It was not that he hadn't remembered her, when he had been released from the vice grip of his father's curse. At first, she had been lost within his memories, beaten down by the crashing waves of emotion, remembrance, guilt, and anger Robert had felt when he himself had begun first to surface. But then, it had been a matter of not having the words.
This was his fifteenth letter, each written in his locked office, when his wife could reasonably expected to be either out of the house, or asleep. Each a futile attempt to reach out, to connect, to beg forgiveness for an appalling failure that had not been his design, his fault. Its fourteen predecessors were ash upon the hearth, but this one, Robin thought, was almost good enough. Almost.
It was the best he was going to get, he knew. Nothing would ever be good enough—not for her. She had deserved the sun at dawn and the stars in the night sky, but had been willing to settle, settle for him. He was married now, with children, and no knowledge of her own position. The outside of the envelope bore only her first name: Ziya.
He travelled to the Castle to send it, retrieving Helios from his enclosure. The hawk had known her, after all, was of a sharp mind. If anyone could find Ziya, carry Robin's words to her, it would be Helios.
5th September, 1893
Z.,
I will not tell you how many times I tried to write this letter, for the number seems both foolishly low and laughably high. I do not know how futile my efforts are, or if you even opened this letter having seen the hand that composed it, the bird that delivered it, but I could not continue without knowing that I had at least made the attempt, however ill-fated it might yet prove to be.
Fifteen years. It has been a long time, for me, but I think even longer for you, for while you have lived these years, I have been all but a zombie moving through them, life happening around me, to me, without having any hand to turn the rudder.
In vain, I have tried to find the words to apologize to you for not meeting you, for not sending word—for any slight against you in the years since. I have since come to realize that no language of which I have knowledge possesses the words, in any order, to convey the depth of my regret. The belief which I have previously expressed, that you are deserving of far more than could possibly be bestowed upon you, remains intact. Instead, I must only begin to beg a forgiveness that you do not owe, unworthy as I am to receive it.
R.
— set by mj —