On Love and Loss

I am a woman, lost.

As the celebration of my 21st birthday fast approaches, I often find myself staring out to sea wondering how my life could've gone so wrong.

Was it my fault? Was it fate? Or, more likely, a mix of both. I can't help but think, sometimes, that I was born until a mischevious star that likes nothing more than to toy with me.

My first boyfriend was an Elvaan dragoon. Funny how it was only five years ago and yet I've forgotten his name. I've never been good with long, cumbersome Elvaan names. His face, however, full of exuberance and hope, yet with something more sinister bubbling beneath the surface, I'll never forget. We had our fun... I was so young, then.

I am so old, now.

He's disappeared now, just as he'd disappeared back then. I hope that he is well. Some time after he left, I reconnected with Avertan.

Oh, Avertan... where are you now, my love?

We first knew each other when we were but eleven or twelve years of age. It feels like a lifetime ago: I was a thief apprentice and he, an assassin in training, both of us kept by treacherous adults who claimed to have our best interests at heart. I didn't realize the depth of my feelings for him then, nor those of his for me, but when we met each other years later, the truth was revealed to me. He had known it all along.

Our love was as deep as the deepest ocean, our bond was as tough as the toughest steel. So where did we go wrong?

The truth is, there was always something dark in him. I was the only one who could calm him when his demonic side took root, but, after a couple of years -- nae, a mere year and a half of a "happy ending" -- he told me that he felt he could no longer contain it. He said he had to go, for my sake as well as his, and that I could not go with him.

Avertan had become my husband in all but name. We were saving up for a real ceremony, a shinier ring, but none of that mattered to me. I wanted you, Avertan, body and spirit.

He and I had come to what was, at the time, a sensible agreement: he'd stay behind in the Far East to fight monsters and his own demonic side and I would sail beyond the horizon, back home to Mindartia.

I should've known better.

I should've known that, in love, there is nothing sensible.

I let him go and my heart has ached for him every damn second since.

Altana, Altana... please don't punish me so.

Avertan... when will you come back to me? I know you told me to expect you never, but "never" is too long.

It's been nearly three years since you left but it instead feels like three lifetimes.

After Avertan and I agreed to part ways, I came back to Mindartia to find that my life was nothing like it was when I'd gone to the Far East. Linkshells, shattered; friends, lost to the winds. I felt helpless, I felt hopeless, and all I wanted to do was bury my head under my pillow and never emerge from my Mog House again.

I'm ashamed to say that I did not aid my friends in their search for Maximeo, or "Maxim" as we called him, at this time. But you see, if you could possibly understand, I felt the world had turned to mush beneath my toes.

They found him, of course, without my help and, as it turns out, he eventually became my new best friend -- and then, my love.

Maximeo... his smile, so kind; his demeanor, so easy. Unlike Avertan and I, it seemed he didn't have the weight of ten continents on his shoulders (although, as an orphan, he seemed to have reason enough to -- but it just wasn't in his nature, Altana rest his soul).

Although I told Maximeo I'd never stop loving Avertan, I came to care for Maximeo deeply. It brings a smile to my face to think of our time together. I'll always remember his kind, yet carefree ways. He always looked after me. He...

He was taken from me too soon. Too soon, Altana, into your warm embrace.

Had I only paid more attention to the glittered allure of the Near East. I blame Aht Urhgan, particularly the Blue Mage order, for his death. I warned Maximeo not to play with "blue magic," I begged him to stop, and it seemed I'd won: he agreed to stop serving the Empire and come home with me. On our way home, out at sea, in our quarters by himself (I had stepped out for just a little while) , that's when it happened.

It's still difficult to think about.

I came back, and he wasn't moving... though I'd become a skilled white mage, this was one wound I couldn't heal. I.... don't know what happened to him, but I know it broke my heart. What few friends I could find attended his funeral in the nation he loved, San d'Oria.

I don't understand... why must I lose those I love?

I was angry after Maximeo died; so angry, I closed myself off from what few friends I had. It wasn't a wise move: by now, I can count on one hand those I know and care even a little about. I chased every rumor I'd heard of Maximeo somehow being alive for several months. Even though I'd seen the body, I thought, perhaps, some strange monster skill had brought him back to me...

But, nae. That was not the case. Instead, I gave up on love. After serving Cap'n Kirrund for years as a pirate, it was easy to find the Corsairs and convince them to let me join their ranks. I would have my revenge against the Empire. I used my connections with the mercenary company in Whitegate to spy on the Empire for them and banished all thoughts of a "happy ending."

I thought I'd learned my lesson, but now I see I've found love again, in another brave, dashing knight: Braxus Lionheart. He's heroic, he's couragous, and he wants to take care of me. So what's the problem? Why have I delayed our wedding time and again with excuses of some business to which I must attend alone? And, more importantly, why does he stay with me through it all?

We were so happy together when he proposed to me... why aren't I that happy now?

Have I not fallen in love, but merely settled for someone who will love me and, in my perception, never leave the way my loves Avertan and Maximeo did? Even before Avertan, people had been leaving me my entire life... through death, retirement, or disappearance. Has it all scarred my heart so badly that I've convinced myself I'm in love with Braxus just to avoid being alone?

I don't know.

I don't know if Braxus is right for me.

I don't know if I've been too cruel to him.

I don't know if I will be even crueler to him.

Altana, guide me. Altana, protect me. Altana, do not abandon me.

I am a woman, and I am lost.

~Alth Aaia, Windurstian hero and white mage