I returned to where it began.
Not to Ost Barandor where first we met, but to Far Chetwood where I first realised how I felt for that strange, fey and often grouchy man.
I returned to where it first began in order to end it.
It was dark when I arrived. Peaceful. I remembered all that was, then, all that had been. I remembered how I used to feel here, how I would look forward to his visits. I remembered how much it hurt the first time he broke my heart and I knew... I knew that it was nothing compared to this.
I stripped the gloves from my hands, the clothes from my back and the shoes from my feet. I placed them all aside, neatly folded nearby. I thought back for but a moment more before allowing myself to feel what I had been keeping at bay since I had seen Marinette in Bree so many hours before. I cried then. In a place that meant so much, in a place where none could bear witness to my misery, I allowed it all to spill forth.
The tears were a release, but I knew that they were not enough. They would never be enough. I took up the knife my mother had given me. One scar inside, one scar outside. That had always been the way. I put it to my forearm, pressing with all my strength as I dragged the blade along. It parted my skin with such ease, the bone beneath showing starkly against the red of my flesh before finally the blood began to flow.
I watched for a while then, my salty tears mingling with the salty blood, both leaving small watery-red splashes against the sandstone rock as they dripped from my fingertips. I felt nothing save the pain in my heart and I knew that this time the ritual was incomplete. I needed something else. I needed another manner by which to wash it all away.
The answer lay before me. The water.
With nothing more than the pendant gifted to me by him, I waded into the lake. I swam out a fair distance before stopping, shifting my weight to float on my back. I watched the stars with unappreciative eyes, waiting, just waiting, to be free of the pain.
AsI lay there, I felt myself drifting away. All my cares and concerns, all my sorrows flowed out of me and into the lake. I finally felt at peace and as the waters rose up to cover my face I think I smiled. It mattered not to me that the moonlight grew slowly more hazy from the increasing depth. It mattered not to me that my lungs burned and my vision dimmed. Both passed by quickly enough as the feeling left my limbs and my mind drifted away on an unseen current. I was free. At last, at long last, I was free.
I will never know how he found me. I must have been quite deep beneath the surface by then. I will never know how she knew to send him there, how she knew to come herself or why she had Arugru with her.
I only know that suddenly my lungs burned again, suddenly my chest hurt and the world was bright. I know there were hands supporting me, helping me to expel the water from my lungs and words were spoken in a familiar voice. I opened my eyes, squinting against the light but that was quickly blocked by the warm fur of Arugru as he came to make certain that I was alive. When he was pulled back to allow me more room to breathe, I saw Flannery and then Yarassi. Her clothing was dry. He, however, was as wet as I, leading me to conclude that he was the one to pull me from the depths.
I was grateful then.
If they had not come I would have drowned, and I would not have cared. That was not supposed to happen. That had not been a part of the plan. I was stupid, though. So very stupid. I did not consider the effects of the bloodloss and I almost lost my life because of it.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
It was only later that I realised my pendant was gone. I assume it lies at the bottom of the lake in Far Chetwood - a testament to what so very nearly happened and, perhaps, a symbol of the love I found and lost there. In those depths it may remain, in that place it may stay. I have no desire to return there now.
What was is gone. What is, is what must be.
