User blog:TylwythTeg/After the battle

''Lyam's valley. The night he left.''

With everyone else gone, Fyn sits alone on the grass. Hours pass. As the first rays of dawn begin to light the eastern sky, she suddenly stirs from her daze, rising unsteadily to her feet. Slowly, she makes her way down the mountain path, back towards her own home - pausing to touch every familiar object as she passes, as if noticing them for the first time.

It is only when she reaches the end of the valley and turns to look back one last time that the pain begins to set in. She sinks to her knees as sobs wrack her body.

She still has a long walk to get home.



"Home." The hut she and Amia had painstakingly restored and refurbished, so that Fyn could live within walking distance of Lyam - and now both of them were gone. The enchanted glade she had made for herself had never felt so empty and lifeless. The magic was gone.

Yet there she remained, as the days crawled by. Autumn began to creep over the forest. The nights were lengthening. Still she remained alone. She moved little - barely ever left the house. As the nights grew colder she burrowed deeper into her sorrow and emptiness. It was too much. Why did everyone always leave? Better to just be alone.

And yet... it was so cold.

''Cold...

No. No fire. No light, no warmth. They only want to mock me.

But you'll die, Fyn. Look at yourself. You're wasting away.

Then let me waste.

Make a fire, Fyn.

Go away.

Come on. Get up. You're better than this. You've been here before. You'll get back from this.

No.

Fire.''

With a groan Fyn threw off her blankets and sat up, pushing her tangled hair out of her scowling face. The wind was moaning outside in the dark. Reluctantly, she stood. Padded to the front door. The wood pile was outside. Pushed it open.

Beside the door, at her foot, something pale and fluttering caught her eye. A letter, pinned by a stone. The wind threatened at any moment to whip it away.

Fyn ignored it and went to fetch some wood, fighting her way through the wind. She hadn't realised just how weak she had become until now - it was all she could do to stay on her feet. Somehow she managed to grab two logs, and beat her way back to the door.

The letter caught her eye again as she passed it.

She ignored it again, and slammed the door. Knelt by the hearth. Struck sparks onto tinder. Her hands were so cold she kept dropping the flint and missing the strikefire.

''This is stupid. I'm going back to bed to freeze.

Keep going.

Why? I don't want to. Leave me alone.''

Finally, the fire took. Flames grew, and licked the cold dry logs. Fyn held her hands as close as she could, almost on reflex. The warmth hurt after so long in the cold.

She screwed her eyes shut. She didn't really want to feel. For some reason the fire was making her want to cry.

Something was nagging at the back of her mind. She snatched at it to distract herself from feeling.

The letter.

Fyn bounded to the door in a heartbeat, threw it open, grabbed the letter and shut it again. She went back to the fire and looked at it.

''Who would write to me here? Hardly anyone knows where -''

Her heart stopped as she recognised the handwriting.

It can't be.

With fumbling fingers she tore it open, reading it so fast she didn't take in a single word. Trying to calm her flying thoughts, she forced herself to start from the beginning. Her eyes strained to catch each word as it flickered in and out of vision in the firelight.

''Fyn.

...

Love, Lyam.''

Fyn stared at the letter. Re-read it. A single hot, bitter tear of disappointment ran down her face. She dashed it away angrily, but to little avail. She couldn't barely see the letter any more through a haze of tears she refused to release. Tried to speak. Her voice was heavy and low with suppressed emotion.

"This... is so... pointless!"

She scrunched up the letter and threw it in the fire. Drew her knees up to her chin as the sobs took hold. Watched it crumple and burn as the flames savoured the fuel greedily.

"You're n-not sorry. You d-didn't have to go. I could have saved you!! Why didn't you l-let me!!"

She couldn't speak through the tears any more, but she had nothing else to say. She wanted him to step out of the flames, put his hand on her shoulder, and apologise, admit that he was wrong, that he should have trusted her, he'd just made a mistake.

But she knew he wasn't there. And she was still alone.

The fire devoured Lyam's words in a matter of heartbeats. As they did so, they flared up briefly, brighter than before; then sank down again, gnawing away at the big logs more slowly. Gradually, those turned to ash as well, and charcoal that the fire wasn't hot enough to burn. By degrees, it died down, until there was just a couple of blue flames still bravely licking around the base. Then finally they gave up too, and retreated back into the ashes to rest.

The wind had died down. The sun rose, defiant and cold in the clear Autumn sky. Its pale rays crept gradually through the windows and across the floor of the front room of the little house in the woods. Eventually, they touched the bare feet of an elf girl curled up by the fireplace. As the morning drew on, they revealed more of her body, until finally revealing her face.

Gone was the frowning brow and the twisted mouth with which she had slept every night since Lyam had left. As Winter drew on, and the last songbirds fled for the South, Fyn slept peacefully at last.