[Elora]

Uien's eyes widened at the last, Falowik's finger warm over her lips. She peered at him from behind it, face alight with a happiness that was incandescent and rivaled the Evening Star in its glory. Falowik's finger shifted, tracing over the line of her jaw to come to the base of her ear.

"No bird has known such joy," she whispered in return. Uien placed a hand over his heart, feeling the steady beat beneath her palm. It matched her own. "No arrows, no wound is this, no life stolen.... nay, a grace and blessing you are Falowik Lauréatan. Such did I dare believe when first we met and so do I know now that we have returned to this place."

"Melindo..." she said softly, speaking the word at last as it had been spoken in her thoughts: Lover. Falowik repeated it after her and Uien smiled to hear it in his voice at last. Surely she could contain no more than what filled her now. The years would come and go, ice would melt and the summer grasses rise only to yellow and fall into ice once more. Leaves would turn golden, then red and then fall to leave branches bear only to spring small and tender green, again and again. But this would not change.

Uien had not thought to have glad tidings to tell of upon her return to her childhood home. But she looked now into the face of her future and her heart and knew that she had much indeed to speak of. No matter where her feet wandered, her heart and her home would remain with the man who had filled her life with his presence. She needed no other shelter bar that of his arms and to that she now went, tucking herself close. The wide world was before them both, but for now they had the stars. Uien's thoughts ran away into all the possiblilities the years would have for them until at last they ran away entirely, leaving her lost in Falowik and happily so. She did not have the gift of foresight, and if she had would she have still brought Falowik blankets on a chilly night?

Yes, for with him lay a future free of the dread shadow of her past, a chance to live as once she had before, full and free in life. But, more than that, quite simply Uien could sooner imagine life beneath the great weight of the ocean than she could life without Falowik. He had become part of each breath she took, each step she walked, each smile that found her her. For so long Uien had felt as though part of what was her own had vanished, lost in a dark den forgotten beneath a cruelly iced mountain.

"What is melindo," Falowik asked, his voice rumbling deep through her. Uien pulled back and tipped her face up to look into his.

"It is what you are, Lauréatan.... lover and beloved. In that shall we both find eternity." Upon those words, the two drew together beneath the early stars and met in a kiss.