Saerdir lingers with the household of Hir Curugirion. Such a splended company!
It is good for him, to have company, to take his ease under sunlight and starlight. Forty years away. I wager the only change is that the trees are a little larger. He is as he ever is, thoughtful and good-natured.
But I cannot linger, not today! Down at the docks a boat low in the water, weighed by blocks of rich cream-coloured limestone. As delicious as butter. These to be fashioned into stone benches to delight my cousin Alqualosse and adorn the gardens.
For her, and always for her, a design of swans entwined, stately and measured. She is water, as clear and still as the dwarven mirror, as pristine as the new snow.
Anything and everything for her, to amuse her and keep her safe within Celondim. I know how she burns - her cold ice an adamantine will, stark opposite to my intemperate fire - that she yearns to take up her swords again. But I will not have it - her, such beauty, exposed to any danger. Whatever I have, whatever strength of craft or mind to disuade her I will employ, to prevent the relentless glacial movement of her will.
