As you all can see, my marriage is a union of Elf and Man, Immortal wife and Mortal husband. Although it proves the power of love to span differences, it also reveals the inevitability of my eventual passing forever from this world. She and I do not dwell on this, as we prefer to Live Well by Living Each Day. Yet, one day my Mortality will leave my dear Wife behind, alone.
Some might think this a cruel Fate, and it is if one believes no other Fate is possible. I believe otherwise. I am no scholar, but I am married to one with an extensive word-hoard. Over the years I have perused Her treasures and understand that to the Elf a marriage dissolves "By the ending of the will, when the Dead are not willing to return to life in the body; by doom, when they are not permitted to return." The first of these is available only to the Immortal; the second is the inescapable Fate of the Mortal.
This may seem a morbid topic for an anniversary, but my grey-haired head brings my Mortality ever more to my mind these days, even though the blessing of my marriage keeps me young in heart, mind, body, and spirit. She has proved to me, and I am sure to many of you, that She is quite deserving of the fullest love and most capable of the deepest loving. These things I pray will always be part of Her Immortal life, even when I am no longer here to share them with Her as husband. I love my wife most completely, and I now declare before our dearest family and friends that when I have met my Mortal doom, I would wish Her to find love with another, perhaps even to marry again if it is in Her heart to do so.
For Seregrian, Bloodqueen, Ladyship of Bar-en-Acharn, Mell Bereth a Naneth.
