#and im emotion oh man andrei's voice is so Practical and Stiff but he's

[andryuska]

“I never got to say goodbye

DEAREST IZOLDRUSHKA,

        i am sorry to have waited so long to write, for as our enemies advance, the mail carriers have been muddled, and did not deliver your letter in until this last monday. i write it with your words before me, having only momentarily removed them from where they are kept in my coat, and hope that you have not grown to anxious waiting, for news of the war must reach our home regularly, and not even the imperial crown could make salvage the ugliness of this conflict. the coming winter threatens our supplies as much as it does the enemies, and there is desperation upon the field when soldiers fight, and i fear that the chaos of it all shall not do well for our army. even for an officer as myself, dangers cannot be avoided. i fear for my safety, and so i have written with the intention to make provisions should the war take me before i can be returned to the comfort of your arms.

       enclosed you will find instructions on the management of the estate, and where deeds of ownership may be found in my study, as well as a list of those whom i would trust with both our lives should the worst befall me, who may provide assistance should you require it. i had written my will before i had left for war a few years ago, and have changed it significantly since: you shall find the proper copy in my study. that, and so many other things, shall fall to you, my love, my most dear companion.

           the books, in particular, are yours. each carries hours of discussion and thought and wonder, and those in my study are those for which i had the greatest fondness.i have at times watched you while you have read, and found rapture in the gentleness you have for those pages, and in the care you take for every word upon them, and i hope that you shall find, in my most favored books, all the beauty that we did not have time to share. as well, i hope you might find it in yourself to remember me, and to smile, if ever you read them. i would have smiled to have been there, to have heard your thoughts, to have basked in the beauty of your voice as you shared them, and to have argued and discussed at length at every idea all through the night, if only to be able to remain in your company. in these long hours at war, i have missed such days more profoundly than i would have thought possible.

          and i have missed you even more still. i shall not tell you of the nights when i lay awake, and miss the feeling of your arms around me in my sleep, and how gently you would kiss my shoulders and my hands. i will admit only that sleep has eluded me, on account of the cold that seeps into my barren bed when you are not there to warm it.

           my dear sister marya, though she may not have always been kind to you, have sent me with a promise that she will help you in whatever ways she is able, and i hope you will accept her kindness. i am not sure my family will be of much comfort, but i only hope that are not lonely. you, and all the good that you hold, which you do not even know, and which i see in you with every glance we share, do not deserve such loneliness. and though i wish i could promise to return to you, and to alleviate this myself, there is little to be done.

           all the arrangements for the home and for money ( most of which has been left to you ) have been made, and so i must request of you one most significant thing. should this war take me, and i think that it might, i am afraid that it might, then i want nothing more than for you to find yourself some other happiness. i do not know if this will be in the arms of another, or in books, or in the natural world for which we both shared an appreciation, but please, if you heed no other part of this letter, heed this. find happiness, and cling to it so fiercely that nothing will pry your arms from it. i have spent much of my life brooding in my own misery, and only when i found you, hidden away in a marriage i never expected to bring me so much joy, did i remember that there could be some bliss in living. only in your presence could i remember why my heart was beating, and though i cannot now promise that it will continue on, i can, if nothing else, attempt to implore you to find something of the same. i do not know if i ever brought you the same happiness that you brought me, and nor shall i ever, i imagine, but if not, then find something. please, for my sake, find yourself something that will allow you to be happy.

           my candle has burned low, and soon i shall be require to wake my soldiers, and to begin attending their duties for the day. when the sun rises, i shall think of the mornings we shared, watching that same sun through the window in my bedroom, and i shall touch the back of my neck, where you had so tenderly kissed me. it will be but a memory, nothing to the love in those moments, but it shall remind me of you, and in this dreary world, where mud and snow coat still worse horrors, that is enough.

          you have been so dear to me, and so beloved, and i shall remember you with my dying breaths, in the likelihood that they soon befall me. know that, in my own way, i have loved you, i have loved you with all that this weak heart could have offered. i shall die regretting that i could never find the bravery to tell you directly. forgive me, my dear.

                with love, your andrik.

send “ i never got to say goodbye ” for the last letter my muse left yours before they died  //  @intoxicatiing​

#the Wartime Letter Trope is a fav of mine im so sorry abt some of this i just #i love the Idea of it #and im emotion oh man andrei's voice is so Practical and Stiff but he's #holding back a lot of feeling and he just bad at expressing it hhhh #intoxicatiing #v: arranged marriage ( INTOXICATIING ) #drabble #last letter drabble #long post #queue