"Gray, my love, in your last letter you spent an entire paragraph reflecting on the way my neck smelled after baking apple bread. Less of that in the next letter, please..."

- An excerpt from Narya's latest correspondence.

Even as the world grew cold with the arrival of winter, affection bloomed like flowers in the midst of spring. As time went on, Narya and I adopted the rather sappy habit of writing each other letters just about every day. Though my early efforts were frankly humiliating to look back on, I was starting to feel like my eloquence and capabilities in writing was improving steadily.

I chewed on one of Narya’s mint tablets that Robin made for her as I put the finishing touches on my latest effort. I stared at it several times. If I decided to burn the letter in a puff of green necrotic fire out of a sense of sudden regret, it wouldn’t be the first time, but I had a feeling this one was quite possibly a keeper.

Dearest Narya,

It’s difficult to believe that three months have passed since the day we met. I find it hard to fathom for two competing reasons that are actually at odds with one another. Firstly, every day with you goes by far too quickly because being with you has been the happiest time in my life.

Although it’s risky to tell you this, I actually dated quite a few women in my past life, so you might say I’ve cast a fairly wide net for a basis of comparison. While so far, admitting this openly to a jealous creature like yourself might seem as though I’m racing against time to get kneed in the genitals as hard and fast as possible, that’s not at all my objective here. The point I’m trying to make is this—I have never been with a woman who has brought me as much satisfaction with my life as you.

And yet, our time together also seems to go by so slowly. Each night I spend with you, snuggling by the fireplace, listening to you sing old elven songs or watching you brush your hair by the window as the moon lights you up like the divine creature you are—I can replay each of these memories in my mind vividly, as though each tiny moment spent with you represents a foundational epoch in my life. When you aren’t with me, I often do exactly that.

Yesterday you asked me when I knew I loved you. You’ve indicated to me that your first time was the moment when I made Meeko’s brush, followed by the time I declared out of nowhere that I wanted to grow wheat for you to make bread with. I think my response was something about seeing the way you rushed to save Meeko with no thought for your own safety on our first evening together, but that was a lie, I have to confess.

The truth is that I was essentially obsessed with you the moment I saw you. The second you rode past me when I took out those bandits and I caught that first hint of your scent, I was already infatuated. By the time I heard you sing, I was in love, even if I didn’t know it yet. Why else would I foolishly and hurriedly agree to your every demand, to adopt a strange child and pretend to marry you at a mere and sudden suggestion?

I am not a wordsmith, as you like to say, but you are my muse. You make the words spill out of me, even if they’re all a mess, because my heart wants badly to let you know just how happy you’ve made me.

There is no woman in this world or any other that I would want to raise a strange sharp-toothed monster of a child with than you. Everything I do, I do it in your name. Each breath I breathe belongs to you as much as it does me. Even the blood that courses through my veins might as well bear your signature.

I love you, Narya.

Sincerely,

Your Husband

P.S. My hand is really cramped after writing this.

I looked over the letter again and again, and at first I was sure it was a masterpiece. By the third time, however, I had already conjured a tiny green flame from my index finger. “Well, it was a good effort.”

Somehow, Narya arrived just in time to stop me. “No you don’t!” she shouted as the door opened and she instantly realized what was happening.

“I came on way too strong,” I muttered. “This is not fit for elven consumption. It’s the sappiest thing either of us has ever written. Totally out of character for a cool guy like me.”

Narya raced over to me, stomping across the cottage floorboards with a look of indignant fury on her face. I raised the paper over my head so she couldn’t reach it, but she just started jumping to try and snatch it away. “Give that to me! The ones you want to throw away are always the best ones!”

“I can do better,” I grumbled. “I promise, give me a chance to try again.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“You’ll just soften it and make all the feelings more muted,” she huffed, her cheeks going red with impatience as she jumped up and down and tried her best to snatch the parchment. “Give that to me! Give it!”

With a sigh of bitter defeat, I lowered the paper and let her take it. “Don’t read it now.”

“I’m going to,”she declared, opening it up and holding it in front of her face. “I’m going to read it at this moment, and you’re going to watch helplessly because you tried to burn it! You know the consequence!”

I furrowed my brow. “You ripped up a letter one time,” I mumbled in complaint.

She scoffed, even as her cheeks went practically incandescent from being called out. “I said some things in that letter that were simply too improper to put to paper.”

“Maybe I did too,” I said.

“Did you?” she asked with an interested smirk, her eyes drifting at once back to the parchment in her hands. “Intriguing, you’re usually so reserved about such things.”

“I didn’t,” I confessed, earning another frown.

Narya sighed and waved her hand dismissively as she walked into a corner. “You can leave if you want to, I won’t make you stay and watch me read the letter. I know how stressful that is.”

I nodded with resignation and headed toward the door. “Just—don’t laugh. I really think I did go over the top in this one.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she giggled.

I headed out to the field and closed the door behind me. We were fairly deep in winter now, which meant there was only so much work related to farming I could do each day. The most efficient way to continue progressing as a Farmer was to complete unrelated XP-granting quests. The side quests that fellow villagers offered were very helpful, but it was high time for me to get serious about finding a new Primary Quest once more.

As I surveyed the field I wondered just what that might entail. It was a tough question because I basically had…everything I could possibly want. I had a home, friends, a beautiful and clever wife, a sweet daughter, and fresh air every day.

Indeed, I didn’t have much to complain about, so what would a Primary Quest even look like? Primary Quests for most people simply represented the next logical step in your life, or your greatest ambition. Was I…not ambitious enough?

What would ambition look like for me? As I surveyed the beauty of nature in front of me, pearly snow covering the ground wherever I looked, I thought about the question more deeply than I had in a long time.

I mean—Meeko was my pride and joy, but Narya and I could also have our own kid one day and give her a sibling. Though before we took that step, I realized I’d really rather us actually, officially get married—with a proper ceremony and a ring and everything. On the human side of the border, rare blue feathers were typically sold by merchants, and presenting that to someone you loved was the standard way to propose marriage. To elves, though, the familiar ritual of diamond rings was the norm.

It wasn’t an official Primary Quest, but maybe my next ambition would be actually marrying Narya. Then again—it was still too soon for that conversation. Or was it? We really skipped all the usual steps, so it was hard to tell what she would be open to and what might seem too pushy.

Just as I was about to start walking away from the cottage, the door opened behind me, and a surprisingly powerful hand gripped me by the shoulder and pulled me inside.

Moments later, I was turned around and facing a rather wide-eyed and flushed Narya, who was shaking my letter in my face. “You wrote this?”

“Of course,” I said, blinking in confusion.

“Did you mean every word?”

“Yes.” Suddenly I felt a bit sweaty.

She furrowed her brow and licked her lips. “When are you supposed to pick up Meeko from Percy’s lessons?”

I squinted and thought about it. “About twenty minutes, I guess.”

“Twenty minutes!” Narya shouted as though it was a curse. “Quickly, waste no more time!”

“Huh?”

I immediately understood what she was getting at when her arms went around me and she pulled me against her. We started kissing, but it didn’t last long before Narya interrupted it. “Lock the door, bolt the shutters, I’ll light the candle.”

“Oh,” I grunted. “You really liked that letter, huh?”

“The next letter you’re going to write is an apology,” she said, smirking impishly as she flicked the wick of the candle next to the bed, igniting it in white flame. Next thing I knew, she was lying on the mattress, posed rather seductively, looking up at me.

“An apology? To you?”

“No,” Narya laughed teasingly. “To Percy. I’m afraid you’re going to be somewhat delayed in picking up our daughter.”

I nodded thoughtfully as I unbuttoned my jacket. “I’ll write the best letter. And I’ll play with Meeko all evening.”

“You don’t need to go to the mines today,” Narya said, dismissively waving her hand as I approached her on the bed. “Who cares about the mines? I’d say you’ve earned the afternoon and evening off.”

“I can just get up a bit earlier in the morning,” I agreed. “And I can go to bed a bit later tomorrow night. No harm, no foul.”

Narya apparently saw both harm and foul in that declaration. She kissed me for a moment as I joined her on the mattress, but kept her eyes open and slanted with irritation.

“What’s that look about?” I chuckled as I pulled away from her.

“Just because we’re getting affectionate now doesn’t mean you are dismissed from your cuddle duties tomorrow morning and evening. That’s not how this goes. Just work less.”

“But we need to keep saving,” I said.

Narya rolled her eyes—then rolled her body on top of me and undid her hair, letting her buns spool downward. “I’m not having this conversation with you right now.”

I nodded as I watched her hands go for the bottom of my shirt. “It seems like we’re on the path for a very different conversation,” I noted with wide open eyes.

“Oh—there won’t be much conversation for a little while now,” she warned me with a grin. “Now tell me what I like to hear.”

“I love you, Narya,” I said.

She paused, then smiled down at me and responded one more time before the talking stopped altogether. “I love you too. Very much.”