Although I am left with this agony that lingers like smoke after a fire has been doused, so thick it chokes the air, I cannot regret any time I have spent with my dear friend, whom I love beyond all my comrades. I did not expect that I would ever again see him, not until I too am overcome by the end of mortality and sent to that far shore. To behold him in the country of the living then, to clasp him once more in my arms - this I still count a great blessing, however swiftly it was stolen away. Still it was more than that which I had been granted already.

[He pauses then before the pensive tides of his voice creep in once more.]

Nor can I regret that at last in this land we were allowed to live more plainly than what we had known among our own countrymen.