Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
So many great love stories end in tragedy. So many beautiful tales are beautiful because of the heartbreak at the end - the yearning, the sense of agony that so many of us have felt in our lives. The pain of losing the one that we love most.
I always preferred tragedies to romances. But love was perpetually on my mind. Like all the great fools before me, it was intoxicating once it began. I never really understood the depth of Keats or Shelley or Dickinson. I didn't get it until I fell in love. And suddenly their words began pouring back to me in waves - words I thought I'd long since forgotten. Words that were forever engrained in my mind.
"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,"
It was one of those brief and beautiful moments, in which Ivar was fast asleep. He'd scarcely moved in the night, still resting in the position he'd fallen asleep in - arm wrapped around me, head resting on my belly as though if he listened close enough, he might be able to hear the whispered words of our unborn child. I couldn't help but smile, not daring to move to much in fear that I might wake him. He was a rather light sleeper, the smallest movement jolting him awake. I knew he rarely slept, his mind often working overtime and keeping him unable to rest. So, I simply ran my hand through his raven hair and gently pressed a kiss atop his head - an action I was used to recieving from him when he woke before dawn each morning.
"And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Would he remember me when I was gone? I hoped so. I hoped that Keats was right, that love truly was everything and that it was unforgettable. In truth, I don't suppose that I could ever love anyone but him. I could live a normal life, a safe life, but I doubt that I could ever truly feel joy. Not without him.
I never believed in soulmates. Two souls coming together to become one? It was ridiculous. People surely just muddled along, made the best of whatever situation they were in. Fate surely had no hand in it. But it was hard to deny fates hand in our meeting. I had been right in York. Ivar was my destiny. I just hadn't realised to what extent as I lay plotting my escape all those months before.
It was funny to me now, how much had changed in such a short space of time. I considered what past me would've thought of my present situation. I likely would've thought I'd gone mad. And yet, here I was. God sometimes I thought maybe I truly was mad. Love was madness. And no book or poem or beautiful song could prepare for the madness that would ensue.
I think, no matter the time, love was something that never changed. Whether it was the 9th century or the 20th, love was still the same. That's why we can read these plays and poems from so very long ago and still relate to these characters that are now long gone. Because we feel as they felt. We're all just fools in love at the end of the day.
"Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?"
That was the question I was faced with now, wasn't it? Do I wake or sleep? Do I leave wonderland and return home, back to my family and friends. Do I bring my child into a safe world? A world with modern medicine, without war or famine or disease running rampant around every corner.
Or do I remain in this dreaming state? This wonderland. Do I choose love above all else? This unmatched beauty, this thing that could never possibly be replaced. It was more precious than my life, that much I knew. But it wasn't just me anymore.
Ivar smiled in his sleep sometimes. It was something I'd only noticed when we left York. He always looked so peaceful, so calm, so gentle. That angry glare was wiped clean off his face and all that remained was the man that I knew, the one I'd fallen love with, the person behind all that anger and pain.
How could I lie there and contemplate leaving him? Causing him yet more agony than he'd already suffered. In truth, I'd never really truly contemplated the possibility of leaving. I'd told myself that I should contemplate it, told myself that I should want to go home and be with my family. But it was never a possibility. My life was here now. My home was here. My family was here. And the future could wait.
What was it that Sappho had once said?
"You may forget but let me tell you this: someone in some future time will think of us"
The world would never forget Ivar The Boneless. And neither would I. Whether I believed in it or not, I had found my soulmate - for better or for worse. And it seemed that each day, he stole away more and more of my heart until every tiny piece belonged to him. There was no escaping this. It was fate. It had been fate from the start. And no force on earth could ever tear me away from the man that I loved.
So let them remember us. Let them forget. It didn't matter to me. I knew that, in some strange way, I had found immortality no matter what. Love had made me immortal. Because nothing can ever kill love.
The poem in italics is called Ode To The Nightingale by John Keats btw They're just some of my favourite quotes from it. -Rhi
