Letters of a Soul Crossed Lover

Please note that this story contains themes of homophobia, violence, and descriptions of gore.

Kastella,

You will never read this.

You will never know the longing I hold within my heart.

The mere sight of you makes me weak, and my greatest wish is to caress your face. It would never be permitted, and mother would be mortified if she ever saw what was written here, but I still wish we could be given a chance.

We would be resplendent together, like the ever orbiting moons within our sky.

Your beloved,

Inisfra

Kastella,

Your hand brushed mine today, the slightest of touches but still a touch. The feeling of skin brushing against skin in a whisper of hidden desire.

Of course the touch was one of the requirements. Royalty on our planet is required to touch the commoners before and after every judicial announcement as a way of reconciling with those who may not have agreed with the decisions of the royal body.

“To touch one of the royal blood is to bring forgiveness and acceptance onto one’s self.”

Or so the saying goes.

If only time could have been suspended in that one brief moment, I could have stared into your eyes a little longer, I could have uncovered all the secrets there.

Alas the royal body waits for no one, especially not secret lovers and so my want to get lost in the depths of your soul was short lived.

Your worshipper,

Inisfra

Kassy,

Meeting you last night was a whirlwind of lips and limbs colliding and coiling together to be pulled apart again.

It was magical.

To finally feel more than just a brush of your hand or your violet eyed stare from across the palace chamber was more than I could have hoped for.

Though I do hope we will do it again.

When you had slipped that note under my door, imploring me to meet you in the scullery away from prying eyes, I had nearly fainted.

I did as you asked of course and burned the note though I had desperately wished to keep it. Every line of it has been memorized and there is nothing wrong with committing it to paper here.

“My dear Inisfra,

I can no longer sit idly and watch you day in and day out. I must see you, feel your touch more deeply than a simple graze of the hand.

Meet me in the scullery well past midnight. The guards are loose with their rounds and you will be able to slip by in the shadows.

Burn this after you’ve read it.

Your devoted,

Kassy.”

Oh how my heart yearned to go to you in that moment, but alas duty awaited me and I sulked for the rest of the day until I could see you.

I beg for the joy of your touch again my dearest.

Love,

Ini

Kassy,

Meeting you in secret like this is bound to get us caught, and yet I am all the more thrilled by it.

You have ignited a fire within me that will never be burned out.

Every fleeting glance now is charged with our hidden desire, and our protected secret. We must keep caution, even though it pains me to walk by you in the marble hallways and not reach out to pull you in for a kiss.

Mother would truly be in a fit about that.

Speaking of her, she seems to take much more notice of you. I’ve seen her several times now note your presence in a room and train a watchful eye on your every movement.

I fear that I am being too nervous, but the way she has begun to watch you reminds me much of a lion stalking prey.

I shall let those fears pass me by for now, all I wish to focus on is the ghost of your lips on mine.

Yours forever,

Ini

Kassy,

We were almost discovered last night.

We can never risk that again. The idea of possibly losing you because of our carelessness is unfathomable. It is not something I wish to speak of, but it is something that very nearly happened and that frightens me.

I cannot lose you Kassy, I would be broken.

We are lucky we awoke before the sun, that we had just enough time for you to slip out of my rooms and head back to your quarters through the servants tunnels.

Mother walked in not five minutes after you left querying me about what needed to be done today.

My heart has never beat so hard within my chest.

Moving forward we must be more careful.

To be discovered would be the death of us.

Yours until the end of days,

Ini

Kassy,

My love for you is boundless and the fact that you feel the same has sent my heart soaring.

We are like the suns and moons, twirling around each other in a dance long lost to time and space.

Crossing paths on the rare occasion that our orbits align, only to be pulled apart rapidly by a shift in the gravitational pull of our spheres.

Oh how I wish I could spend everyday with your hair tangled in my fingers, to have your lips forever kissing mine. If only I could be brave enough, bold enough to face the consequences that would surely ensue if I ever announced my love for you, I could have that as much as I wished.

Though I think we both know that even if I faced all of the consequences head on, it would simply end in the inability to ever see eachother again.

How tragic our lives are.

Oh Kassy, all I want is to be with you day in and day out and yet I am forced to watch you from afar as you are forced to watch me. Royalty and subject forever staring one another down from across the palace halls.

Never able to publicly touch or express their love.

Never able to truly show who they are.

Gods how I wish things could be different.

If only.

Yours for eternity,

Ini

Kastella,

Someone has leafed through my journal.

They did not make it as far as the start of these private letters to you, but now I am frightened to even leave them inside this book.

I will be ripping them out and stuffing them under the loose floorboard where I keep all of the small things you have gifted me over the last few secreted months.

I pray that whoever snooped found nothing that could do us harm.

Yours entirely,

Ini

Kastella,

They have found us out.

I am not sure where they have sequestered you away, but mother has me locked inside my chambers.

They have told me nothing.

I have no idea if you are dead or alive, the guards posted at my door refuse to give me any information, they simply stare blankly at the other side of the hall and stay stock still.

I am more alone than I was when you were here inside the palace but we could not speak.

I am so afraid.

I know they will do so much worse than locking us away. They have always made an example of people who disobey their rules.

I wonder if they will reach out to the crowd after they burn us, or if they will simply turn on their heels and leave us there.

Let our burnt and rotting flesh be an example of what happens when you cross the royal bloodline.

I can think of this no more.

My heart and all of its hopes are yours,

Ini

Kassy,

They are coming for me.

The guards have let slip that mother is more furious than she has ever been.

They let slip that she has already done away with you.

I did not even get to say goodbye.

My heart is shattered. There is nothing left for me here to fight for. You are gone and my soul has gone with you.

I pray to the gods that mother asked them to make it quick, that she found some mercy within her cold heart and spared you a torturous departure.

Logic would have me believe otherwise.

Let this tear stained page be my last plea, to the gods, to my mother, to whoever is listening.

I loved a woman more than I could ever love anyone else and there was no wrong in it.

There was never any wrong in it.

She was magic and starlight and all of the things that were the better half of my soul, and all I wanted was to love her until I was old and grey.

Let it be known throughout the cosmos that I never got the chance.

Kastella’s one true love,

Inisfra

Letters of a Soul Crossed Lover: Princess Inisfra, of the royal bloodline of Kastesfra and Kastella, a daughter of a maid within the palace had been lovers for the course of many months before their executions in May of year 3089.

After their executions, Queen Starsa died of heartache. Her son, Prince Arendula took the throne in year 3090. Once his reign had been established King Arendula decreed that same sex relationships would no longer be prosecuted for treason. He later followed this decree with a change of the solar system's name, claiming that for the love he had for his older sister he would enshrine her and her lover in the stars.

Thus Kastesfra was remade.

Princess Inisfra’s diary entries were found 20 years after they had been hidden within her floorboards, along with the many artifacts seen in this collection that Kastella had gifted her over the course of their relationship.

There were no written statements from Kastella ever found, besides the remembered note by the Princess.

Transcribed for historical purposes by Marcel Demburnota for the Royal Historical Society of the Kastesfra solar system, the Letters of a Soul Crossed Lover remain eternally on display at the entrance of the RHS building. Year 3119.