"Him?"
"Oh, forgive me. By 'him' I'm referring to Dagramir. Dagramir Audun? Are you familiar with him? I had the very fortunate and rather unfortunate pleasure of meeting him some while ago. He's not exactly hard to pinpoint in a crowd, you just need to scour around for his piercing eyes and that mess of black tangles he'd like to refer to as hair. He's tall, well-built. A strapping young man who issues easy swoons from any surrounding housewives and wenches. Heavily scarred but perpetually charming. Scars that tell tales, charm that coaxes women back to his bedside."
"There's a signature smirk that you'll grow swiftly accustomed to because it's always so present upon his face, dare I say to cover up a much darker core. I'm sure that over time, you'll get to know his usual irritable charm and hedonistic attitude. If anything, in the time that I knew him so well, he kept me young and I kept him sensible."
"After a while, when you've gotten to know him and his mischievous ways. That magnetic charisma and those eyes. Before I go any further - those eyes. I'm quite sure there are oceans at the furthest reaches of the earth that would be envious of the hues of blue set within them."
"But when you're not longer an acquaintance and you're closer to him, like I was, and if you're lucky enough that he'll let you in. Once again, like I was. The cracks in his smirk will begin to show, the charisma dying a little bit to let into the darker workings of his mind."
"I suppose that's why I understood him so well, because we were both so damaged on the inside. Two individuals so broken that there was no possible way that they could be fixed back together again. Only momentarily mended. Our pasts were so similar - widows with lost children."
"The idle distractions of drink and nameless women would suffice the pain he couldn't shake. I'd stand by, confused and annoyed by the fact that I was growing to care for him. Care morphing into interest. Interest falling into love."
"I realised that I would brace through a fire storm or an icy blizzard to offer him my hand. To pull him into my arms. Into safety. I loved him until it ached. Until he was everything I breathed. Until his existence was in equal measure to that of my daughter's. Love like that does not easily dissipate into nothingness."
"But it was love's keen sting that was brewing swiftly with the way it was out to get me again. I tried at first to ignore it, perhaps because I didn't want to be another doe-eyed wench he could add to his records. I didn't want to feel as though I was being compared in terms of performances or that he would want to bed me and then scamper away without a simple farewell. But I foolishly thought that maybe, just maybe I was the one to break the cycle. Like many, many other girls had thought they could. Love had wounded me before, thanks to my previous husband. To be hurt again would destroy me."
"And destroy, it certainly did. For you see, Dagramir was a hurricane encased in rugged looks and pretty eyes. I loved and loved and eventually lost him. Because I was unkind. I was selfish, because I was so guilty that I wanted none of the pain of losing the unborn child he wanted so dearly to father."
"He swallowed my wrath in shame, only later to find out that I had lied directly to his crestfallen face. He hated it. For a while, I thought he hated me. And still I loved him, long after I retrieved my things from his little abode. Silently so, he had no words for me. And it did not take long for the drink to return to his hand."
"Dagramir is a broken man, and I await the impossible day that some lass is able to entirely fix him. I shan't hold my breath in that regard, for the Viper cannot be tamed or controlled. He escaped death once, but I feel that he's already dead. Somewhere on the inside, that darkness is consuming him and it's only a matter of time until the face I initially fell in love with becomes so shrouded in loss and hate."
"There'll be a time when wenches and whiskey will not cut it. He'll feel as though he's alone. Everything he loved? Lost. But I know now that it will always be the Raven's duty to swoop in and hoist the Viper out of the fire. To pluck him right out from the brink of death. I can supply him the chaos and serve him some peace of mind in equal measure. Out of them all, he shall remember the Raven, bound by something I cannot entirely put my finger on, myself. He may no longer love me, my dear, but I will always be the one ready to carry him home."
"Did that answer your question?"
