Beside the Undying Fire

Chapter 25 (The End)

I didn't look back at him.

I was too afraid of the answer.

Until I did.

I turned and smiled at him, giving him a nod as a tear rolled down my cheek. The moon lit up his face as he stood alone, one arm on his sword at his side. His jacket glowed blue in the moonlight.

I took one last look at the beauty of the night and began walking away. I did not expect him to love me back.

I walked back to my home.

With every step I took, the pain in my heart restarted.

All of the pain I'd felt over the years, waiting, hoping, dreaming. All of that pain restarted. I did not think anything would happen. But that possibility of it, it was what kept me going.

At least now, I could move on in my life, and no longer hope for his love to be returned. I could close my heart to the other shadows of life.

I had no more shoulders to cry on. Not my mother, not my father, not Ariannell, and now, I'd even lost Thorin.

After all that, it felt like the last pieces I had left, broke. Nothing was left to shatter, I had nothing left.

As I headed home I held in my cries, desperately hoping for something to change. Ariannell to simultaneously appear, for my mother to be with me, for my words to Thorin be taken back. I'd already hardened the relationship by telling him of going to the battle behind his back, and now to pin this upon him, I knew it was all gone.

All of this change was permanent. There was no going back.

I got home. But I did not go to bed that night. I merely stared at the walls, making room for the pain that I now knew was going to be another unending battle.

It was better to get it out and know I was not going to get a happy ending, than to keep it in and hope for the best. Which I should have seen was as dead as the deepest corners of Mordor.

It was one against one: a painful truth against a beautiful lie.

And for so long, I'd picked the beautiful lie, being afraid of the painful truth.

I didn't sleep. I didn't even take my sword off of my back. I didn't have any power to do anything. Nothing but let the tears run down my face. Nothing.

I sat at my table. Carved out of the finest wood in the forests.

It was dark, the only light was that made from the candles I burned. The lights bounced and moved all around the walls, giving me something to stare at aimlessly.

I didn't even cry. The tears just came down. Filling my eyes, the tears shed.

I didn't make a sound. I didn't know what to say, I didn't know how to say it.

All of the things I'd felt melted.

"Shine as love will melt your heart"

Perhaps my mother did not mean the melting in a good way.

I sat there the entire night.

All the words that any being had said about my enchantment bubbled up.

"It's a shame he'll never go for a scullery maid."

"He is royalty! And I'm nothing more than a village maiden! That's not how it works!"

"A peasant, grown fond of royalty. That's unfortunate."

It all hit me like Azog's mace. The words.