To my dearest love,

We are different people. I am a bird of prey. It is my job to hunt and protect my own nest.

You are a delicate bird of beauty. It is your choice to sing every morning and bring peace and love to all who can catch a hint of your song. And who can spare a glimpse at your glorious speedy wings.

Yet in the morning, you wake up and smile at me. Instead of the world, you look upon me and sing your melodies and soar so high sometimes I fear I can never reach. That's the first thing your mind does upon opening your eyes to the cruel reality I offer you. You always wake me with a loving smile and a sleepy greeting. You know of all my faults, how different we are, how our worlds are in different realms, and yet...

You still love me.

For better or worse, I'll treasure you for that.

For better or worse, through sickness and in health, I'll love you.

Because my heart simply cannot beat without your smile. Your voice.

Without seeing your graceful locks of hair tangled in my fingers,

without your soft kisses,

without your mind,

without wisdom,

without your love,

I am nothing.

Just a shell of a person.

But with you, when you're with me, you give me the hope that I, a bird of prey, can soon turn into a dove, a bird of love and peace. For those are the things I want to offer you: love, peace, and happiness.

For you, my love, deserve all that. And so much more.

More than I could ever hope to offer.

And so I must bid you goodbye, my love.

I must do what I'm about to do to ensure your life can continue out in peace in our country.

Even if it is without me.

May we meet again when I become a dove?

Forever yours,

Your devoted admirer.

Drops of tears splattered across the worn and aging paper. My own tears fall freely in the privacy of my study. How cruel is the world to take away its citizens to fight in its petty disputes? Despite the anonymity of the letter, the author is very well known to me. It is no secret who the writer is. My love.

With shaking hands, I place the letter down on my desk. Later, I will stash it away and treasure it until my love returns. But for now, I wipe my face in the hopes of slowing my tears to a stop. It does not work. A broken heart is not so easily tamed. A broken heart is wild and tends to lash out at those undeserving.

But alas, I am alone.

Alone in my study. Alone in life now, as it seems. Alone in every sense of the word.

A part of me refuses to believe the reality of the situation before me. The reality that my love has created for us. Foolishly thinking this is the better path for us. Foolish. Fool. Love. My love. My fool.

Part of me hopes it is a dream. But the letter on my desk confirms all my worst fears. Enlistment. Voluntary.

I know my love's mind as if my own. But logical understanding does little to soothe a broken heart. Logic does nothing to tame the wildness that emotions bring.

"Without you, darling, I have no world."

The words echo in the emptiness. There is no one to hear them.

With that, I walk away from my home. A place once filled with happiness and memories of us. Now I fear it's filled with sadness and tragedy. My feet have a mind of their own. I soon passed the path that would lead down to your little cottage. But maybe it would draw too much suspicion if I were to visit now. You are not there, anyway. I don't turn down the path. I head the opposite way.

I do not know where to go. I am lost. You call me a dove, but I feel like a pigeon without a flock. Unwanted. Alone.

My mind is blank. My mind is filled with numbness. I have so many thoughts all at once that it feels like I have no thoughts at all. Too many thoughts. Perhaps my mind has broken along with my heart.

In the stillness of the early morning, when everything still slumbers, the only thoughts I have are the denial of the present mixed with our memories of the past. Yet I keep walking. Thinking. Feeling. Breathing.

How hollow I feel without you.

Perhaps, if I were not so caught up in my own head. If I weren't so caught up in my thoughts. My pain.

Maybe I would've heard the warning sounds. The honks. The yells. The shouts. The sirens.

Perhaps I could've gone to your cottage after all. Suspicion is better than being a corpse.

Bloody. In pain. On the street. Cobblestone digging into every part of exposed skin.

Perhaps, in another life, your efforts will pay off, and we will live as happily as we wanted.

Perhaps, in this other life, I will meet you, my dove.

THE END.