General:Happy Birthday, My Love

Book Information
Source:	Bethesda Game Studios Forums
Archived Link:	The Imperial Library
Writer(s):	Michael Kirkbride
Publication Date:	1 September 2006

Happy Birthday, My Love

by Vivec

A passionate birthday message from Vivec, by Michael Kirkbride, to Michael Kirkbride.

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Milord,

You have asked me why we should meet if there is nothing there but memory and stress; that even the tiger-touch of our bodies is not enough to risk a goodbye in person, though I would wear her skin for you again; that it all seems like bad literature or, worse, revisiting the scene of the crime.

Which, my sweet, whirling maker, is how it would look three inches to the left of hope. It's in how you see things. There is a space where I live that disagrees with every one of your points- there are good memories that can stay unspoken, stress can be left at the door in the name of civility, in the name of he-is-leaving, that heroic large-love mega-sex is the point of living, anyway; that some scenes don't play according to script but according to the laws of closure, and that, finally, there was nothing criminal in what we had except for the lamentable lack of sustainability. In other words, it would be romantic.

You know me better than you think. When you say there is nothing you might gain from my company again, one can hear that you're overdoing it. Saying that you loved me more than you've ever loved anyone before—I ask you, which is the truth? And if both are truths, because they can be, which would you rather really side on: a love no longer or a love rewritten, with horrible details added later?

I'm not saying that it was wonderful, for if it were this letter wouldn't exist. But I am saying that there was WONDER in it. Glows and feelings and moaning sounds that I cannot explain, that drew two seemingly-opposing forces into a beautiful heat that would burn itself out eventually but that we could ignore for awhile. I can't explain the connection we made, Michael, and neither can you.

But we COULD celebrate it. Enough time has passed that we can guard ourselves against talking about what could've been, or what went wrong, or who did the worst of it, because in the end none of that will ever matter. You're not coming back and I'm leaving for the myth-lands again.

We're old enough to leave the in-between where it needs to be: filed away in the dark of regret, where it remains as a confusion that might one day make sense. I'm saying we leave it there, that our approaches to it will be personal, a navigation without one another, as in all things that come and change or wound our hearts which can only heal themselves in solitude anyway, away from the source that we associate it with.

This is not the same as enjoying a goodbye, in acknowledging that something beautiful WAS there, however ineffable; that was mad, as well, that was fire in bed and field and temple floor and alley and palanquin, with intermissions where we laughed and told stories about our families....only to go share our sweat again. In other words, it would be passionate.

A romantic, passionate, goodbye with no regrets, tinged at the corners with hope and forgiveness. This is how I see it. This is my why.

And, of course:

Happy Birthday, my love.

***

Vehk and Vehk