the ritual drowning.

   You swore me fealty once upon a time. Oath to have and hold and fight for and live for and defend and protect. 

And ah! Were then that the days had come unto nights all for to behold the passion of our coupled hearts, and to contain the strength of our redsome dreaming!

   By decree of the light of heaven you left. Forced as you were, bitter and bound and mild and mellow and calm and dying and raging wild and hurt beyond healing. And then you became sorrow, bittersweet balm to haunt my human soul and trap my guarded eternity. 

   And now by that same decree of that same light we seek each other out despite ourselves. And so we are thus come to this beyond counsel and any hope of sane return, for the water like the endless sea will come to take us away for the ritual drowning of mirth, here and tonight.

    And come! We shall be like those before us among dreams who have so died for love and wanderlust and fire. 

And then so shall those among people who can see these things call us blessed beyond chance and saved by heaven and children of the dreaming and lovers fulfilled. 

The fealty holds. The promise stands. I keep you to this.