[Elora]

A tremour ran through Uien as she leant against Falowik. His warmth was beneath her head and cheek, and held within her… She reached for him, grasping within the darkness and holding to Falowik. She would drown otherwise.

“I do not…” Uien faltered then, for it was not so. She did remember…

“Their claws… cruel iron… searing pain… Their voices and they were so strong…” Another shiver whispered delicately beneath her skin and she was slient for a long while. Uien drifted, willing forgetfullness to claim her again and unaware that she had spoken at all. Slowly the present reasserted itself upon her senses and with that something far more pleasant and fair. She held to that once more. Falowik’s presence was against her, his hand tense upon her shoulder.

Love… Dear One Yes, he was that and more already! She had searched fruitlessly for her kin, dreading the same question. She knew he had to hear the answer just as she knew her family would if ever she saw them again. Already the bond between her and this fair-haired man was stronger than her dread. In that she found strength to speak where otherwise she would have remained silent.

Her hand tightened around Falowik’s and her eyes closed as she gathered her thoughts into a semblance of recollection.

“I heard them speak in the darkness and laugh… they would taunt, and I knew of the tales….” He had the right of knowing, did Falowik, for there could be nothing for them if he did not… there may be nothing once he had the answer. Uien pushed on.

“They would come to me in the pits and each time it was worse. Yet the Dwarves fell upon them before they could go so far as to… Had the Dwarves come but a day later…” It did not bear thinking about. Slowly Uien turned to Falowik, face tipped up to meet his gaze. Horror was there, she could see it in his eyes and sorrow. Disgust too? He knew now just how far their claws had roamed freely over her. How could anyone could emerge from an orc pit unsullied? The memory of a leering orc over her in the treacherous light of a spitting torch sprang up. He asked for more light, with a savage grin, so he could see what he was about to do. No, noone could come from such things without carrying some of it within them... could they?

Falowik was a Man of clear and true sight. He had to see. Yet he did not pull away.

“Nay, they were not permitted such an evil. For that alone I am ever endebted to Durin’s Folk.”

Uien fell silent once more, studying the Man who made it possible to move beyond the pain of the past. The twilight held them as she reached once more as she had on the night before. If Falowik could stand and not turn aside, then so too could she. The path he showed her could not be turned away from. Already her feet were upon it and she did not wish it otherwise. She gathered his hands in her own gently, eyes not moving from his.

“We each of us have been set to wandering the wide world seeking a path through sorrow and injustice. Here I am found a sanctuary that I had long abandoned hope of reaching.”

She could feel the strength of his clever hands within her own. In that there was nothing to fear. No memory, that was real. The scent of resin, soap and the herbs they had gathered floated around her, replacing remembered unwholesome memories. Her body had healed long ago and she could feel the same unfolding and stretching of her heart now. Would she she could do the same for him.

“Here I fear nothing.” Reverently, Uien lifted Falowik’s hands to her lips and brushed a kiss over each, much as he had done over the table at lunch. Above his head, in the darkening sky, more stars sprang into life for the night. They were fair to behold, but to them Uien’s gaze did not stray. She beheld something far more wondrous than her beloved twilight.

The evening breeze blew a strand of Falowik’s golden hair across his intent, bright eyes. Uien reached up to smooth it away. Never had she felt so alive. Grim as the tale was, so sharply did it reveal the beauty of the man who stood with her.