Writing to the Past

*A letter is sent from Sunfire Estate. It is surprisingly lacking in any fancy seals, markings, gold-leaf envelopes, or the like. Instead it simply has 'Lord Aeranor Runesong' written in neat script on the outside. The letter is sealed with a single drop of wax, a heart shaped stamp having pressed the wax closed.*

Dear Aeranor,

I have spent many long years thinking about writing this letter, about what it would say. I am not even sure if a missive can reach you now, where you've gone, but I believe the time has come to finally put quill and ink to paper and to let the words come forth. It is amusing to think that the contents of this letter would have changed so dramatically over the course of the past several years.

When first I would have written to you, it would have been to beg you to come back. To offer profuse apologies with promises that the things that drove you away would be kept in check in the future. Promises that we both know would have been in vain, and in fact in many ways been outright falsehoods, for I had no intention of changing who I was, despite whatever poetic words would have surrounded such sentiments.

Later, this letter would have contained bitterness, anger, perhaps even accusations or demands that requested your presence, your support in difficult times. This too would have been an error, for how could I lean on you in times of trouble when such troubles were caused by my own hand, exactly as you predicted would be the case so long ago? How could I accuse you of abandoning me when you sought only to preserve your own people, your own good name?

Now though, now this letter contains a more simple sentiment and one that could not have been made in the past before the fires of my own creation had burned away my child-like ways and opened my eyes. For now I see that you were so very right to turn from me and walk away. The dangers you foresaw were not even half of what my power and my blindness wrought not only on myself, but on those who followed me, on my friends and family. How could you have stood beside me and burned in those flames? No, you were right to retreat, and though my heart has ached for years I no longer wonder about the why of it all.

There are a thousand excuses that I could give you for my actions. I could tell you how my mother raised me, how her love for me was but a dim, guttering candle in the darkness that made up her soul. I could tell you that the loss of my parents at such a tender age lead me to do things that I would later regret. All of these words would be excuses though, merely a way to throw a covering blanket over the truth of the matter; I am responsible for it all. My actions, my deeds, my disasters, my fault. There is no simpler truth than this, and the light of it shines so clearly in my eyes now.

In my early life there was an example that I could have lived up to. I think that you would have liked my father, Tel'athar Dayfire. He was an honorable Quel'dorei and had the interests of our people at heart. He loved those who served our House, and spent time looking after their well-being. He loved me freely, and as a result I had to put little effort into making him happy. Had I remembered the lessons he taught me, had I not allowed my mother's ambitions to overshadow them, perhaps things would have been different between you and I. That they were not is again my fault however, and I will never again cast the responsibility on others when it should be mine alone to bear.

So why do I write this letter to you now? It is not to beg your forgiveness any longer. It is not to beg for you to return, for why would you return to a life that was such poison to your own well being? No, it is instead to tell you that I forgive you, that I understand why you did what you did. I release the bitterness I held in my heart for your final parting words, for I see now their truth. I still think of them, and of you, as you have made up a tiny piece of my heart for such a long time. You have shaped my experiences, my goals, my dreams. I feel that I can now let go of all of that, and simply hold on to the memory of a friendship that was brief, but was still a glowing light in the timeline of my past.

The future will not be the past. I have surrendered my power and wield magic no longer. I have responsibilities to my sister, to the House that I will eventually fully bequeath to her name that she may carry on the legacy of our friendship, of what my father truly would have intended for us had he lived to see the fall of Silvermoon. Further, I have a daughter to care for now, one whom I have challenged the powers of time itself to reclaim, and who I love more truly, more fully than I have ever experienced in the past. I see now what was missing, and what I allowed magic to overshadow for all of these years.

I hope that if this letter reaches you, wherever you may travel, it finds your own life similarly filled with such love, such happiness. I hope that you have found new companions to stand beside you, or perhaps rediscovered ones you thought long gone. I hope even that you have found love, and that your heart sings even as your arrows fly. I hope that the road has not been a harsh one, and that it brings you good luck and better memories. Finally, I hope that one day you are able to look back and remember the few moments in time where my ambition, my magic, did not overshadow a friendship that meant more to me than I can possibly say. I hope that, now and then, it makes you smile.

Farewell, Lord Runesong. May your path be green and golden, and when your travels come to an end, may the gates of Quel'Thalas open for you.

With all my heart,
Biara'thiel Sunfire

*The letter is lacking any titles, honorifics, or official seals in the signature.*