***Author's Note*** For round 1.1 of the smackdown we are to write a 1500 word maximum romance that references two songs out of a list of ten. I chose Eternal Flame by the Bangles and More Than Words by Extreme as inspirations for this story.
Isadora was one of the keepers of the eternal flame. Although largely symbolic, it was a duty undertaken with the utmost respect and solemnity. It was said that as long as the flame burned peace and prosperity would continue to reign in the Kingdom of Wyr.
Only daughters of the highest castes were allowed to apply to be keepers and even among them only the best and the brightest were chosen. Lukas thought most of them were snobs of the highest caliber. But not Isadora. She always had a smile and a kind word for him whenever they should happen to meet. He had known her for as long as he could remember and been in love with her for just as long.
Unfortunately Lukas was a lowly scribe and thus had no business mixing with the likes of a keeper of the eternal flame. And yet he sensed in the depth of his soul that they were meant to be together, regardless of what society said was appropriate. He knew that she couldn't abandon her duties to the flame. That would be unthinkable. But marriage to someone below her caste was something he believed she would be willing to go against societal norms on, if only he could make her understand how deeply he felt for her.
As a scribe, Lukas was a master of the written word, but felt much more out of his element when speaking. His conversations with Isadora were alway very deep, pleasant, and uplifting. They always left him feeling a little dizzy with euphoria afterward. As much as they always seemed to connect and as much as they never seemed to run out of things to talk about, he could never seem to find the words to tell her about his feelings for her. They seemed so big and powerful, it seemed like it would take more than words to express.
But words were all he had. Though he failed in conversation, he set himself to the task of writing out what he felt needed to be said. For eleven long years he spent every spare coin he had on precious parchment and ink. He needed a lot of it because he needed a lot of words to try to say what couldn't be said with mere words. And yet he agonized over each and every word he chose. Maybe it wasn't possible to describe what he knew he felt, but he would get it as close to perfect as humanly possible. He also took to drawing intricate pictures, with painstaking care given to each brush of ink, in the hopes that maybe visuals could fill in some of the gaps where words failed.
In the end he had put together a hefty tome. It had taken him more than a decade to complete and he had gone over every word and every pen stroke more times than he could count until he was satisfied that he had said everything that could be said both with words and pictures. It still might not be perfect, but if Isadora couldn't understand him from this, then there was truly nothing more he could do.
One night when he knew Isadora was nearing the end of her shift tending the flame, he decided the time had come to present her with his manuscript and let the fates decide what was to be.
As he neared the Altar of the Flame, a large man in expensive clothes who was carrying a bundle of rods came running around a corner and bumped right into him.
Lukas recognized the man. He thought his name was Reginald. His father was a powerful gem merchant and he was always hanging around with Tia, an heiress who had applied to be a keeper of the flame and had been rejected.
"Get out of my way, peasant!" Reginald shouted as he shoved Lukas to the ground and continued running down the lane.
The pages of his manuscript scattered when he impacted with the ground and it took him some time to gather them up and make sure they were all there and in the proper order.
When he was sure it was organized properly, he made his way to the Altar, where he found Isadora in tears.
"What's the matter?" he asked as all other thoughts fled from his mind due to his concern.
"How could I have been so stupid?" Isadora clenched her hands to her face. "I should have known Tia would never be that nice to me."
"What did she do?"
"She said she had tickets to the traveling carnival that she couldn't use and she offered them to me. I was thinking, well, that maybe you and I could go. Then she kept me distracted with small talk while her boyfriend stole all of the fuel for the eternal flame. It was all a ruse. She never had any intention of giving me the tickets. And now the flame is about to go out and there's not enough time to get more fuel. I don't know what to do! The flame hasn't been extinguished in over a thousand years and if it goes out on my watch I'll bring shame on my entire family. And what if I cause the end of the peace and prosperity of the Kingdom just because of my foolishness?"
Lukas looked at the rapidly diminishing flame and gulped. "It's not going out." He tore a page from his manuscript and threw it onto the fire. The flame sparked up stronger for a brief moment. He fed more pages onto it and it grew brighter and hotter. "Quickly! Go run and fetch more fuel. I'll keep the flame burning."
In a few short minutes more than a decade of his intensive labor of love went up in smoke. But the flame stayed alive long enough for Isadora to return with more fuel.
They were married the next year, and although he was never able to fully explain to her how he felt, or even to replicate what he had written, he learned that sometimes actions can say much more than words.
