The winds whisper secrets to the iroko trees, their leaves rustle with ancient wisdom. I hear them—these fleeting breaths of air that carry songs as old as the earth itself. They sing of the heart's most deepest desires: land, gold, glory... and above all else, love.

Love—a force as enduring as the red earth on which we stand. A power that can lift a man on the wings of a great white eagle, or shatter him to his core. An allure so powerful it pulls a man from the quiet of his own thoughts, awakening his senses to the world. It turns the leaves of a mango tree into vibrant shades of green, it transforms an over-burnt meal of roasted yam and sour palm oil sauce into a feast fit for the gods.

I ...had known such love.

Long ago, before the first white man walked these lands, when the spirits of our ancestors still roamed freely through these lush forests and wide savannas, I met a young woman from a distant land. She came from beyond the great river, beyond the mountains that kissed the skies where the gods retired. I met her in a time when the world was simple, governed by rules as old as our lands. But she was different—no, she was beyond compare. She wasn't just a woman. She was a force, a wildfire born to defy those rules, for she refused to be bound by the chains of tradition that would place her beneath any man.

I had not known such defiance.

Born with fire in her eyes and rebellion in her heart, she flowed through life like a river through stone—unyielding, unstoppable. And though I knew her spirit could never be tamed, I could not resist being swept into its current. Loving her was like standing in the eye of a storm, safe for only a moment before the winds would tear everything apart. Her spirit was wild and resilient—a lone flower pushing through sun-scorched cracks in the clay.

Our elders had murmured that she had been touched by Amadioha, god of the thunder —given the fury of a thunderstorm and the grace of a panther.

Her defiance was her power, her love—my undoing.

In those days, love was not spoken of lightly. It was like the harmattan winds—unseen, yet powerful enough to reshape the very landscape of our lives. And just as the harmattan brings cold and stinging dust, this love brought joy intertwined with turmoil.

To love such a woman was to embrace the unknown, to dance with uncertainty as though it were an old companion. But how does one hold the wind? How does one tame a flame without quenching its very nature?

The elders warned me. "A woman who does not bend the knee," they said, "will break a man's spirit." But I saw in her not a threat to my manhood, but a challenge to rise higher, to become more than what our fathers had been.

How did we meet, you may wonder? Pour me another cup of palm wine as I search for the words, for before the gods played their hand and fate intertwined our paths, there was a beginning.

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