▸ Column · High fantasy — Azeroth, a courtship conducted by whispered sendings across a continent, the asker writing to Alexstrasza the Life-Binder at Wyrmrest
ALEXSTRASZA replies.
Replied to by Alexstrasza, with a rebuttal from Deathwing.
The letter
Life-Binder — eight moons ago, sheltering from a storm in a waystation between provinces, I exchanged a single message with a battlefield-healer who tends the wounded a continent away. Since then we have whispered to one another every night without fail: his soft sendings before the dawn shift, watches that last until the candles gutter, even a shared little ledger of the alehouses and groves we will visit "one day." But that day is never set upon any calendar. Twice I have offered to make the long journey to him, and both times he falls silent for a full week, then reappears saying the season is ill for it, the work too heavy. My sister insists a man who will not pledge a single weekend in eight moons is hiding a wife, a hearth-companion he calls only a friend, or a face that matches none of the likenesses he sent. I no longer feel like a beloved. I feel like a very devoted correspondent. How long do I keep loving someone I have never once stood beside?
Alexstrasza replies
Come and sit, dear one. There is no haste in this — though I think part of you already knows the shape of it, and only wants someone old enough to say it kindly.
Hear me first on what is true: the love you feel is not foolish. To pour tenderness across a continent into a voice in the dark is a brave and living thing, and I will never name it waste. I loved Korialstrasz across ages and distances no mortal map could hold, and I know what it is to ache toward someone not in the room.
But love that is real, little one, longs to close the distance. It does not flee into silence each time the door is opened. Twice you offered to stand beside him; twice he vanished and returned with the season's excuses. That pattern is itself an answer, gently given.
So choose, the way one tends a fire to see if it will catch: name a true day, ask him plainly to meet you upon it. If he flees a third time into silence, believe the silence — not because you are unworthy of being stood beside, but precisely because you are worthy, and your own life is among those you are called to cherish. Do not wither tending a hearth that gives back no warmth. And whatever comes — do not let this teach your heart to stop opening. That lesson is the only true loss here.
— Alexstrasza
Deathwing weighs in
The Life-Binder tells you to light one more fire and watch for the catch. I tended the whole world's fires once, and they guttered anyway — so hear the colder thing she circled and would not land on. That ledger of alehouses you'll visit "one day" is not a courtship. It is a pretty pretense laid over a thing that has already not-stood, twice. The man went quiet and dressed it as the season. He answered you. You are decorating ruin and calling it patience — and patience is what the whispers name hope so you'll keep waiting in the ash. Stop tending this particular ghost. But mark me, little one: that one cold hearth went dark is no verdict on every warmth there is. I confused those two. Do not.
— Deathwing
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