A Hero's Tale

Sometimes even now I entertain the hope that Love lives in the world independently of us, but when I am most courageous, I believe that love was born within the human heart, and that the survival of love in the world, as well as its ultimate triumph, is entirely our responsibility.

I trusted her not to be careless with my heart or with my feelings. I trusted her to understand and to accept what might be broken or imperfect. In some dusty corner there may be things I tossed away, forgotten, things that might once have shamed me. I trusted her with those things too. I trusted her to accept me as she found me and to love me as I was, as I loved her.

Before I loved Maara, life seemed filled with endless possibility, yet I knew even then what I was waiting for. Love was only an idea to me then, something to hope for, a promise of happiness, insubstantial and immortal, until it found the one to settle on. Now love and Maara were one and the same, and love had become as mortal as she was.

It is true that a little nudge from you has moved the world, but when that happens, the world was already inclined to move.

If my love for Maara depended on her love for me, it was not love, but a bargain.

It seemed to me a wicked tale, to blame a woman for men's folly.

This was how she saw the world. It could take from her in a moment everything she loved. It could deny her anything she wanted. The world had granted me almost my every wish, and none more precious to me than this one. The world had granted her only this.

Aamah would sometimes remind them that the story of an old disputte should be retold only when no aftertaste of bitterness remains upon the tongue.

A woman counsels caution, while a man's heart burns to see justice done.

Will your woman's heart endanger us?" he asked me. "Tell me now." "What does my woman's heart have to do with anything?

What is it that we search for? Every child knows the answer. We search for love. Love is our shelter. Love is our purpose. Love is why we are here.