Happy Valentine's Day!
Yes, yes, I know, it's a silly commercial holiday... but it gives me an excuse to write soppy letters from Kai to Rune. Now, if you're not in the mood for soppy, then maybe you'd be more interested in the potential origins of Valentine's day—brimming with blood, debauchery, and ancient Romans. If that's the case, check out my blog post Lupercalia and Saint Valentine's Day.
Trust me, it's wa-ay less marketable as a commercial holiday.
Now, if you're still reading, I'm going to assume you're in the mood for something romantic—and Kai doesn't disappoint. Within our merry band of misfits, which seems to be growing in numbers each year, Kai and Rune are the couple who have been together the longest, married for 22 years as of 2022. There hasn't been much opportunity to explore Kai's history yet (he's a surprisingly cagey man) in the series, and Rune doesn't give up much information easily, but their romantic origin is one of innocence and adoration, two words you might not associate with our resident demon-necromancer hybrid. In this card from Kai to Rune, some of their past is alluded to, from when they met when Kai was just a freshly-turned 18-year-old living in Edinburgh to how his feelings developed as time went on.
Kai and Rune deserve their story to be heard one day, and even though it might never come up in the books (although, who knows? They might have a change of heart and decide to tell all), I'm sure one day there will be an opportunity to explore them some more in a blog post or short story.
Until then... this will have to do (text version is below the images).
My darling husband,
I still remember the day I got off the train to Edinburgh. Homeless, alone, a boy of 18 lost in a new world.
I’d always read of love and life, in comedy and tragedy, thought I knew the meaning of colour and passion. I was born a creature of the earth, understood what it meant to be feral. I remember when I first saw stars at night through the eyes of a beast. Then I remember when I first saw stars through the eyes of a man, with you at my side, going through each constellation as if they were old friends. I felt connected to them in a way I’d never dreamed. It was that night that the words of poets and novelists first made sense. Except they never captured the true depth of what it means to be in love. When you left the next day, I wept, not because you were gone, but because in your departure with you went the scent of roses and the vibrancy of color. You were gone for three days, three nights, and each evening I would gaze upon my new friends in the sky and know I was with you for as long we both could see the stars. It was as if you’d captured them, cast them down to earth, into my body, wound them around my fingers to bind me to you forever.
I didn’t know when you’d be back—if you’d be back. I was living a dream back then, moving slowly, detached from reality. Maybe I dreamt you. How could you be real? Yet, you felt more real to me than anything else I’d ever experienced. Then one day I returned home from uni, we’d just had a lecture on Shakespeare, Hamlet and Freud, and there you were. As if you’d never left. I wanted to cry. Reality suddenly returned to me the moment I saw you. I was real again. I held my hand out to you, instinctively, pulled to you by the force of the stars. You noticed, I think, but I played it off as some mistake, an involuntary jerk of the hand. I’d never thought of myself as a silly man before, until you said hello to me, and I forgot how to speak. Forgot how to breathe. You rendered me stupid. It was the most human I’d ever felt.
You taught me a new language, the language of love, and through it, I learnt more about myself and this world than anything I could ever dreamed to have known. It spoke to my soul, your words touching me in places I did not know I had in my body.
Twenty-two years later and I still can feel your lips against mine the first time we kissed. You pressed yourself against my body and left a dent in me that can never be filled by anything but you. We will always have the stars. They pull from me a beast just as the full moon does. I still read about love and tragedy, only now it is folly, for they ain't never captured the true depth of bliss.
I will kiss the tips of your wings, taste the words of your knowledge on my lips, feast on the meat of your mind, for as long as I breathe.
- Kai.
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