A Year and a Day
She walked down out of the light of the warm spring day and into the cool depths of the castle. After a few twists and turns away from the main corridors she found herself deep in the familiar confines of the dungeons. Just two short years ago these passageways, with their sole source of light coming from the slightly green-tinted torches supported in heavy iron sconces on the walls, had held the same feelings of unease for her as they did for most of the castle's residents. Yet, for her at least, they had become comforting rather than confining, and the closed spaces which many found to induce claustrophobia had come to represent security. It always amazed her how much had changed, and then changed again.
Arriving at the portrait which was her destination, she softly gave the password and stepped inside what had been like her second home for the past year and a half. Passing by the others in the common room, she was grateful once again for the kind of social upbringing that most of those spread around the circular room had experienced in. While they all knew what yesterday and today marked, years of societal training allowed them to school their features, preventing any trace of pity from crossing them as she made her way across the room and down to the last door in the hall opposite the entrance.
Opening the door to the room which held so many memories, she saw the trunks packed and ready to be sent to the train, ready to leave for the last time. Stepping into the room, she looked up to find him sitting on the couch, staring deep into the flames that crackled in the fireplace across from him. Though the man on the couch was almost an exact opposite in so many ways to him, darkness to the other's light, his posture and the room, their safe haven, made the remembered words nearly slam into her. "The fire reminds me so much of you, the way the colors flash and change. All red and orange and yellow, all bright and warm and strong." She remembered that voice having whispered to her. The memory made it feel for just a second as if the air had left her lungs forever and for a moment, the pain that had begun to ease was sharp and fresh again.
But then he turned to look at her and, with a warmth in his eyes that she would have been shocked by not so very long ago, he reached out to take her hand and pull her back into the present and gently down onto the seat beside him. She laid her head on his shoulder, enjoying the feeling of safety and home she had come to associate with his closeness and joined him in his observation of the dancing glow.
"Are you remembering what happened?" she asked him softly, not turning away from the warmth in front of them. It was nearly a rhetorical question as there was clearly no way for either of them to ever forget.
"How could I not be? A year ago yesterday was the Battle. A year ago it happened. I lost and gained the most important things in my world," he answered just as softly. He turned to place a soft kiss on her forehead before rising and offering his had to help her off of the couch.
He was right; it had been a year since everything had seemed to be over. But they had both kept their promises and in the end he had been right. They would never forget him, would never wish to. But he had been right in that they would need each other and could move on together. They had helped each other, they had healed and grown and now were able to travel forward each with the other.
"In all the old stories, 'a year and a day' is particularly significant. Perhaps this is what they meant," she mused as they faced each other, thinking about everything that had come before and after that day.
Together they walked from the room, nodding to the others who still lingered in the common room and made their way out through the castle and across the grounds. They continued on towards the village and the train and from there on to a life together.