thought of our memory together and you shall not know to where.

Good day, sir.

---

The letter is written. Now I must send it. My heart flutters and aches and spins and desires and longs for it to be sent. I gather the required opulence for such a transaction. It will not go by regular post. It must go by private means. A way that will go directly to him, wherever he is. The payment is not just money, but pain. Exquisite suffering of something so dear that it disrupts memory and dismembers it from my mind. One he will absolutely know of by way of the subsequent knowledge of its dark and rigid past.

The Hollowing Ceremony.

---

I cannot believe I sent the letter. The Ceremony was a success. The payment of his name from my mind. I still hear his voice, but the cadence is different. See his face, but it is one of a stranger. Taste his lips, but it is only but a meal I once ate. Smell his cologne, but it is one of many inside a crowd I do not know. Feel his touch, but it is the touch of a fleeting and uncomplicated encounter.

It is a strange feeling, knowing that I do not know him any longer. I don’t even recall the reason why I hated or even loved him in the past. I only know that I do not need him any longer. Or even know his name. I wonder if I would know his face if I saw it again, or if I already have. But I am glad that I do not need to wallow in it forever more.