Six hundred and ten days have passed since you fell, and he still misses you as much as he did that spring.

How strange, Dainsleif thinks, how he has returned to where he once was, alone and closed off from the world around him. Being by himself isn’t as daunting as it used to be, but nothing could ever replace you. With you, loneliness hardly existed. Without you, he has returned back to where he started.

Tick, tick, tick. The clock is the only sound he can hear on this dreary night as he watches it strike twelve.

Yet another date on the calendar is crossed out.

The ring glimmers in the moonlight from where it lays in its velvet box. He’d imagined it playing out in his mind, from the proposal to the look on your face as you told him yes. It was a gift that he spent a long time preparing and waiting for. A surprise that would always make you smile whenever you thought about it.

It was meant to be a promise, one that he would keep for as long as you’d let him.

But you never got to celebrate your birthday, for the Abyss had been a thief of your time, and so Dainsleif lets the candles' flames die out on their own. With a heavy heart, he puts the ring back where it was on the shelf. Some plans go awry, but he can’t give up yet. There will come a day when he meets you again, and only then can he finally tell you everything he wanted to say.

For now, they remain unspoken. The promise is never made, and he alone is the witness.