“You insist it will end like others had. From yourself, for me you fear.You forget that I am different. Please trust the luck that brought us here. I say, give it a try, give it a chance; change your mind and spread your wing.I am too dear, you explain. Flying with you is a risky fling. Chances you gave to nameless faces showed you life in black and white.The light I see when I see your face makes me certain that I am right. Never the same again. I took the oath to wait.You would come around, I promised. You just need time. Nothing is the same with that oath to wait.You would come around, now or later... never too late.”

“Listen to me. I am leaving, but I am living. I will not be gone from you entirely, Will. When you fight now, I will be still by you. When you walk in the world, I will be the light at your side, the ground steady under your feet, the force that drives the sword in your hand. We are bound, beyond the oath. The Marks did not change that. The oath did not change that. It merely gave words to something that existed already.”

“But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony--Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?”

“If I'd thought I would regret it," he said calmly, "I never would have made that oath. I knew what becoming a knight would mean. And if you asked me again, the answer would still be the same." He sighed, framing my face with his hands. "My life... everything I am... belongs to you.”

“I am here, forever, to protect you. To help you, to love you. To keep you happy.” It was an oath that every elf knew, but never had to say. There was no prompt. At a certain age, two elves of nearly the same name would meet. Then one would say the oath, simply because they felt compelled to. It was more than a promise; it was a feeling. One that every single elf was born with.”

“...I am still librarian in your house, for I never was dismissed, and never gave up the office. Now I am librarian here as well.''But you have just told me you were sexton here!''So I am. It is much the same profession. Except you are a true sexton, books are but dead bodies to you, and a library nothing but a catacomb!”