She raised her eyes level with his. He could see her heart and head were warring, struggling to define an emotion that would help her bear the farewell. For after tonite he had to leave for a while. Half her expression was sulky, like a little girl about to be punished and deprived of something she favoured. The other half was a rush of, well, perhaps it was pride, coming to rescue her self-concept that he should leave her in search of some other destiny.

"I do not know why you must go; is it not pleasant here?"

"Yes it is, it always is. You know that." He looked deep into her eyes and saw tears welling.

"I do not understand men."

He dared not smile; it seemed ironically funny but for a moment.

"We say the same thing about women."

Her green eyes, the color of jade, engaged his and she sniffed, wiping away a tear. Parting was never easy, because it always coincided with a dip in the path for one and a climb for the other, returning to their own lives and challenges after the sweetness of some time together. Saying adieu was always the same, yet it always hurt, this time more than ever before, for the Bard.

"When the peacock and the panther keep company, either one will bore the other with endless display or one will consume the other without realising it. They are good company in small doses, but unlikely partners."

"You always have fine words and fine tales, but never what I want to hear -- that you will stay with me. Your words are always lines of quipping and quitting, never lines about staying and starting."

"Great lines are never enough. If they were, Romeo would have lived and had children. When Romeo believed his one true love was gone, he could not bear the thought of life without her. I never mean to hurt you like this, and it hurts me too; but I know I cannot stay, as much as part of my heart always abides here."

There was no easy way, so he just held her as she cried and cried.

Intellectually, he knew some of the instincts at work here. Despite all the ages of history gone, the way humans interact evolves much more slowly, regardless the trappings of the moment. The culture-memory contained within it an imperative for women to conserve strength. To bear the children of a man whose attributes of strength, however manifested, told her that he would not only protect and provide but that their children would prosper in a survival of the fittest rationale. And men, responding to the bidding war, manifested strength.

For those of noble heart, the search was far harder and often fruitless. For noble hearts seek noble hearts, hearts that recognise the cultural imperatives but seek to empower their soulpartner to challenge the dragons on their path; not sit grunting in a cave sharing a meanness of spirit and base but empty pleasures.

True love does not seek to hold back the achiever in men or women, but to encourage the other into the fray, bind their wounds and create a partnership in which both are blessed to try again. It is for both to nurture and build up. Success is the rightful due of both, not the ambition of one.

The Bard knew all this, but the tears on his shirt were an incontestably poignant commentary on the moment. He knew such moments well enough never to voice blind Reason. He had reached Calina where she was, touching her moment and her pain and bringing her out of the maze of pain, pity and guilt into which she had plunged.

Fine words deserted him, for once. For a Bard, it was very much like being naked. He kissed her gently, brushing her blonde hair. As they parted, he lifted the thong from around her neck and the jade stone it held. She bowed her head without a word as he took it, then looked up. He held her green eyes, the color of jade, with his as he kissed the stone and, looping it over his own head, let it rest by his heart. The jade was warm, as if he had taken a piece of her heart.

And perhaps he had.