Gweyir has offered me the use of her personal flicker-bird to send this message, which is the only reason I am able to write to you. I doubt I will get another chance to write you, as I don't carry much trust for the scruples of others who might have the opportunity to peer into my letters. Not that I am sending dangerous secrets or anything, but I am trying to maintain what I hope is the fiction that we might yet decide to kill each other, and I doubt I can walk that line when I'm focusing on keeping my handwriting legible and on how much I miss you.

But I am glad for the chance to tell you that I am still alive and uninjured, that the border hasn't erupted into open hostility, and that I can still smell you on these very charming bumblebee pajamas you sent with me. It has been a great comfort to be able to curl up at night with the scent of you, and remember lying in bed healing with you. As terrifying and awful as that attack was to endure, if it had only been me in danger I suspect I would have been more than happy to take the arrows for the sake of having you take care of me afterwards.

Isn't that strange? But no one has ever wanted to do something like that for me before. Alluin and Zhiolas have both kept guard for me while I healed, of course, as have many other soldiers, but not like that. I certainly have never before spent a convalescence predominantly wrapped around someone. I kept worrying that you would become annoyed with me, and yet fairly helpless in the face of how much comfort I got from having someone want to hold me simply because I was hurting.

Here is a dangerous secret for you, after all: as you once threatened, this wolf will be happy to lay his head in your lap to ask to be petted, and not even in the way I answered you then. I will bring you your slippers if you would enjoy that, as well, though I would prefer to use one of my many hands instead of my mouth.

Perhaps I am rambling now, and should stop. I am discovering that I find it somewhat easier to say things like this in writing, because you can have all your reactions somewhere that is not in front of me while I'm saying them. I may torture myself later, staring at the cloth of my tent, imagining all the unfortunate ways you might take my words, but right now I am smiling, hoping that you will feel some fondness for the Beast you've been so successfully taming. I remain endlessly appreciative that you came to say goodbye to me. I don't know if I would have had many smiles on this journey otherwise.