"Well, I'm a bard, as you might have guessed." She laughs, light and easy, as excitement starts to show in her eye. "And as typical as it might sound of a bard, I have a professional interest in love."

She spins her backpack around to dig around for something to illustrate her point. "These," she says, pulling out a pair of hand-bound leather journals, "are collections of myths and stories about love, collected by yours truly. Everything from destined romances to the heartache of lost brothers-in-arms. So many more stories are about love than people think, all because they keep such a narrow view of what kinds of love count for such things."