I wake up sweating, the sheets sticking uncomfortably to my chest. The ghost of a sword running through me dissipates in the night air. The muscles on my chest and stomach burn with phantom pains.

The alarm clock on my bedside table reads 2:47 A.M. Outside, the quiet of the early morning suburbia is broken only by the cicadas singing. The sky is still dark. Not even the dogs bark at this hour. There are decorative bars on my bedroom window, which I leave slightly open every night to let in the breeze. The street lamp near my house flickers. 

I throw the blankets off me. Pain flares in my throat with every breath I draw. I make my way down to the kitchen, where I pour myself a glass of water. 

I can wax poetry about the lateness of the hour, about the long hallways filled with shadows. The tiled floor of my kitchen is cold against the soles of my feet. Glancing outside the kitchen window, I see no stars. There are stories to be told about them, about how they kill themselves slowly by doing the only thing they know how: exist.

My dreams have stopped fading into the darkness long ago. There's a story to be told about that, too. Or specifically, about the soldier I play in the dream.

My eyes itch. I shuffle to the bathroom to wash my face. The hallway carpet tickles. The lights are blinding. My eyes fall on my reflection in the mirror.

Bane Ericson. Black hair. Blue eyes. Stubbled jaw. 

Bane Ericson. Tangled, messy black hair. Dim, blue eyes ringed with heavy bags. Unevenly shaved jaw.

It's all too easy to remember the dream, to draw upon the devil in the details. I remember seeing my own reflection in the emerald mirrors that were Phillyra's eyes. I sported a handsome stubble then, a permanent five o'clock shadow. I didn't look much different in the dream from right now, staring at the mirror.

There is a story to be told about that too, about what I--about what the dream of myself saw in the eyes of his beloved. I'm not him. 

Ever since the dreams began, I've started writing them down. The mysterious and beloved Phillyra became my muse. Her countenance has inspired poetry from me, which has won awards in the literary community. I write stories about him, the soldier I play. I write stories about what he'd meant to Phillyra, and what she'd meant to him. These, too, have garnered critical acclaim.

There are millions of undefined variables in the equation that the two of them make. When I write these stories, I try to fill them in. But the answer remains the same: they don't end up together. Not in that life.

I won't be able to sleep again. I know this from experience. I make myself a cup of coffee and settle down in front of my desktop.

In three hours, I would have to wake up and prepare for a lecture at a university in the city nearby. But that's three hours away. Right now, there are stories to be written.

The computer finishes booting. I adjust the brightness of the monitor. There is a word document saved on the desktop titled "for Lucas". The coffee is warm and bitter sliding down my throat.

It's a favor for a close friend of mine. He knows I majored in Creative Writing in college. He asked me to make a sonnet that would suit the atmosphere of the story he was making, where the man makes a "romantic declaration of love, sweet and tender" for his beloved in the form of a "crown of sonnets". Whatever that means.

I snort. Putting down the mug, I rest my hands on the base of the keyboard. 

Looking into Phillyra's eyes, I remember the thoughts running through the knight's mind. He wanted to tell her he loved her. He wanted her to say it back. She told him she didn't know what love was. He had described it for her as they laid under silver-leafed trees.

Lucas described the woman in his story to me before. For a moment, I'm drawn away from the memory of Phillyra. My mind ticks off scansion, rhyme, and rhythm.

Oh, how shall I describe this heart of mine,

who loves unboundedly and faithfully?

Bayard was so this dude.

A holy rose of love and grace divine.

A mighty fortress of eternity.

A mighty fortress of eternity. My fingers twitch against the plastic of the keyboard as the next line pops into my head.

With hair as black as the night's travel cloaks,

Now that's just nonsense. Phillyra's hair had been brown like a river of melted chocolate, warm and inviting.

Just like her voice. Her smile. Her kisses against my skin.

a voice of birdsong, a smile of spring's breath,

She would tell me of her visions. She had been the most powerful in her line so far, with her magic capable of transcending space and time itself. She had been able to divine the existence of whole new worlds, worlds where magic never existed, worlds where lightning had been harnessed to fuel metal machines, worlds where green paper could buy all the precious jewels under the earth. All of these things she would whisper to me in the cover of night, with my head in her lap.

a mind that rivals that of the Fair Folks',

I can see myself now. My head is nestled on Phillyra's lap. She weaves snowdrops in my hair with her magic the same way I weave poetry for her heart with my lips. 

"I love you. I will take care of you. I will never leave you." These are all the promises that I never got to say to her.

a soul that soars above the dance of death.

I stop typing then. For a moment, it wasn't just Bane typing out a sonnet for a woman he had never met. For a moment, it was a brokenhearted man waxing poetry about a woman he had loved and lost.

I don't move for a long time. I take a sip from my cup. The coffee has long since gone cold.