Is it better to have loved and have lost?
Or to never have loved at all?

To love someone is to be willing to change for them.
To be willing to melt away the form of your normal iron dagger, and create a mold with someone else.

That mold is created with love, and your new, vulnerable liquid form is cast, ready to be turned into a beautiful piece of art.

Yet to have lost, is to shatter that mold, whilst the metal still cools, turning that piece of art into an ugly, useless hunk of metal.

Sure, the metal may be stronger, and sure, you may eventually find a fellow smith, willing to melt that mess into a new mold, but you may never.

You, along with your fire and metal, must melt your own iron down and build your own mold. An extraordinary effort in order to make use of your new, ruined form.

Not everyone can handle working on a broken piece, but it's the only one you've got, and you may end up with something less useful than even a plain iron dagger.

Is it better to have loved and have lost?

Very few people would be willing to take on an art molded from nothing.

But at least most people would be willing to try and improve, a simple, iron, dagger.