"Thus I relieve thee, my creator…thus I take from thee a sight which you abhor. Still thou canst listen to me and grant me thy compassion. By the virtues which I once possessed, I demand this of you…On you it rests, whether I quit forever the neighbourhood of man and lead a harmless life, or become the scourge of your fellow creatures and the author of your own speedy ruin."

- Quote, The Creature, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

The Prophecy:

The love you let them share will kill you, as it killed her.

You will choose one to keep, and one to send away; one to love, one to leave.

Their love will destroy your world and all you care for, sending innocence to flight before your eyes tell you it is too late.

A love for a love and a death for a death.

Your beloved world torn apart by your legacy and their regret.

Prelude:

The Princess

It's true that nothing in my life has ever gone as it should have. I was supposed to be the one that lived, loved, and was happy. Yet we are bound too strongly for that, and his fate is forever connected to mine. How do you stop the one whose life is your life? How do you stop the one you love above all others? Perhaps our king should have foreseen more of this than he did, but then again perhaps that would have been impossible. After all, my imprisonment in the haven of beauty and light has been just as much a torture as his self-imposed exile.

So much effort was expended to keep us apart, to stop the realisation of our connection. But, I believe, our stars were crossed at our conceptions, and the love we feel is as unbreakable as the bond that links our lives. Yet I would not change any of this for the world, because the idea of living without him is as abhorrent to me as our love is to others. Would I wish him to be free to love another, to risk their life with his darkness? Of course not, but this is not my true reason for wanting this twisted reality. No, I want him no matter what, even if our love is star-crossed; my unwillingness to let him go is the one selfishness I will allow myself. I suppose that is our one similarity. From then on, we are opposites, the light to the darkness, the warmth to snow.

There is no one to blame, not even ourselves, for these many cruel twists of fate that have brought us to this point. This world we love is under threat from all sides – not only from those who know nothing of us, but from within, from the most beloved and me, and for him, there can be no happy ending. Either way our world seems doomed to be destroyed, whether by guilt or by the unstoppable force of ignorance. Either way we shall lose, and in so doing shall doubtlessly lose each other.

After so many years separated, not knowing each other, I suppose something of the meaning of our official relationship was lost to us, or maybe we were always fated to feel this way. I do not see how we cannot love, eternally linked as we are. So, I suppose it is just my fate, as Nature has decided it, that I should love him in this way and discover that he is indeed my true love. No matter how hard I try to run from my feelings, I cannot escape his influence no more than he cannot love me. We are bound, as closely as if we were one. Yes, it is our fate to love this way.