Illidan's Private Journal - The Shape of Belonging
(Fragment, penned in Illidan's hand.)
I did not mean to stay.
I only meant to wait.
She asked me, softly, to sit with her. Just a little while. Her head on my shoulder, her voice quiet with exhaustion, saying she had missed me. What man with blood in his veins could refuse that?
I thought I would sit until she drifted. Then rise, leave, let her rest.
But she curled closer, warm and soft, the world hushed and I forgot the hours.
When I woke, it was not her hand that stirred me—it was her father's gaze.
Lucien.
The man whose books I study, whose mind I respect, whose daughter I
(ink blot here, words struck through)
I stammered like a boy, scrambling to defend something I had not even touched. He stopped me with a word, with a look. Said it was exactly what it looked like. That it looked as though she had chosen well.
I did not know words could strike like lightning and heal in the same breath.
Me.
Chosen well.
I have been called many things—reckless, jealous, arrogant, dangerous.
But never that. Never worthy of someone's choice.
I sat frozen long after he left, her head still pillowed against me, the sun rising through the orchard windows. The weight of his words pressed on me, but not like a burden. More like a mantle.
If he can believe it—if she can—then perhaps I am not only the shadow beside my brother.
Perhaps I am a man who can be trusted.
Perhaps I am a man she can choose.