I’m writing this because I want people to remember the real Ulden, the one I myself knew so many years ago. I remember his smile and his laugher, and how they had the ability to brighten even the darkest of my moods and bring a smile to my face. I remember that lopsided grin of his framed by a head of golden curls that gained him numerous nicknames. It’s hard to believe that the thoughtful and kind boy I grew up with would one day grow up to be the most feared man in Amion. That it would be the same boy who was ray of sunshine in my younger days that would later grow to cast a shadow over this land we both call home. In essence I’m writing this because to me the man that now calls him self Ulden is an impostor. The real Ulden died the day he walked away from me at Tritas fair ground. This letter is my last fair well to that boy, to the boy I choose to remember.

The actual events of what happened to change Ulden so dramatically are unknown, but having been so close to him in the earlier days, I don’t believe as many others do that he was destined to be bad from the start. I believe it was the situation he was thrown into and the people who he meet who corrupted his innocent mind bending it to their cause. Could it have been avoided? Yes, but none of us took the time to pull him back to safety from the cliffs edge he stood swaying upon. We merely watched from the side lines wishing him back, to afraid of what was happening and to young to understand the consequences of doing nothing. In away I blame my self for him falling.

It all started long before either Ulden or I were born. It stared with Ulden’s mother, Neia, a maid in the service of a wealthy and unmarried noble man by the name of Tofri. She was but a young girl when she began working in the large house hold, doing laundry and cleaning the vast rooms of the castle and she was but a young girl when she became pregnant with Tofri’s child. Only knowing what Ulden has told me of his past, I can not be sure if Neia consented to Tofri’s desires or not, but I do know that not long after she’d given birth she lost her job at the house and was thrown penny less onto the street, the bawling baby Ulden in her arms.

No one wants to hire a maid with a baby and Neia soon learned that. It wasn’t long before she no longer had money left to feed her self or her young child. Knowing she and her child would both perish if she didn’t do something she tearfully placed Ulden in an orphanage and giving him one last kiss one the check left him there. Although she’d told the matron of the orphanage that she’d be back to collect Ulden as soon as she could, Neia was never to return for him.

It was here in the orphanage many years later that I first meet Ulden. My grandmother, the woman who had taken care of me in my parent’s stead, had died and left me all alone. With my parents unwilling to take me in, I was brought to the orphanage. A shy girl of 14 I didn’t make friends easily, and the state of grief I was in didn’t seem to help the situation.

Ulden was the only one to approach me and wipe away my tears. I remember how as I sat underneath the big oak tree in the back of the orphanage alone, afraid, and abandoned, he came and wrapped his arms around me without so much of an introduction and told me it would be alright. For some reason, as soon as he said the words I knew he was right and that everything would be fine, that the pain I felt at being alone would fade in time and that tears would eventually dry. From that day on Ulden became my idol. In my eyes his 16 years made him worldly and wise beyond my wildest imagination and having grown up in the orphanage he was able secure for me an welcome from the other children unlike anything I had ever imagine possible for someone as shy as myself. I was drawn to the simple ness he seemed to embody. To the way he felt no reason to change himself to fit others expectations like I did or to change his views to fit theirs. I also felt admiration and at the same time jealousy for how despite everything he could still hang onto the hope that his mother would return for him.

I grew to love him over the 4 years I knew him first as a hero, then a friend, and eventually as a man, but I knew that his childish innocence would never allow him to love me back in the same way so I kept my feelings to my self content to just remain by his side. I think toward the end he realized I loved him, but by then he’d already started to spiral downwards. Sometimes I think that maybe the fact that he didn’t ask me spiral with him is a sign that he eventually learned to love me in return. I''ll admit to hoping so.