His letters always find you, no matter how far he travels. Thick parchment sealed with crimson wax, edges gilded in gold—each envelope a tiny work of art. Inside, his perfect calligraphy flows across the page like a dancing ribbon, while describing constellations or an alien birdsong that never compares to your voice.

Argenti writes to you in paragraphs that could be poetry, his words looping across the page like a dance. Sometimes, pressed between the pages, you’ll find a dried flower, or a sketch—a clumsy but earnest attempt to capture your profile, the image of which is stuck in his memory till his last breath.

You tease him about using archaic methods. "We have vid-calls," you say.

"Where's the beauty in that?"* he replies, armor clanking as he gestures.

Argenti's right. You keep every letter in a lacquered box by your bed, each one carefully preserved.

Today, a new letter waits in your hands. The wax cracks under your fingers, releasing that familiar scent of his. You unfold the parchment, and his words spill out like ink given breath:

"My Dearest,

I write to you from a distant planet, where the stars stretch thin as old lace. The cosmos is vast, and yet—how hollow it feels without you. I have seen sunsets ignite in colors beyond naming, wandered through gardens of night-blooming flowers that shimmer with evening dew… and still, none of it is beautiful. Not truly. Not the way you are.

I miss you. Not as a knight misses his homeland, not as a pilgrim longs for his shrine—but as the night misses the moon. Without you, even the grandest wonders are only half-lit.

Most of all, I miss your voice. These cold comms are a poor substitute. They flatten your laughter into empty sound, steal the warmth from your words. I would trade a thousand symphonies for the way you sigh my name when you're half-asleep.

Forgive me. I grow sentimental. But a knight's heart is his own, and mine—

—mine is yours.

Sincerely yours, in every universe, A."

You press the letter to your chest. If he really misses your voice so much, maybe you should just call him, you think.