Return to Camelot
Nate sat back in his chair and took a deep breath, blinking back tears - or trying to. He looked around, surprised to see that the room was bright. "What..." He checked the wall clock - "Ten AM?" he whispered. He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes and let out a shaky sigh. "Pull it together, Nate."
But he couldn't. And he didn't really want to. His head swam with emotions. He'd read the entire story, journeying with the Writer on his Camelot adventure, as he tried to navigate the court while also holding onto his sanity and his hope of being rescued. He cheered for the Writer's victories, and felt the crush of his defeats - the deepest of them, and the saddest to Nate, being his intense regret surrounding his lost love, and the fact that the Writer was never rescued in the end.
Nate looked down at the final message and let the tears flow as much as they wanted, while being sure to keep the book safe.
My Love,
The battle for Camelot begins tomorrow. I have prepared our army as much as I can, but I don't know if we can stand against the enemy's forces. We have many brave knights on our side, and Constantine has remained loyal to me despite his former disappointment. But I don't know if it will be enough. I would never say this to the others, but I can tell you. I don't think I'm going to walk away from tomorrow's battle.
Don't worry, my love. I'm not giving up. I will fight as hard as I have ever fought for anything. I swore to give everything of myself to protect her, and I will. This is Camelot, after all, and the ideals she represents are absolutely worth fighting for. But all the same, I have a foreboding feeling this is the last letter I will ever write to you.
It seems strange to contemplate my own death. I wish... I wish so many things - too many to count or list here. Most of all, I wish I hadn't waited until I lost you to tell you how I feel. I have no idea if you will ever find this. You've never mentioned this any time I started going on about Camelot, so maybe that means you never find it. Or maybe you never mentioned it before because it's an anomaly, and wasn't part of your memories when we met. Who knows? Either way, on the slim chance you do find this, my final message to you will be the same as the first.
I love you. I love you, I love you! If the others are still with you, you can tell them I love them too, and wish them all the very best in their lives. I'm sorry if reading this hurts you. But I love you with all my heart. And if I'm gone, just know - wherever I am, I'm thinking of you.
Te amo ut magnus.
Nate was a complete mess by the time he read the last letter again. The Writer's final words - te amo ut magnus - I love you so much - brought fresh tears, especially knowing that the man the message was intended for never had the chance to read the letters. That, and the fact that the Writer had died without ever being reunited with him. The final page with writing on it was in the next page, after the final letter. In a bold print, it read in Latin:
Farewell, our beloved leader: 25 March 526
Nate shut the book and wrapped it carefully in its linen cloth. He needed to think about something else - work on something else to distract himself from the sadness. He went to his bookshelf, but instead of doing something distracting, he pulled out the first book he saw on the Arthurian legends, and looked for evidence of the unnamed knight.