When she first glanced toward me, I thought I saw something I never would have imagined, and when we touched she neither shudder nor quiver from me; I ignored it and cast it away as though it were some illusion, but then I would wonder what was it that I never saw in her from before. Whenever I held her in my arms, they would shake. Whenever I heard her speak, I would lose all focus. And whenever I looked into her eyes, I would be pulled into her sky blue-world. I had no knowledge as to what it was that caused me to fall for someone like her but I just felt the need to be around her-to love her. Despite the fact that we were complete opposites from one another, I felt myself drawn to her.

And I knew she felt the same way too.

Through the eyes of others we would quarrel with one another, but in actuality, we would draw ourselves closer to one another without our very knowledge. It was never my intentions to become close with this maiden of such beauty and grace, but alas, the fates must have found this humorous. I took it upon myself to stop this childish, on-going battle between the princess and I by forbidding ourselves from ever seeing each other. Unfortunately, it did not go as well as I thought it would: The farther we were from one another, the more painful it was to continue living. Eventually, we could no longer contain our feelings from each other and found ourselves drawn into each other's arms once more. As our eyes stared into one another, it was clear that we both felt the same way-we both shared the same feelings.

Not wanting to gather any unnecessary publicity onto ourselves, we chose to meet in secrecy. By dawn we would meet in the forest, at noon we would appear beside the riverbed, and finally, when dusk had arrived, we would go to the mountains; there, we would lay by each other in loving silence and watch the flowers bloom with life. When we could not meet we sought out over methods of communicating with each other. If we could, we would write letters to one another, describing how we felt. Whenever we were close, we would spell out our messages in silence. As days came and went we soon became inseparable and did not wish to part ways, but we were left with little options.

It already occurred to me that our relationship will one day be exposed, and soon everybody will know about us-both allies and enemies. The reason I disapproved of this relationship from the start was because I feared that this would happen: former friends disapproving of our choice and enemies concealed from within the shadows to take advantage of this distraction. I cursed myself for not seeing this any sooner. Was it not my mission to protect this kingdom, at the cost of my very life? Was it not my orders to see to it that everyone that lived in this castle would remain cared for? Why all of a sudden would I throw away my responsibilities?

"Shadow?"

I turned slowly toward the woman that laid beside me. Her pearl pink gown covered her brown-tan fur and her auburn-colored hair stretched from her head to her lower back. Although I could not see her eyes, I reminded myself of her sky blue irises that blazed as bright as the sun and as powerful as the flames. It was because of her that I no longer considered myself as a weapon of destruction, nor as a monster. Instead, I was recognized as a person-a living being that had a heart, mind, and soul. It was also because of her that I no longer saw her as a simple princess, figurehead, or as some descendant of a powerful pedigree. She was now the woman that I had come to cherish-the same chipmunk that has become special to me.

"Sally..." I whispered her name.

I pressed my palm lightly on her shoulders and she purred in response. No words were needed to describe how we felt for one another; we communicated with each other with the use of sign-language so that we wouldn't have to say what we couldn't say before. As I held out my left hand, I spelled out the word I would be too much of a coward to say:

'L-O-V-E'.

Afterwards, I would huge her ever so tightly. In return, she would spell out her word and carry it out without a hesitant moment of regret:

'K-I-S-S'.