[Elora]

Uien remained in the stables for some time, her thoughts and heart wildly whirrling around her with Falowik's words. "I cannot husband you." Of course he couldn't. She well knew why that was. The Master of Buckland knew perhaps as much of this as any could expect of a Hobbit, maybe more. She would travel anywhere to win even a brief life with Falowik. Be it the Halls of Mandos or even the pits beneath Caradhras. Yes, even there and she knew what was in such dark places for she had been there before.

Uien stood, staring at the hand that had rested over Falowik's heart and for an instant it was caked in dirt and blood, her own. That was why he could not husband her. For all she could bring was the stain of her past, the shadow of that torment, and Falowik was owed much more. Uien blinked and her hand as it was now reappeared. It shook lightly.

No, she could not bind Falowik to that. She could not change her past nor expunge the shame of the orc pits any more than she could change the course of her heart. It had chosen. Husband or no, its choice was made. So, she would love still, as strongly as her very soul demanded she would, this man. Her years would be as brief as his, husband or no, in that choice. The Master of Buckland could not know that Luthien's choice was made long before her father struck that fateful bargain with Beren.

It was a bittersweet accord that Uien came to. To love but not to bind. To shelter him in her heart always but never to reach for what she could not have. She understood and had known ever since she first stepped away from the Dwarves those years ago. She was fortunate beyond her measure to even know this love. She would not squander it by grasping for more than was to be hers.

When Uien emerged from the stables, she walked slowly with a face grave and pale. It would not be an easy road, the one she had taken in her chosing. Still, she was resolved and her will was something that had always run strong within her. Perhaps, in time, whilst she could not cleanse herself of her past she could find a different way to be something befitting of Falowik.

It was a hope that carried Uien back into the commonroom and to a table in a quiet corner. She sat, head bowed for a long while. Then, she took out a partially begun carving of a mallorn flower and took up again. Her skirts gathered the shavings and chips of wood and the carving gathered the instensity of what eddied within her.