In the fading light of her residence's historic common room, Diana's pen scratched yet another letter to her enigmatic Italian penpal that she had begun to feel and uncanny connection to, despite never having met him.

Diana had recently turned 19 and was in the midst of her second year of her undergraduate degree, studying philosophy, with a specialized in ancient and classical literature. From a young age, Diana had always felt an uncanny draw to literature from these periods. Back home in Forks, Diana had never found anyone else who has shared a similar interest in philosophy, let alone the specific periods of philosophy that entranced her. Diana's father, Charlie, while a very well-meaning and kind man, had little interest in any academic matter, and has always regarded Diana's interest as and odd facet of her personality that was best to be left untouched.

Diana's sister, Bella, however, regarded her sister's interest with contempt more than anything else. Bella, whose literary interests were limited to fictional works of English literature, regarded philosophy as a useless field. Diana had not often been subjected to this dismisiveness from her younger sister – having lived in separate cities for most of their lives due to their parents' custody arrangement – but it had stung nonetheless.

Realizing that her interests could never been fulfilled close to home, Diana had fled Forks as soon as she graduated high school and had landed in a historic liberal arts college, with an incredible philosophy program, several states away. Since then, Diana had flourished in her new surroundings and had only returned to Forks for Christmas, having taking up a research assistant position in her university town during the summers.

This research position had been what had enabled her to access the primary sources that had spurred her to write the article that would end up changing her life.

A month earlier, Diana had published a brief critical article on classical constructions of human dignity and equality in her university's student newspaper's philosophy section. Her article had unexpectedly received high praises from her university's dean of students, who had, without her knowledge, submitted it to a major international philosophy journal. To Diana's immense surprise, her article was published within the journal's next issue.

Her published article brought several unexpected occurrences. First, she received a not-inconsequential cheque from the journal which was immediately dispensed to her pending tuition fees. Further, she had received several inquiries from scholars internationally with questions, praise, and occasionally scorn for the article she had published. These inquiries consisted almost entirely of emails and online messaging platforms, except for a singular exception.

Several weeks after Diana's article was published, she received a letter enclosed in a very fine and higher quality (expensive, she contended) envelope with a blood-red wax steal embossed with a raven and the letter V. Besides being the only physical inquiry she'd received, the letter contained within this expensive envelope was also very different from any previous communication she had received. The return address upon the envelope was a small Italian city called Volterra that Diana had never heard of before.

The letter enclosed in the envelope, addressed very formally to "Lady Diana Swan," was several pages long and written in very fine calligraphy like she'd never seen before.

The sender, who only provided the name Marcus, wrote a profoundly intriguing continuation of her article was included primary sources that Diana had only heard existed in rumours. Marcus also directly engaged with her critique in a manner that no one else had managed, and Diana followed his thought process with amazement at the intellect displayed.

What was also evident was the profound admiration Marcus had for her own thought process, which he commented on several times throughout his letter.

Because of the mutual admiration they had for the thoughts of one another, perhaps the connection that formed over the countless letters they would exchange ove the next few months was natural. The letters that has initially only comprised of good-natured intellectual debate and collaboration, quickly became littered with personal anecdotes and questions about the lives of one another and their thoughts on non-academic topics.

Diana learnt that Marcus was a dedicated scholar engaged in the humanities and liberal arts with a witty sense of humout that emerged when critieuing the so-called "great minds." She assumed that Marcus was quite rich, because he didn't seem to have any occupation besides academia. But besides her assumptions, she didn't have many facts to base her perception of the man on, other than a deep insight into his thought processes. Marcus shared inane facts about his life and preferences, as well as deeply insightful comments on human nature, but none of the greater facts of his life.

Diana, on the other hand, felt as if she had Marcus about every single facet of her life, besides the one aspect she skirted around – her love life. Even as their connection grew stronger, and her mind rarely escapes thought of him, Diana was (perhaps fruitlessly) trying desperately to hide the infatuation she had grown from him.

While Marcus didn't overtly flirt, he did seem to regard her with the respectful admiration typical to the initial stages of the courtship process in the fictions that Bella was so obsessed with. Diana felt foolish when he likened his attention to courting practices, though, convinced that that it wasn't possible that Marcus could mirror her infatuation.


This all led to where Diana was now — on her second flight of the day, heading to Port Angeles, drafting yet another letter (the 36th her mind supplied – though she contested that she wasn't counting) to her Italian penpal.

As the plane began its assent, dread began to fill Diana's stomach at the concept of the drive to Forks that awaited her when she landed. An hours long drive home with her father awaited her, rife with his awkward rambling and the insensitive, though not ill-meaning, thoughts he had on the aimlessness of studying philosophy.

As she exited the gate with her small luggage, she forced a smile on her face when spotted her dad.

They hugged awkradly as they met by the exit.

"I missed you Di," Charlie gruffly spoke into her ear.

"Missed you too, Dad," Diana replied.

As they began to drive away from the airport, one of her father's well-meaning, though hurtful, speech on the unemployability of a liberal arts degree began. Despite the recent success of her article, neither Charlie nor Bella could accept that studying philosophy could be in any way useful or lucrative.

"So Di," he started. "I know you really want to continue with the philosophy, but don't you think it might be about time to switch to a more useful degree?" he asked. "I thought you'd be done with this nonsense already once you were living on your own and had to pay your own bills. I know your little article was published, but you have to see that you can't make a career out of this!"

"Dad, we've already talked about this before, there are many jobs that I can use my degree for! I could be a professor, or I could take up research more formally than I do now," Diana replied.

Diana knew that Charlie was only concerned that her degree would result in her eventual unwilling unemployment out of concern for her well-being, but the old conversation that was rehashed every Christmas still stung, though she tried to desensitize herself.

Diana wistfullhy though of Marcus at that moment, a man that encouraged her interests and believed that she was capable of making something of herself. She longed in that moment for a connection like the one she had with Marcus in reality, away from the ink-splattered letters that occupied her mind everyday.

"I know Di, I'm just worried about you, that's all."

Giving him an awkward smile, the conversation died out between teh two of them for the rest of the drive.

As they pulled up to the aged yellow house that Diana, but not Bella, had grown up in, Diana steeled her heart in preparation for two weeks with her younger sister who had moved back to Forks the past year.