A Letter to the Empress

Dear Zeecy, (since that’s the name you want me to call you)

First of all, I want to apologize for the circumstances of my last letter to you. I know my attitude and conduct showed a liberty and familiarity much unbecoming a gentleman such as I should like to be thought. I know that, long as our acquaintance can be said to have been, it began with a single meeting and has been followed exclusively by long-distance correspondence and it has been so long–so long!–since I have seen your face. But you must believe me, I implore you, when I say that it is etched inside my brain as firmly as a nail punched into a wall of wood that’s found a fault in the grain and cracked to the ceiling. I am broken for you.

And perhaps I am mistaken in who I believe that you are. Your grace, your poise, the structures in your language and your thoughts–I hope you can understand what would lead me to believe you were more than just a peasant-turned-playwright. The way you moved at that ball all those years ago, it seemed you were playing the sun, effortlessly inviting the entire room to revolve around you. And I, a comet from far abroad, was caught. I fell down your gravity well and now I’m drowning, spiralling closer to your surface.

But perhaps I’ll never reach you. Even if you are no more than who you claim to be, you are hailed as the most influential poetess of all time, the most groundbreaking playwright ever known, and I, a fourth-rate bumbler with a chip on my shoulder, from a fallen race. How can I hope to meet with you? How can I hope to compete?

Please, though, dearest Zeecy, please, from the bottom of this gravity well you’ve plunged me in, I beg of you, cease this silence. I will believe whatever you want to present me, I will address you how you wish to be addressed, and without question. But please, do not let my heavy heart stand in the way of our friendship and our correspondence. It has meant the world to me and I cannot but think it’s meant something to you. Therefore, please, milady, please, my Empress of Muses, speak to me. Lend me a place in orbit around your heart, and I will be

Eternally Yours,

Lornian Lothcar