Ink Before dawn [Part 1]
Dear Belle,
It might take long before this letter finds you. You might not even know or remember me. It was a brief flicker of time — I saw you. And nothing has felt quite the same since.
I’ve spent days wondering what color your eyes truly are, and whether you hum to yourself while washing dishes. Silly details, I know. But isn’t that how love begins — not with fireworks, but with the sound of someone laughing at just the right moment?
I don’t expect anything from this note. I only wanted you to know: for a single, quiet heartbeat in this vast world, you were deeply noticed. And cherished — if only from afar.
Maybe that’s enough. Maybe not.
But it’s real. — A stranger who saw the sun differently after seeing you
Belle was surprised when the man walked up to the bakery with a letter for her. She held it in her hand and looked about the quiet lands, seeing no one except for the man as he climbed into his serpent and sailed off into the distance. Turning and getting a tankard of mead she went and sat at the table and opened the letter and began to read. Her eyes skimming the paper for some sort of clue as to who would of written such words. Was this a horrid prank from her brothers, or a cruel trick of the God’s. Her heart still clung to the man who gave his life for the lands. But after reading such words she felt the small glimer of warmth from her cold heart. Only briefly though as she finished her tankard and folded the letter up placing it in her pouch and returned to work not giving it another thought, for now anyway.
The second letter arrives with a merchant. When asked the merchant only knows that it arrived with supplies. The scroll is tied with a blue ribbon and it says:
Dear Belle,
It is strange that I can’t be truly sure for these letters to reach you. They must cross perhaps so many hands to come to you that I dare to question if they come in the right order. I just have to trust that meeting you was a Godly intervention.
I don’t know if you kept the letter. Maybe it fluttered away in a breeze. But I meant every word. Still do. The world feels strangely richer since I wrote it — as if that moment of seeing you etched something permanent into my days.
I’ll stop here, before this turns into another confession. Only this, then: you were lovely. You are lovely.
And if nothing else, at least this letter got to say so.
The days of the letter had passed. Belle busied herself moving through each day as if ok auto drive. Her focus for anything other then her orders at the bakery had long vanished.
This day Belle was accepting the supplies from the traveling merchant. As she signed the manifest and handed it back to the man his eyes grew wide as if there was something else. That name, he thought to himself..then its as if a switch went off and he held his finger up to Belle and rushed over to a bag filled with scrolls, where he pulled one out and smiled..”This belongs to you also” he said handing it to her and turned to finish his business.
Belle stood there woth the letter in her hand the blue ribbon binding it. Unsure of what it was, as she had hoped it was from her brother or sister in their new lands telling her of her niece and nephews. Stepping over and settling down on the bench she tugged on the ribbon having it unroll in the palm of her hand. Reading it she couldn’t help but to first frown as she looked about for someone but found nothing.
Her eyes skimmed over the letter again and with it held tightly in her fingers she couldn’t help but to grin and rest the hand with the letter in her lap as she looked out upon the waters. Thinking of who this person was and when did they meet.
Every day he wrote a letter and yet not all would truly arrive. But the urge of writing became more and more of moment of calm in his restless life. Some spoke of his feelings, while others wrote of his dreams. And again one letter finds you via the hand of a merchant.
My dearest Belle,
I wasn’t going to write again. Not really. But then I passed a bakery where the aroma of freshly baked bread transported me back — and I thought of you. I always do.
There’s a strange comfort in writing to you, like pressing my palm to the warmth of a stone that’s been sitting in the sun. You never asked for these letters. You might not even know from who they are. But they’ve become the way I breathe deeper — as if naming this feeling gives it permission to be real.
You still don’t know me. Maybe you never will. But in a world full of danger and noise, you felt like silence — not the lonely kind, but the kind that wraps around you and says, “Stay.”
There’s beauty in restraint, I suppose. In loving without expectation. In carrying someone quietly inside your every day. I won’t say more. I’ve said enough in ink already. But I’ll keep this ritual — writing, folding, letting go — like a lantern drifting on a still lake.
Not expecting this to reach you. Just to remember that once, you made something inside me feel weightless. — Still a stranger, but no longer empty
Crows Murder 
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