L'amour

Love is the most powerful thing in the world.  Today people tend to think that the greatest weapon is information; those who have knowledge of bigger things can overpower those without any insight into the world.  But love.... It is a great and terrible beauty that drives man to choose his destiny, how he will use his weapon of information to create or destroy.

We live in an age that puts love into categories and boxes, making us victims to our own torture.  When our hearts break we blame the other for betraying us, but we are our own heartbreaks.  Our expectations dictated by society, hammered into our minds by advice and observation, lead us to believe that love is something we can mold into what we each want.  And this, dear reader, is the greatest mistake in human history.

I grew up knowing I was different from the others, that there were few of us in the world who were not of it, but I still fell prey to the expectations of love.  He should be like this, she should do that, words should sound like this, love looks like that.  I was trained to speak a certain way, to judge actions based upon a criteria for "normal love".  Even my parents held these expectations of what a mate should be like, what is and is not done, what constitutes as a relationship.

Have we so easily forgotten the time before dating?  When to love a man meant just loving him, showing him how much and appreciating every moment he does the same.  There was a time when it was easier to see and understand the way a man loves according to who he is as a person, as an individual.  Sometimes I wonder if the only way I was ever able to consider that was because I'd read the occasional romance novel, for such ideas are not found in magazines or even read aloud in church.  A man only truly loved you if he did certain things or said certain words, half of which I cannot begin to remember.  A woman of today's modernity must be critical and careful; should the man falter, she must decide whether he is worth the struggle unless he makes the decision for her.

Crap.  It's all a bunch of crap.

People think I'm emotionally suicidal for loving Tristan so consistently despite all we've been through.  I can honestly, wholeheartedly say that if it weren't for the constant struggle, I may never have been able to break free of the world's prison of conceptual love.

"Do you love me?"  I had to ask him.  The part of me that grew up in this world screamed that it's the lamest thing to ask the man who took away the titles of boyfriend/girlfriend.  Because, obviously, the answer would be no.

"Yes."

I looked at him.  I scanned his face.  Tristan Keller, prince of Gora, cannot lie to Mira Willis.  No one can lie to a seer without some form of a "tell".  And this moment was one of the very few in which Tristan Keller, prince of Gora, was telling the complete truth.  To say his heart spoke the answer would make the average person say I make the assumption based on facial features, tone, etc.  Maybe I did.  But it was so much more than just body language.  Some things just cannot be sufficiently described.

My understanding of love according to the world was turned upside down and shaken for change.  According to modern standards, Tristan does not love me because he did not give our dating relationship a chance to survive.  According to advice columns, he should just be another notch in the belt, an experience on my resume.

But the world does not see the love of our kind.  It has forgotten what it's like to love not only through action, but through just...being.  If Tristan does not love me, then he would not have set up protection for my family.  A man who does not love does not care if the woman stays or goes in his life.  He would not want her happiness over his own desires.  But Tristan....he does love me.  Some would say his words mean nothing without action, but I see it in everything.  I feel it in the air, this sort of energy that only exists when we're in the same room.  No one has to speak.  No one has to move.  It's always there, always pulsing, always an ebb and flow between us that does not occur with anyone else (at least, for me).

I once read that a woman would know her true love, her true mate, when she found herself in full submission to him heart, body and soul.  While the technicalities of that are up for debate, I cannot help but find it to be true in the broader sense.  My entire life has been one long string of men I do not trust as much as I should, men who I only half-listened to because I'd yet to find one trustworthy and dependable.  And yet.... when I imagine standing beside Tristan as he introduces me to his people, I am not the open-voiced, proud woman I expected to be.  Instead I am content to just be by his side, to follow his lead and let him call the shots.  In reality, despite our differences I find myself trusting his judgment without hesitation.  Not because he is a prince, not because I owe him some form of debt or allegiance (I can already see the smirk on his face if/when he reads this that says "damn straight you do, woman! Hehe").

Love is the most powerful thing in the world.  It is the only thing that clouded my vision and now it has made me clearer, stronger, more resilient, and ready to take on anything.  Love is, I dare to say, what may be the only thing Tristan Keller truly fears because of its abilities to bring a man to his knees.  Luke once told me that having women involved in warfare was a very dangerous thing because should you love her, which more often than not you would, she becomes your priority and your weakness.  I laughed at the idea then.

Not so much now.


"....Do not awaken love until it so desires."  Song of Solomon 2:7