“After that, I stopped looking for her whenever I came into town. I even avoided looking at any women that looked remotely like her. I didn’t want to remember a vision of her loveliness, I earnestly wanted to forget. And yet, even though it has been years since I last gazed upon her, looking at her, now…she is exactly as I remember. Nothing has changed, except that the beauty she formerly held is no more. She is older now and time has matured her. She has shed her youthful loveliness and bartered it for something more, because even in death, as I am blessed to able to see her, once again, she is not an exact image of my recollection.”

As tears fell from his eyes, tears he thought he would never shed for her, again, he whispered, “…you are far more radiant.”

“I separated you from my desires, but I could not sever you from my heart. I still love you and I do not think there will ever come a time when that will be untrue. …because, you can never abandon the memory of your first love. In a cruel twist of irony, that very affection, my undying love for you, is the reason why I cannot go to you, now and pay my respects. It would be inappropriate and perhaps, even disrespectful and I could never be so conceited as to place my sorrow over your honor. All that I am permitted to do, is silently grieve for you from afar and try, once again, to mute my disobedient heart.”

My lovely queen, it seems that once again, you have broken my heart.

It was with the deepest of sorrow, that the second prince raised his head and looked up at the body of his beloved, at the gentle woman who, despite all of his most fervent efforts, refused to be evicted from his heart…for the very last time and whispered, “…farewell.”

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