Wov... twoo wov... :)

Kaleigh's journal:

After that darkest of nights, I woke to see that the storm had broken and the sun was high above the land. I tried to brush off the grime as best I could and decided to try one last time to find the scouts before returning to Hannar to report my failure.

I searched atop one of the lower foothills with a host of lovely wildflowers swaying in the breeze. Finding nothing there, I began to enter a small copse of trees when a man emerged from them, startling me. I greeted him and, almost as an afterthought, mentioned that I was searching for Dourhand scouts in the area. To my amazement, he reported that he had seen some of them skulking about further to the north of Othrikar in the higher foothills.

I was about to thank him for his help, when I heard a noise coming from the copse of trees. From them emerged a lovely elf maiden who bounded toward us. She ran up to the man, embracing him and began to kiss him rather passionately. The man returned the embrace and the kiss. Feeling rather awkward, I turned my head to give them what little privacy I could while putting my hand over my mouth to stifle an embarrassed giggle.

When I heard the man speaking to me again, I turned to them both and thanked them. I could not help but watch as they turned to walk toward Othrikar, hand in hand. I had not seen such displays of affection for quite some time, and the sight evoked both joy and sadness. While seeing such passion and love between them was so heartwarming, I was once again reminded of Beckham and the love I had lost, yet still clung to. At that moment, I realized how much I wanted to find someone who could bring me such joy, in both giving my love to him as well as in feeling his love for me.

I was brought back to the days of my childhood. My girlfriends and I used to sit by the pond and talk about all the boys of the village, discussing which ones we liked and why. I have to laugh now as I remember the silly, whimsical ideas we had regarding what love really was. Even recently, I've had some ask me, "What do you look for in a man?", as if that was all that mattered. So many of my friends say they want someone who makes them laugh, is kind, and is honest. I have to wonder if there ever has been, or ever will be, someone who would say, "I want a man who makes me cry, is cruel, and lies all the time!" :P

Because the thing is, when you take a man for your own, you don't just get the qualities you were looking for in him. You get all of him, each and every little thing. The things in him that you were not looking for may very well end up overshadowing the things that drew you to him in but a short while.

The greatest of all bards wrote:

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved."

I know many who believe that love should spark from the moment of meeting, and I admit to sometimes having been caught up in such feelings in the first few days of meeting someone new. Such passion may burn very brightly to start, but very few of these passions ever sustain themselves. More likely, they burn out quickly, only to be replaced by another like passion, and the cycle begins anew.

I am not saying that passion is not important in a relationship by any means! I have such desire for that kind of passion for someone that I can grow dizzy just in the thought of it! But what if such a passion grew out of a long and wonderful friendship? What if, after knowing someone for so long, you understood so much of them that a love for their whole being took root. You look to each other, the light of the campfire flickering upon your faces. And, finally, after all this time, you both realize what the other truly means to you. From such a foundation can grow a passion that truly can withstand the tempests, trials, temptations and times that will no doubt come along to challenge it. Hand in hand, you both come through them, together, with your love for one another growing ever stronger.

I guess that was just a long way of saying that, for me, love is something best realized rather than sought after. When someone has bewitched my mind, body and soul, and I have done the same to him, then I will know I have found my "twoo wov" :P

Time escaped me as I ruminated on these things, the beauty of the flowered hillside and fields beyond capturing me in a hopeless, romantic dream. My thoughts then went back to my despair of the night before. Just the thought that perhaps, someday, I might have someone who would be there with me, who I could reach out to hold during those darkest of nights, caused my spirit to take flight and my heart to soar.

I finally came to and headed off toward the northern hills in order to dispense some much needed justice upon the Dourhand scouts...

Kaleigh