What is Love?

EDIT: This is a work of fiction. I should have mentioned that in the first place.

This didn't really have a title, so I just threw something up in there. I wrote this back in January and have tweaked it the tiniest bit since then, but overall I'm still pleased with how it came out. It's based on the following writing prompt:

How does your character view love? Do they view love? Try writing their feelings from a first-person perspective.

What is love, really? I have to wonder that sometimes. Is it as simple as two people feeling affection for each other? Or is there more to it? What if life chooses to complicate things? Is it sometimes best to leave love alone, to never pursue it?

I never really thought about it; at least, not until he came along. Nicholas Parker, a volunteer at the local hospital. I first met him when I was young - how young was it, really? I think I was ten. He was sixteen at the time - the youngest our hospital would allow. Since he was just a volunteer no one seemed to mind when he stole away to my room during my stays. Well, maybe it just felt like he took time away from his job to visit me. Perhaps it was childlike wishing the entire time. All I knew was that having him there in the room with me was better than anything I ever could have imagined.

He did all sorts of things with me. There were times when he brought a tray in, a plastic cover over the top. Sometimes, it was just the plain meal that came with the hospital stay, but sometimes... sometimes there was something extra. This ranged from day to day, but I always thought he had brought it especially for me. How was I to know that it had been requested by my parents?

When he didn't have a tray, he still came in and made my day, making funny faces at me as he checked the IV dripping from my arm - never mind that I was too old for funny faces at the time. For him, I laughed at them every time. They were just another part of him that I adored, even if he didn't know it.

Things became even better when I turned thirteen. I was well enough to stay home, rather than spend my days at the hospital, but Mother still worried about me. She and Father both had jobs, shifts that extended throughout the day, and she didn't want me home alone. She had taken the job up because of me, I know; or, rather, because of the medical bills that I wracked up from time to time, between the surgeries and simple visits to the doctor, and everything in between.

I hadn't liked the idea at first. Certainly, I was old enough to stay home alone! But there was always the risk that I would suddenly collapse, or that something else would happen, and no one would be around to know. No, I needed constant supervision, and thus, one lucky volunteer got to be my permanent babysitter.

I went through a few different ones before I found one I liked. Or, rather, enough volunteers grew tired of watching over a fragile thirteen year old. Never mind that I wasn't fragile at all; I was simply disinterested, and at thirteen, one can be a bit rebellious when they don't like something.

By 'one I liked', I mean Nicholas finally came. I had known that the hospital was going through a list of people that had the credentials to watch over me. It was pure luck that Nicholas' turn had come up before some stubborn volunteer refused to leave despite my attempts.

I remembered our time together in the hospital well, and hoped to make our days at my home just as much fun. For a time, it was. Then, I began to notice that I felt differently about Nicholas than I had before. My adoration from my pre-teen years had blossomed into a full crush before I even turned fourteen, and still, he had no idea.

This crush continued to grow as Nicholas and I spent time alone together. To add to my delight, I soon began to notice signs that might have pointed to him liking me in return. Perhaps it was simply wishful thinking, but any chance I had, I was willing to take. I was still fourteen. I had time for a relationship, even according to the doctor's standings.

Thus, I began to try and pursue this romance. I never actually let on that I liked him, not out loud, at least, but I left the signs. For a while, he showed no indication of noticing my subtle advances, but out of the blue one day it all came fitting together. Under a bit of pressure, he admitted to liking me more than a friend, despite his attempts to think of me as a charge that he had watched over on and off for the past four years. Naturally, I was delighted.

I received my first kiss from him a few months before my fifteenth birthday. It was to be my last, as well, but how was I to know that? Even if it was to be my own fault.

It was on my fifteenth birthday that everything went downhill. I began to notice signs of fatigue. My hands would shake, just small tremors, and not be stilled for minutes at a time. Before I knew what was happening... I collapsed.

My heart had finally started to give out, the doctors announced as I woke in the familiar environment of the hospital. I had known this point was coming, had known since I was born, but why? Why, when everything was going so well, did this suddenly have to happen?

I had to undergo surgery. According to the doctors, whatever they did would prolong my life for a while longer, but as to how long, they had no idea. It could be as little as a year - in fact, they predicted as much - but with luck, I would be able to live happily for a few years yet. If I underwent another surgery at a later point, I might have longer still.

I changed, after that hospital stay. I decided that it was unfair of me to pursue any sort of relationship. My love for Nicholas - for that was what it was, I knew - would only crush him along with my inevitable death. I couldn't bear to do that to him. Wouldn't do that to him. Even if it meant breaking his heart now, it would only be better in the end.

Our relationship ended shortly after I made my decision. I knew he wasn't happy - then again, neither was I - but he knew that what I was doing for the best. He could never know how hard it was for me to finally say it out loud, though. I wouldn't let him know.

I tried to tell myself that I had been fooling myself the entire time. Surely he had just been indulging an ill girl's fantasies. Still... I found myself recalling that first kiss, the emotion behind it. Who was I fooling? I found myself crying for the first time since I had been told what would eventually happen to me, all those years ago. This time, there was no one around to see it.

I don’t know what it was that enabled me to prove them all wrong, but I found myself still alive on my sixteenth birthday. And my seventeenth. As my eighteenth rolled around, I decided that enough was enough. I still refused to consider the notion of romance – refused to think of all the lost time since I had forced myself to give up on Nicholas – but I knew that I wasn’t about to sit around and simply count the days until the inevitable occurred.

It took a lot to convince my parents to allow me to travel, but I had the upper hand. I was eighteen now, and thus had control over my own life. If I wanted to spend what could be my last days, or weeks, or months, or even years out on some sort of journey, then by God, I was going to do it, and no one was going to stop me.

Lara...

I find tears bordering my eyes... and yet, I know somewhat what you went through. While I can only imagine the suffering caused by a terminal illness, I can say that I would have chosen the same as you did were I in your position, and yet it is so very painful when conditions conspire against us. We may love someone, but it is because of that that we spare them the miseries of our lives. At the same time, we do not know - know - what the right choice is, but we decide the one we think is best out of love and that is wisdom in and of its own.

Love, to me, is trust in the purest form. When two people love one another, they trust each other as they would trust themselves. They become unified as two minds in one body. They share values, stories, emotions, everything. If Nicholas had not been unhappy at you breaking with him like you did, I would have questioned his love, but I do not. You shared much.

How painful the love that is unknown... how painful the days that crawl by without revealing true sentiment. No matter how painful your departure, Lara, I know that in truth it was the pain that you felt in the uncertainty of whether he felt for you or not is what hurt the most, for it is long and arduous. I have been in both positions, that of the longing friend and the boyfriend that leaves for just reasons... I have been in both.

I am in the former at the moment.

As to... what my characters think of love...

My main, Adrius Frostglare, put his whole world on love. Even after the tragedies of his death, slavery in undeath, and free-willed undeath, he married his love and through her avoided becoming embittered, cruel, and monstrous. Truly, had it not been for her, he would be just like the rest of the Forsaken. However, he kept him intact. To him, his wife was all that mattered. Then they had a son, adopted, with them, and love rose from that as well. Had he not had his son when his wife died, he would have either lived to become a villain or died in sorrow.

To my rogue, Benedin, love was in life a desire of comfort. He wanted someone to love to give him pleasure and security, but he was betrayed and after that he believed love was nothing but a means for creatures to reproduce and, beyond that, a disgusting weakness. Then, after his undeath, he met his future wife and fostered a new meaning in the word. He was the perfectionist, the one who needed to strive and achieve to feel important and useful, but all his achievements of power were for nothing until he realized what the true goal was to these achievements: to protect and preserve his loved ones. To him, love is the goal of life.

To my troll, Hazzil Mal'akrass, love is a union of the spirits. It is with love that two people are able to coexist, survive, and be happy. It is with love that family keeps the hatred so widespread among his people from killing everyone. To him, love is blood, a necessity, as much as breathing and eating and learning to defend oneself is.

To my honorable orc warlock, Krul'gor Feleye, love is a kinship, an honor-bound contract, unbreakable save for the greatest of betrayals. Love fosters strength. Love IS strength.

To my shaman and guru, Reshimonde, love is a gamble for one's life. If you win in the game, you get everything that you'll ever need and everything that matters, and if you lose, you'll lose everything and be left barren of life.

Do not think love disappears by distance, status, or any sort of social and physical barrier. Even now, I bet, you love Nicholas and he loves you. It is true that romantically there can be but one in your life without causing chaos, but love is not solely for a husband and wife. Love is all-encompassing, color-blind. Unbiased, unprejudiced, and fair. Everything that we consider good in this world has first to come from love. There is no other source.

Oh. o: Oh, I'm really sorry, Adrius. This is a work of fiction. I realized I should have put that up there while I was upstairs.

But... -bites lip- If you thought it was real, I did my job? -feels a bit awful now-

Those are some beautiful ways to view love, though, what your characters feel. I do want to say that.

>_>

Well, GODDAMMIT, I -am- a jackass idiot, aren't I? S'just that... that... yeah, I thought it was real... *facepalms and headdesks*

And yes, you did do your job. Unless you'd typed up "this is a fictional work" somewhere in there, I would not have been able - was able - to tell the difference.

If it makes you feel any better, I would have still had tear eyeliner had it been a fictional work.

I really should have mentioned it (and have edited it in as such immediately after responding). But I'm sorry, again. ):

It does make me feel a bit good to hear that it still would have affected you if it was fictional, though. It was what I was aiming for when I originally wrote it.

OK, OK, let's let this episode pass ><

Anyone else interested in posting your character's(s') belief in love?

Right, let's think of this as a large prompt!

I can't fully define most of my characters' views on love. However, I do know of one character of mine who has dealt with a lot when it comes to that.

Her name is Ishida, and she's the only princess of a kingdom known as Tejet. For all of her teenaged years, and even some past that, she had herself convinced that her duty to her country was more important than anything -- including love.

Then there was another character, Lucian, her best friend since they were young, who felt that she was the most important thing in the world. Yet, for all his love towards her, he couldn't find it in himself to admit it out loud.

There came a time when he was finally ready, and he did tell her that he loved her. Though she loved him in return, she turned him away, reminding him that it was her duty to go through with her arranged marriage. They were both heartbroken, and it was after he had walked away in defeat that she broke down and cried for the first time in a long while. But, despite her own sadness, she still thought she was doing the right thing.

She eventually realized she was wrong and quietly canceled the arranged marriage, but didn't tell him, too afraid of how he would react if she did, until years had passed. And then they lived happily ever after.