"I bid you all, a very fond farewell."
Those watching Georgiana Chavez leave theatre fourteen could clearly see the evidence of unabashed crying on her face. To them, she was yet another bookworm. The kind that always took the movie adaptation too seriously, who thought of nothing else but the characters and the many ways they could have come out differently, who, God help them, maybe even cosplayed. They took one hard look at the bags under her lovat-green eyes, the pink that was slowly fading from the whites, the redness of her cheeks, no doubt caused by vigorous scrubbing during the film, and the tightness of her mouth and brow (maybe because she was trying not to cry even more after that end credit song. Billy Boyd had outdone himself- anyone would cry after hearing that!) and scoffed at her blatant sensitivity. It was just a movie, after all. It was stupid to become so undone by three little deaths and the well-acted heartbreak on an insignificant hobbit's face. Didn't that girl realize it was all just fiction?
Of course, no one who watched Georgiana leave theatre fourteen would have dared to tell her any of their thoughts. Maybe because they could not see the point, maybe she didn't matter enough, maybe they simply forgot.
If they had, it is doubtful Georgiana would have cared at all. She was still reeling from the horrors of war to which she had been subjected in the last half hour of the film. To her, separation of product and formula was simply impossible. How could anyone watching the belligerent murder of Fili Durin, the awful grief of Tauriel or, that haunted face she would picture for the rest of her life whenever she experienced heartbreak, the crushed face of Bilbo Baggins, ever belittle her emotions by calling it "fine acting"? How could anyone be so callous?
In the moments following her departure from theatre fourteen, Georgiana could not distract herself from the genuine grief she felt. She raged at Peter Jackson, as she smiled kindly at the elderly woman for whom she held the door on her way to the parking lot. She felt the bone-deep hatred of Azog the Defiler as she adjusted her favorite sweater-jacket to combat the mild December chill. She saw, again and again, the broken face of Kili Durin in those seconds before battle-rage hit when she was warming her car and choosing a decent classic rock station for the car ride home.
When she finally gave up on finding a station and put on her mixed tape, she realized, with a start, that there would probably not be any more movies from Middle Earth.
She wanted to cry again.
Why the Hell did she see that movie? She just knew it would end up hurting her.
She hated it when she was right.
Finally, when she was only a few blocks away from her house, Aerosmith's Dude Looks Like a Lady came on. She allowed herself to grasp the small amounts of comfort the song offered and sang along, as she is wont to do with this tape.
She locked her car, and unlocked her house. The curtains on the windows are all drawn except one. Behind that window is a lit Christmas tree that she'll need to take down soon. The Christmas lights on her small house are also lit, in addition to a few rooms inside. She lived alone, and was usually quite happy with that arrangement, but that doesn't mean she hadn't been raised to be cautious. Her father was adamantly paranoid, er, defensive, after all. It was only natural that some of his teachings bled into the heads of his three children.
After that movie, she really wished she still lived with her older sister, younger brother and dad. College will do that to you, she supposed.
Still, Georgiana decided to give herself some comfort after locking up the house and turning out lights. She deserved it after the emotional trials Peter Jackson put her through! After all, there were very few problems in this world that remain unsolvable after a mutated cup of hot chocolate.
She found her favorite Seattle coffee mug, poured the choco powder on top of the mini marshmallows she's added. Whipped cream is splattered on after the concoction had been stirred and warmed to perfection. She added some of her Christmas chocolate just to be safe. Then, in goes a candy cane, chocolate coffee cream powder lightly sprinkled on top with a dash of cinnamon. This is the perfect Dementor remedy, her mind whispered. She sighed as she thought, I wish I felt this bad over a dementor. Damn Peter Jackson may as well be.
She shook herself to clear her head. She would call Melanie for some desperately needed girl-talk.
On the fourth ring, she heard an excited, "Whaddup, Hoe?"
"Fred, my soul won't stop hurting."
A long-suffering sigh came to her ear and the conversation began.
What one probably needed to know about the two sisters, was that they had always been strangely close. Strange, because they were so vastly different. Melanie, often monikered, Hoe, Bitch, Mah Nig, Slut, Jerk, Demon Chile and Sissy interchangeably, was also called Fred, by her sister. This was in response to her sister, in her fourteen-year-old brilliance, deciding to start calling Georgiana, George, and variations thereof. ("If you get to rename me, then I get to make us the new Weasley Twins! Deal with it!")
Georgie begrudgingly loved it. Fred was quite smug.
The differences between the sisters were quite stark to those close to the family. Where George liked anything from Classic Rock to Adam Lambert, Fred tended to prefer Hip Hop and Miley Cyrus. Freddie liked tattoos and body modification, while George liked books, Tumblr, and odd, old-fashioned things. Fred used coarse language indiscriminately, while George always needed to defend her cursing, ("I only cuss when I'm emotionally compromised or using a favorite colloquialism, Fred.", she would declare pompously. "I don't throw them around like you do!") though others have argued that they were quite similar in their chosen vernacular. Their mother wasn't too concerned about her loose tongue, either, and all three children borrowed heavily from her personality. They were quite adoring of their mother, and devastated when she died during their adolescent years.
As many family friends would agree, however, the sisters were unmistakably similar at the core. Both girls enjoyed warm blankets and cozy beds more than lawn benches and over activity. They would frequently laze about and binge watch tv shows and movies with their younger brother, Max. He wasn't as close as the other two, but he was certainly no less loved, even if Georgiana sometimes had trouble telling him.
"Night, Cry Baby!"
"G'night, Slag. Thanks for talking to me. It helped."
"No problem, always love hearing from you. Oh, and I'm telling everyone back home that you cried like a pansy-bitch during The Hobbit."
She smiled.
"Wouldn't expect anything else."
Georgiana gained much comfort from the seemingly acerbic teasing of his sister that night. The trio had always loved playing the dozen, much to the entertainment of friends, but Fred and George played it best. They might as well have spoken a secret language for all they could convey to the other through a few carefully chosen insults. It was one thing Georgiana missed the most about living with her sister and she was glad to have talked to her on this night.
However, despite of the warm feeling she had when she hung up the phone, Georgiana couldn't shake her grief. She completed her nighttime rituals, prayed a bit and tried to sleep. But all she could think about was how it was totally irrational that she was upset over the Durin line ending(much less that she was about to cry again) and how no matter how she tried to justify it away, her feelings were absolutely real. This inimical grief stole from the locked cells of her mind, where she had sealed the tears that should have been shed at her mother's funeral. She tried valiantly to crush this treacherous onslaught, tried to force the forbidden feelings back into confinement.
Perhaps she could steal back a few moments of protection behind a barricade of logic. Truly, it was just a movie! A book! An idea!
Her defenses faltered to the barbed arguments of the opposition. Yes, of course it was all an idea! An idea that was born from the brilliant mind of a real, living person. A person who crafted his characters with the same deliberate intention and love as many argued God had when creating mankind. These characters came from someone's soul. They are real.
Her barricade fell in bitter defeat, sighing one last, They're not real!
The enemy army of emotions swept through her like a tidal wave, laying siege to her well-used emotional barriers.
She felt everything and she wept.
She wailed as she mourned the loss of the Line of Durin. Sobbed that she had, yet again, succumb to the scalding anguish that scraped and bounced through her chest. She wretchedly clutched at her pillows as she vowed to rebury this evil emotion come morning, so she could function as unaffectedly as possible. She couldn't let her hurt affect her life, she resolved, even as she cried herself to sleep, still lamenting that she could never know the dwarves that she had grown to love as fiercely, and as ruinously, as she loved her mother.
Unconsciously, and as one last resistance to the ache that resounded in her heart, she began imagining all of the ways she would save the Durins in her dreams, however fitfully she ended up sleeping.
What Georgiana never noticed, not that she was particularly observant anyway, was the ethereally beautiful woman that remained in the corner of her eye throughout the night. She may have seen the gorgeous glowing dress, or the tell-tale blonde locks, but she quickly forgot in favor of her imaginings of a delightful Shire burglar.