Journal the First - Reaction

He came to me this evening. I did not expect his return so soon. However, I had committed myself to a course of action and thus I carried it out.

I told him the truth.

It went better than I had hoped, and yet worse. He demanded reasons, which I would not give. He spoke platitudes, which I rejected. He did not laugh nor pour scorn onto my feelings and thoughts as I believed he might. He did, however, do precisely what I had expected in another sense.

He told me that he did not think of me in that manner. He also said goodbye.

I had thought myself prepared for it. I had not believed that he would journey to the Shire to see me or seek me out again. I had been certain that he would not wish to know me after I had admitted my feelings for him and yet somehow that certainty failed to insulate me from what was to come.

I could have handled his laughter. I could have taken his contempt. I could even have weathered him striking me, for all of those things I have known intimately for the entirely of my life, but he chose the route that would hurt me the most instead. He chose to be gentle.

He removed the patch from his eye - his most personal and private scar. Only once before has he shown it to me, although he has never explained why. He once told me that he had never shown anyone. He had planned to show the woman he loved, but she had disappeared before he could work up the nerve to do so. Still, he had shown me and I had never understood his unspoken reasons. Tonight he did so again.

He removed the patch from his eye, took me by the shoulders and placed a kiss on my brow before he whispered goodbye. It was not the farewell of a friend spoken to close a meeting until the next time. It was a complete finality.

I could have taken an abrupt departure, but this? This kindness, this gentleness, this misplaced attempt to spare my foolish feelings, the care that it implied... it broke my heart more soundly than anything else he could have done. With just one gesture of affection he killed me more surely than any knife could.

I turned away so that I would not have to see him go. I turned away so that he could not see my tears. I turned away so that he would not witness how deeply he had hurt me. I waited until I could no longer hear his departing footsteps upon the fallen leaves and only then did I wipe my tears away. Seeing the wet patch they left upon my sleeve, feeling the emptiness and the pain he left with me, I knew what I must do next.

Each scar I have, mental emotional and spiritual, each one is mirrored by one or more upon my physical form, placed there by the hands of others. My face, my hands, my arms, my back and legs; there is little of me that is pure and unsullied by the blemishes. Now there was one more inside, but unlike those I had cared for or trusted before him, he had not placed his mark upon my body. This I did for him.

Of all the pain I have felt before, I believe this one to be the worst. Thus did I take the small dagger I had been given and place it to my tear-soaked arm near to the elbow. Pressing down as hard as I possibly could, I dragged the blade along my forearm to just below the wrist, cutting almost to the bone along the entire length. There is little meat on my withered frame so it did not take much effort. I then watched the blood pour, thinking of all the people over the years who have cut or burned me in the name of discipline and obedience or merely out of spite before I cleaned both the dagger and my arm and retrieved my sewing kit to stitch myself. I do not wish it to become infected after all.
One more scar to add to all the others. One single scar to outdo all the rest. One physical pain to make my inner ones seem so much less and yet it failed to do so this time. My heart aches far more than my arm.

Perhaps I should not have told him. Perhaps I should have told him more. He wished to know why he had won my heart without intending to do so. Perhaps my telling him would have prevented the devastation he left in his wake.
It is his strength I love, both inside and out. It is his no-nonsense attitude and unyeilding personality. It is his confidence, his toughness, his belief in himself and his abilities. It is also the vulnerability that I have glimpsed, the kindness and caring aspect of his nature that he keeps so well hidden. It is the way he can understand so much about me and yet is clueless as to so much more. It is his protectiveness, his devotion, his willingness to do that which he believes necessary without second guessing himself. It is all this and more.

What matters it, though? What matter the cause of my feelings when the object of them is gone, never to be seen again?

On the morrow Baradar will come. I shall have my things ready to leave upon his arrival and set my sights to the east. Davick may be gone from my life now, but all that he has done for and to me will remain with me until my dying day. He will remain with me through what I have learned from him and from the scars he leaves behind. He is not the first to maim me, although he is the first that I have loved. I have disfigurements left behind by many before him, but his will ever be the deepest, the most bittersweet.