We are tiny flames, Helikaon, and we flicker alone in the great dark for no more than a heartbeat. When we strive for wealth, glory and fame, it is meaningless. The nations we fight for will one day cease to be. Even the mountains we gaze upon will crumble to dust. To truly live we must yearn for that which does not die.

Nothing of real worth can ever be bought. Love, friendship, honour, valour, respect. All these things have to be earned.

Thorn knew women. There was no point in rushing in ... Gentle talk, that was the answer. Ask them questions about themselves ... Be interested. Most men traveled through life determined to rut as swiftly as the woman would allow. Senseless! Talk first. Learn. The touch gently, lovingly. Care. Then love and linger. Thorn had learned early, for he had always been ugly. Other men disliked him for his success, but they could never be bothered to learn from it. Fools!

Yours is a race whose imagination is limited to its own small appetites. Greed, lust, envy - these are the motivating forces of humankind. What redeems you is that in every man and woman there is a seed that can grow to encompass love, joy and compassion. But this seed is never allowed to prosper in fertile ground. It struggles for life among the rocks of your human soul.

Love is both wondrous and yet full of peril. Love is a gateway through which hatred - disguised and unrecognized - can pass.

Like light and shadow, love and hate were inseparable. One could not exist without the other.

Why now? Why not? Live or die, a man and a woman need love. There is a need in the race. We need to share. To belong. Perhaps you will die before the year is out. But remember this: to have may be taken from you, to have had never. Far better to have tasted love before dying, than to die alone.

She was his north star, the fixed point round which his world turned. For as long as his heart beat, or hers, he believed they would always share a destiny.