A Letter in Scarlet Flames

To My Most Radiant, Unforgiving, and Unfathomably Tempting Selene of the Lustrous Flame,

Before you reduce this letter to a smouldering memory (which, I assume, is your instinctive reaction to anything bearing my wonderful name), I beg you, nay, implore you, pause for but a moment. Take a breath, my love, my wildfire, my celestial cataclysm, and read these words before you incinerate them along with what remains of my already precarious existence.

Yes, I know. You are furious. Nay, incandescent with wrath, a storm of fire and ruin, and truthfully, I cannot fault you. Were our positions reversed, I too would be livid. Betrayed. Murderous. Perhaps even in the mood to rearrange a certain bard into a more compact, less mobile shape - say, a toad of singularly unfortunate proportions. Or worse - a mime, condemned to suffer in poetic, humiliating silence.

But ah, my sweet viper, my cruel and resplendent doom, you have always been most breath-taking when plotting the demise of mortals, most of all mine. There is something about the way your lips curl into that wicked smile, the way your golden eyes gleam with the promise of imminent destruction, that sets my reckless heart aflame. 

Oh, how I long to see you again, even if it is only to glimpse you through the iron bars of a cell. But let us not dwell on vengeance (yours, and particularly well-earned) and regret (mine). Instead, let us speak of love - that most reckless and unreasonable of afflictions, which even now, drives my quill across this undoubtedly soon-to-be-cindered parchment.

Do you remember, my brightest of flames, how we first met?

I had entered your lair as all great fools do - half-drunk of my own bravado, lute in hand, heart pounding in my chest. I thought myself clever. Daring. Perhaps, even legendary. The first bard in history to serenade the most infamous of magical creatures, the great and terrible Selene, and live to compose a bawdy tune about it. Oh, what a song it would have been!

Though I admit, I had not expected you to listen.

And yet, there you reclined, sprawled upon a hoard of unthinkable wealth, a goddess of ruin draped in finery stolen, nay, liberated from the coffers of kings and lesser men. You regarded me as a lioness might regard a particularly brazen mouse who had burst into the den uninvited, and begun performing an interpretive dance upon its dinner plate.

And then - oh, fate most perverse! - instead of roasting me alive (as one might have rightfully expected), you laughed. A deep rumbling quake of a perfect sound shaking the stones beneath my feet. A laugh that sent every rational thought fleeing from my meagre mortal mind and left me with only one certainty - I was doomed.

Doomed, you see, as all ephemeral men should be so lucky in the face of a creature so grand, so terrifyingly precious and powerful. Doomed to love you. 

What followed, my heavenly inferno, was the kind of scandal that poets shall whisper of for centuries - though none shall dare sing it as sweetly as I. Our rendezvous beneath moonlit caverns, your breath molten against my skin, you claws tracing sweet poetic tragedies down my spine. 

Do you recall, my insatiable tempest, the nights we spent tangled amidst gold and silk, where I discovered, to my delight and peril, that dragon fire is not the most dangerous heat you possess? Ah, the reckless abandon with which I threw myself upon you, like a poet hurling himself into a duel he has no hope of winning - except instead of swords, there were claws, instead of honour, there was the distinct and glorious risk of being devoured in a far more intimate fashion. Never before had I feared for both my life and my breeches in quite the same breath, and yet, what a way to meet one’s possible end!

If I were granted a choice of demise, I would not ask for old age nor steel blade, but rather for you, whispering sinful threats in a tongue older than time while I, helpless and willing, tempted fate with every stolen kiss.

Alas, my love, forgive me, I digress.

We must address the unfortunate ‘incident’. The, not so metaphorical, egg in the room.

Yes. I stole it.

Yes. It was, in retrospect, a spectacularly poor decision. 

In my defence, I was drunk. And deeply, profoundly stupid. A combination that has led me into many regrettable situations, but none quite so dire as absconding with the progeny of a creature known to scour kingdoms to ash when mildly inconvenienced. 

And yet - curse my wretched heart - it was not only stupidity that drove me. 

You see, my blazing angel of ruin, my stupendous tempest of rage, I feared that I had lost you. That, in a moment of madness or mercy, you had allowed me to leave your side, and I - handsome coward that I am - had been too afraid to stay. I thought, perhaps, if I took something of yours, you would come for me. That you would hunt me to the ends of the earth, your fury a crimson beacon upon the horizon. That you would, in your boundless wrath, prove me still worthy of a mere sliver of your infinite time.

And now? Here I sit, quill in hand, trembling not with fear, but with anticipation. 

Because I know you will come for me. 

And god's help me, I want you to.

So come, my love. Let me hear the thunder of your wings upon the wind, let me feel the tremor of the earth beneath your claws. If you must destroy me, then let it be by your fire, your fury, your fangs at my throat. Let me be undone by the only force in this world I have never been able to charm. 

But if - if - there is still some small part of you that longs to hear my song again, to feel my lips press reverently against the heat of your scales, to have me once more sprawled across your treasured hoard, composing odes to your unfathomable beauty…

Then take me. Ravish me, ruin me - but for the love of all that is holy and my regrettably fragile bones, please do not eat me. 

With reckless devotion, disastrous affection, a little misplaced confidence, and a grievous lack of self-preservation,

Your love, your paramour,

Gideon the Golden-Tongued

-

P.S. If you do decide to eat me (and I hope you don't, but honestly, the odds are stacked against me), could you at least leave my lute? It's terribly expensive and I'd hate to see it go to waste. Also, if you're planning to roast me alive, could you do so after I've had a chance to finish my current bottle of wine? I find the taste is significantly enhanced when one's fate is not so imminently sealed.

And lastly, if you happen to find any of my missing socks, I'd appreciate it if you could return them. It's a mystery I've yet to solve, but I suspect you might be involved.