Posthumous Letter of Hope and Sorrow

My dearest Quin,   I spent most of my life up until now hiding who I am from the world. I was afraid of being perceived as different and being laughed at or worse, reviled.   When you met me as Chinue, the happy go lucky gnome, your assigned companion for assignations that special needs might require, your eyes filled with tears and you hugged me and thanked me and I saw you. I really saw you. I saw how beautiful you were. Your fragile yearning for a connection nearly broke me. But I saw you, the beauty of who you are.   You trusted me so easily that I worried for you. You thought you were bad or flawed for the simple body cravings the fates had dealt you. You were so earnest and beautiful. And I saw you. Only you.   I told you long ago how lovely you are. You never believed me but Quin, I see you. Bright and beautiful, your light banished the shadows from my heart.   In my wildest dreams I never thought someone would be generous enough of heart to love me. Your heart was true to me in my true form from the very first time we touched. I loved you from that moment. Perhaps even before.   Quin, will you marry me?   Enclosed you will see a ring. If you take it and put it on your finger, our hearts and love will be true and we will be one. I have already put my ring on. Please put yours on. Let’s share our lives.   The light of your soul will keep the shadows away and my shape will shift to whatever you need to retain your vitality for the rest of our days. You have given me everything. Please let me give you everything.   Marry me, Quin. I love you. With all my heart, Collier Newton Houndslow III.   His signature was embellished with a heart and 2 rings but Quin’s tears dropped on the page and splotched them. She held the parchment to her heart and blinded by raw emotion she sobbed silently, rocking back and forth. When Spot came to her and lay his head in her lap she was reminded of Newton’s fur. He had been a faun and self-conscious of it.   She carefully rolled up the scroll and put it in a bit of oilskin and found a pocket in Caedmon’s pack where she thought it would be safe.   When she put the ring on her finger. She felt strange, like a floating petal on a wisp of wind in slow motion. It was odd. She loved him so much and yet she realized with sorrow that she had already grown beyond when she had told Jir’lin there was something wrong with her and he didn’t deny it.   When Ecxtixcilin had pleasured her in the night in his wild frenzy of exultation. Quin knew she would never love anyone the way she had loved Newton. She had loved him without complication or thought because he had accepted her the way she was, terribly flawed and loved her anyway. He had pleased her body in ways nobody else ever had. Until last night. Now it was time to weep for everything she had lost.   How could she, she wondered, trade acceptance, kindness, and love for acknowledgement of the truth that there was something fundamentally wrong with her. How could truth be more valuable than just pure love and acceptance? Ecxtixcilin repeatedly reminded her that she was a moron and then gave her what she needed and she acknowledged he was right. That was truth. She was, if not a moron, really stupid and weak. It broke her heart to recognize the truth about herself. It felt like she had left innocence behind forever. Had she stayed with Newton, she wondered if she would always have a niggling doubt at the back of her mind as his acceptance of her as she was would never have allowed her to acknowledge, explore, challenge and question what was wrong with her. To him, she had been perfect as she was. And she knew that she would have never believed she wasn’t deeply flawed.