Although it has been several days since my utter humiliation and likely end to whatever it was that I shared with Seaver. I cannot get the look on his face out of my mind, I shudder each and every time I picture it, like a hammer blow to the chest. As much as I had thrown myself back into everything that must go on as normal, my thoughts have been consumed with it and continuously playing out a different outcome, one where I had stilled my tongue instead and kept my heart in check.
Now I have something else that pulls my thoughts. I rode back from the farm earlier and there it was sunk into one of the trees in my garden, an arrow, fletched with a grey feather. I'd not have noticed it, if it were not for that white squirrel who has taken to visiting my garden and chittering on at me. But there it was and I know only too well who left it there and why.
Ah, how I both smile and hurt when I think of The Grey Warden, what was, what is and what may have been.
Many wonder and question whether it is possible to love two people at the same time. I know that you can, for I have loved two men at the same time, but it is also the case that you love them in different ways and mayhaps one more than the other. It is easier to look back and wonder whether one has made a right or a wrong choice, but I do not believe it is always as simple as that. At time's a choice can be both for the best or the worst all at the same time.
I was a loose one, practically a drunk, coughing blood into my mouth. The first man I committed to had taken up with my best friend and I had found myself homeless. Aid came from the most unlikeliest of sources, Hardoleth, the Captain of the afore mentioned man, a notorious sellsword, drinker and womanizer, yet he showed me a kindness and offered me a bed, I had little choice and it is not as if I'd not befriended a man to save a few nights on the streets before.
I was terrified of Hardoleth, but excited by him. He both disgusted and beguiled me, the first time I met him he'd cut two fingers from a man I had been drinking with because he had broken his oath. The next time I met him I was with Rossethor, one of his company and he was charming. I went from house guest to bedwarmer and Hardoleth carried on with his womanizing ways, but I was content enough. History repeats itself, or mayhaps I am too foolish to learn these lessons, for here I am again, a bedwarmer to a womanizer and just as it did with Hardoleth, I have again felt the stirrings of love for a man whose bed I merely warm.
It was around that time I met The Grey Warden, he had been recruited into The Bloody Dawn by Hyrien, who had jested with me about how handsome he was and how he would turn the heads of the women of the Dawn and indeed he did, mine included. It was not just the man's dashing features that attracted me to him there was more to him than that, I knew the man had a secret to share and I wished to know it, and so my visits began, there is little point writing lies amidst these pages that are cast into the flames anyway, but it was I who pursued him, I was lonely, Hardoleth was oft away, I did not know that he had began to love me, a man such as he would not utter such sentiment.
I began an affair with The Grey Warden, one of unbridled passion, the man is a widow and will never stop loving his wife, but I was something he needed and he was something I needed, and so our secret meetings continued, we would enjoy each other until exhaustion and then talk of life, love and all manner of things. It was not to be, Hardoleth had given up the other women and asked that I be his and so I did and once I commit myself, I will not deceive or betray them.
Whispers began, whispers turn into rumours and rumours bring danger and I knew that I must give up my Warden, for I had become Hardoleth's woman and I loved him also. I am ashamed of myself, I have no one to blame but myself and I believe loving two men at the same time is the worst predicament to get into, even worse than this unrequited love I have for Seaver. Hardoleth was not a man to be crossed, I knew that if I did not give up The Grey Warden we would be forever hunted, never left in peace and in truth, he deserved far better a woman than I. And that is why, when Hardoleth asked me to become his I knew I must say goodbye to my Warden.
I do not think my heart has ever broken as hard as it did that day, save only the loss of Deredan, but break it did nevertheless. I feel the pain in my breast even now writing about it, and even after we have reconciled what happened all those years ago and my beautiful Warden returns to the Bree-lands and leaves an arrow in my tree to signal his return and I in turn remove the arrow from the tree just as I have done now so that he knows I would wish to see him and oh how I do need to see him and seek comfort amidst this anguish I now feel.
He will no doubt offer me wise counsel, but how can I speak of what has transpired with Seaver, will he not look upon me in despair and tell me no good can come of this? When have I ever listened to wise counsel? Blince has tried many times to steer me away from my own shortcomings, but I continue regardless. I wrote of choices and that they are not always good or bad or right or wrong, did I choose the right man? Consider this, had I not chose Hardoleth, I would not have Branston and on hindsight, whatever happiness that cost me with my Warden it was a price worth paying but a devastating one all the same.
Nay, I shall not seek The Grey Wardens counsel, as wise as it may be, for the past has taught me, that when it comes to matters of the heart, the heart does not hear words of wisdom for it beats louder than they and at this moment in time mine beats louder and louder for the wrong man again.
