Imagine yourself 500 years back in time. What would you hear? What would you feel? What would you see? What would you sense?
Think back, try to remember. I know you've been there, I have, and we have been there together.

          The air is fresh, easy to breathe. When you take a deep breath you can feel life go through every vein in your body. The green grass still carries the morning dew and your feet are getting wet. But it is fresh, it is new and the spring runs up trough your legs and it feels like you can run forever. You feel alive, you feel free - nothing can stop you and the smile in your face tells stories you remember. Your eyes see what you had forgotten, maybe even things you don't want to be reminded off. But it's there as sure as the sun raises every morning. The hills and the mores carries the sound from battles long time ago, marketplaces full of life, movements of hooves running over these huge fields of nature.

          I close my eyes. It all comes back to me. It is as if I was there again, so many years ago and still so close in my memory.
          I am a highlander, a warrior for my clan. I got a sword in my left hand and it is covered with blood. I am kneeling, trying to catch my breath. I am tired but I won't give up. I shall never give up. I look around me, bodies everywhere, many wounded, many dead. In some places the grass is on fire, the smoke is thick, makes the air harder to breathe. Men everywhere are moaning painfully. The fight is over for now anyway. I know they will come back, rested, and better armed and more of them, but I shall not give up - I will never give up. I am so tired. I am hungry. I am wounded. I can feel the blood slowly run down my right leg. I don't feel any pain. It was a long time ago I felt pain. If I only could stand up I would be okay. I just need to rest for a while, just a few minutes.

          I can feel the fire from the fireplace, warm and nice in my face and I open my eyes again. You are sitting beside me, looking at me, listening too what I am telling you. I give you a smile. You smile back. We are alone. I take a sip on my tea and look into the fire. You put your hand on mine and silently ask me to continue. I nod, lean back against the pillows again and close my eyes. I start to tell you about what happened then.

          Somewhere in front of me, there is a woman screaming. She is running around searching her husband among the dead and the wounded. I follow her for a while before I pull myself up. I start to walk towards the woods in front of me. The screaming from the woman have stopped and I cant see her anywhere. Many highlanders are walking towards the woods as I do, most of them wounded. I can feel the taste of blood; iron mixed with mud in my mouth. Oh, god, I am so tired. Don't know if I can manage to go to the woods by myself and hide. My strength is fading, I need help.
          I turn around to look at the damage, death is everywhere. A few yards behind me, a horse is trying to break free from his bridle that is stuck in an old bough. He is scared. I hear a neigh. He tries to rear but he is stuck. I am getting nearer, trying to calm him down, making him my allied. I stop in front of him, reaching my hand out for him to feel my sent.
"Hey!" I whisper. "I'll help you, if you help me, Okay?" For some strange reason the horse calms down, let's me free him and he is standing completely still when I sit up on his back. Finally I reach the woods and the trees let me hide from my enemies. Those who are left of us, gather in the camp we have set up. We take care of each other and catching our breath for the next time. We know we will be outnumbered, but we are a fighting people who fight for our beliefs. We shall not rest until there are no one left of us. No one!

          I can feel your presence. You are just beside me. You still have my hand in yours. Silently you squeeze it and I give you a smile. As I lay there, with my eyes closed I feel you are getting nearer, and then you lean over me, give me a very soft and gentle kiss on my lips.
          My response to you is more intense then I intended. Your taste makes me want to have more, but I don't know if I can ask that of you. I don't know how much you are willing to give me. I feel the need to hold back until I know for sure.
"If you are wounded", you say, "I shall heal you with my lips. And the taste of iron and mud in your mouth will go away and you will feel the taste of strawberry's and champagne. The air filled with smoke and death, I shall replace with love and life and your tiredness will vanish and you will feel fresh and strong. This I will give you, if you give me your lips."
"Take them! I whisper. "They are yours to heal."

          Passion, hunger, romance - those are the things you fill me with, as the kiss grow stronger and deeper. Every sound around us, the entire room fades away and the only thing I am aware off is you. So, 500 years later in a different body, in a different place, but with the same soul I hear you, I feel you, I see you and I sense you. And there is no other place in the world I rather be, then were I am right now - with you.

          When you put your hand on the stonewalls in the castle, vibrations from feasts long gone still lives in them. You can sense the joy, the friendship, and the victories within those walls. How much have these buildings been through? What have happened in them?
          Some castles have withered down and there are nothing left of them but ruins. Other is still in perfect shape. Why is that? It is because they want to tell us the history so that we never forget. They remind us that man and nature can work together and that the results of this co-operation will stand forever. At least as long as we let the nature rule over the human raise. The nature gives us what we need, shelter, medicine, air to breath, anything as long as we gives nature the respect it requires.
          So many hundred years ago mankind knew how to be one with nature, in our generation we have failed to listen. But our generation is starting to listen and we are going back in time even though we also bring the technology we have learned.

          I lean back against you and you wrap your arms around me. I never want to leave this place. I just want to be in your arms forever. I know this is were I belong. You feel the same. We are here, in Scotland, in this old castle were it all started so long ago, were we first meet and now...somewhere we just ran into each other and found each other again. I have longed for Scotland without knowing the reason why. When I am this close to you, with your arms around my body and my heart beating faster, I know why. This is were I should be, but not alone. No, not alone. I should be with you.

          I have survived this battle, me and a dozen more members of different clans. We have seeked out a hidingplace in the mountains. The endless moors and hills are keeping our enemies at a distance. They don't know this land as we do. I know this land as the back of my hand. We could hide here for years without being discovered. These men and I shall hide till we come up with a plan to destroy those who we fight against. We all got away and we are all fugitives, a price is set as a reward to our capture. Well, let them come and we shall bury them were they died. Oh sweet revenge - let it come, we shall be ready.

          The moors reach out as far as you can see. It is green and fresh. It is untouched land; nature rules and if you want to survive you adjust to nature, because nature won't adjust to you.
          It may seem like an unkind country and it is a wilderness that can't be tamed. But it is so beautiful. The green grass is strong, bends unwillingly for the wind. There are thousands of flowers, there is life and there is freedom.

          I don't know how strong your feelings are about Scotland but I know it connects you to me. But no matter were you are, or were I am, we shall be together and we will be together because it is with each other we belong.
          We are the same, but oh so different. We think alike but still have our own personalities. Just in thought, when I imagine myself in your arms, butterflies are swirling around in my belly. I can feel your warmth and your lips without you being here in person.

          I know we were close, and I know we lost track of each other on the way to this life. Maybe it was a couple of hundred years ago we were together, I don't know where, but I am almost certain we knew each other even before then. You might not have rumination about it now, but I am sure it will come back to you to. I just wish I remember all the good times we have had and the good times that are to come.

          The cold nights are long and the darkness outside the walls of the castle makes everything in the surroundings disappear. As we sit in front of the fireplace and waits for the dawn to come, you caress me with your soft hands and I caress you with mine. We enjoy each others company and we know we just want to be near. The history around us from our ancestors is echoing in the walls, in the corridors and in the rooms. We are as one. One with the past, one with this place and one with each other.
   
          Can you hear the sounds around us? Can you see the swarm of people in the marketplace as they do their trading? Can you feel the moist in the air, the smoke from the fires and the smell of food?
          Go back in time, a couple of hundred years. Close your eyes and remember. Take a deep breath, listen to the sounds around you. Lean back against the tree beside you, feel the grass under your feet. Know that I will join you in just a few moments. Listen - my horse is getting closer to you. You are there, standing by the stream. The trees gives you shelter from the sun and a place for you to wait for me, without being seen. We haven't been able to get together for at long time and now, finally we found a place to sneak away to, just to be together again.
          I feel the wind in my face as I ride over the hills. I fill my lungs with fresh air by taking a deep breath. As I see you standing there, waiting, my heart is pounding and I feel the love shiver down trough my body. There you are my love, at last.

          You know this love we have for each other is like no other love. We have been getting to know one another over and over again during all these years and still - we already know each other so well.
          When we first spoke I instantly felt there was something about you, something special, a true friend and companion which I have missed all my life. A true friend is someone who cares and will be there if you need him, no matter what. He share your life in every moment, even if he don't have to be were you are. He gives you hope and joy. He gives you respect and patience and the warmth in your heart in that special kind of way. A true friend gives you this if you give him the same friendship back.
          To finally meet you now, face to face, brings nothing but joy and happiness to me, as I hope I do for you. And I hope that this is the beginning to something that will last a long, long time.

          Some days I don't think of it at all, the past I mean. Other days I can't get it out of my mind. Sometimes I feel lost, like I don't belong. It is a strange feeling, not to belong anywhere. It is like your past is out there somewhere but you don't know where and that your future will come but not what it will bring.
          I feel your presence. It makes my body tremble and my heart fills with love and warmth. You just have to enter my mind and I sense you. That is the honest truth and I will always feel that way about you, my love.

The end

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