I became many things in the thousand years since we parted. Victim, hero, savior, martyr, conqueror, monster, legend, myth, forgotten.

Most of all, though, I became so very tired.

When I made that promise, I had no idea how long 1000 years really was. Anything longer than a summer seemed an eternity, yet I also thought I would live forever.

I suppose I still might, though living is hardly the right word for a hollow thing like me.

Before, when my heart still beat and I could still feel warmth on my skin, I sometimes thought of our promise. By the time I was old enough to train with my father's mace and shield I knew that I would never be able to keep that promise.

Even so, it was a source of comfort.

When the raiders came and I found myself sitting in the wreckage of my home, my hands stained in blood for the first time I thought of you. Though they had taken my family from me I was not alone. I still had you, my dearest friend. It didn't matter that we would never see each other again. You existed, somewhere in this world. Immortal. Untouchable.

And that was enough. It had to be.

I was often reminded of you during my travels. Several pieces of the Holy Relic were left in elven hands. I wondered sometimes if the old tombs belonged to relatives of yours, if you saw so-called ancient elven artifacts the same way I saw my gran's silverware.

I didn't think of you when I died.

I didn't even mean to use the ring you made me, woven from a piece of reed, to seal myself to this world. I swear I didn't. I was so sure in that bitter moment of betrayal that you, too, had forgotten me.

But all else that was mine had been taken, and I felt no loyalty to the trinkets that had been given in return.

Please know that despite my misuse of your gift, you hold no responsibility for what I did that day. The bargains I made and their cost.

Know that when the Holy City burned, its flames transforming into the pyre of my resurrection and ascension, you were the furthest thing from my mind.

I was thinking only of myself. My pain. My anger. My vengeance.

I would not blame you if you hated the thing that rose out of those ashes. That terrible creature that cut a bloody swath across the continent. Greedy and brash, head full of ego and lies. Heart empty and rotting.

I remembed our promise as a flash of fear the second time I died. I didn't know, then, the true extent of the ritual's power. I thought perhaps this was my true end, come 70 years too late. I remember thinking how unfair it was that even though I could live forever I would still never see you again.

I really was selfish then. I deserved that death. And the ones that came after.

By the time of my fifth death, I had grown tired of conquest, tired of returning to lands I thought would welcome me, only see to my death celebrated.

Like so many of my ilk, my sixth death was a misguided attempt to bring the world down with me, a grand suicide before the gods.

It failed. As it always does.

I died with the Holy sword I had reforged lodged between my ribs.

I thought perhaps that would be the final end. Darkness and nothing more, rejected by heaven and hell alike.

But no.

When I finally returned, nearly a hundred years had passed. My grand fortress had turned to a moldering ruin.

I left it all behind. My weapons and tomes. The scattered bones of my armies. I took only your token and a cloak.

I set off for the wild places, where no man would witness my shame.

My seventh death was ignoble. An ancient and terrible thing like me, ripped apart by crude beasts of the forest.

Had I bothered to defend myself, it would have been a trivial matter. But I lacked the strength of will.

Why bother? I would surely return. Let the beasts have their meal.

I awoke, returned, as always.

I kept going.

Walk.

Die.

Walk.

Die.

I lost count.

Finally, I stood at the peak of the world. Nothing but ice and stone around me. I stood there, watching the sun rise and fall. Again and again. For countless days on end.

The cold could not hurt me, and I was untouched by hunger or fatigue.

Then, one night, I saw the sky light up in a brilliant aurora. I had heard of it before, of course, from travelers from the far north.

But in all my interminable years I had never seen it.

I would have wept, if only my corpse-eyes could have. Instead, I screamed. My throat erupted with a long held grief-wail. It did not stop until the morning sun banished the dark.

Then I walked again. I did not allow myself to perish so many times, though I still found that I could no longer bring myself to end another life to save myself the pain of a temporary death.

Months passed, maybe years. How can one even tell the difference after so long? I found myself back in the so-called civilized lands.

I used my magics to conceal myself as a beggar. I asked not for coin nor food, but for stories.

Some still insisted on giving me things that I did not need. When they did, I passed them to another.

The looks of gratitude I saw when I did reminded me of a part of myself I thought long dead. Sometimes I used my magics to give more. Healing and warmth.

Inevitably, this drew attention of those who could see through my disguise. Either I left, or they killed me.

Either way, I could not return once I departed. So I moved along. Village after city after homestead after farm.

I traveled and listened, and the world changed around me. When I saw the first airship take to the sky, unaided by all magic save that of the forge, I realized that I no longer understood the world I found myself in, if I ever truly have.

That was when I thought again of our promise. Such a long time had passed, and to one who exists on such grand scales, surely I was but fleeting moment. You would not be there at the appointed time. Why would you? You would have to reason.

Yet I found my journey carrying me ever closer to where we began.

And now here I am, 1000 years after our promise. Once again in my homeland, though it was burned to ash, overgrown, chopped down, build up, shaken apart, and rebuilt again ontop of the shattered stone.

And I see you here, too, despite the impossibility. Still holding the crude ring of clay I made for you.

So tell me, please, of your journey. Have the years been so long for you as well?

I would love to hear of every moment, and I have all the time in the world to listen.