You Are Mine, Always, If Ye Will

This Was Nonsense, He Thought. The Need Of Her Was A Physical Thing, Like The Thirsty Of A Sailor Becalmed For Weeks On The Sea. He'd Felt The Need Before, Often, Often, In Their Years Apart. But Why Now? She Was Safe; He Knew Where She Was - Was It Only The Exhaustion Of The Past Weeks And Days, Or Perhaps The Weakness Of Creeping Age That Made His Bones Ache, As Though She Had In Fact Been Torn From His Body, As God Had Made Eve From Adam's Rib?

For I Had Come Back, And I Dreamed Once More In The Cool Air Of The Highlands. And The Voice Of My Dream Still Echoed Through Ears And Heart, Repeated With The Sound Of Brianna's Sleeping Breath. "you Are Mine," It Had Said. "mine. And I Will Not Let You Go.

Am I A Man? To Want You So Badly That Nothing Else Matters? To See You, And Know I Would Sacrifice Honor Or Family Or Life Itself To Lie Wi' You, Even Though Ye'd Left Me?

He Shook His Head, Absorbed In One Of His Feats Of Memory, Those Brief Periods Of Scholastic Rapture Where He Lost Touch With The World Around Him, Absorbed Completely In Conjuring Up Knowledge From All Its Sources.

......what I Was Born Does Not Matter, Only What I Will Make Of Myself, Only What I Will Become.