CHAPTER SEVEN


It was a long time before Gandalf saw her again, but when he finally tread toward the familiar cottage, he wondered if he made the right decision long ago of warning Dabria of Fandas' influence over her. It was the right decision, but that did not mean it was an easy one to make. He merely hoped that it did not cause the bridge between them to burn.

He didn't know what to expect as he stood on the porch, eerily empty of any chairs. No floral or fauna grew around the cottage, save for the solemn willow tree surrounded by daisies. That gave him a bit of hope that she was, at least, of good enough health to care for them. He could never wrap his head around their importance, but Dabria had always took careful care of that tree and those daisies that never seemed to wilt.

The door creaked open and she stood there like she always had. She offered him tea, like she always did.

She brought him inside and offered him a seat, as she always did. There were weapons across the wall, like there always were. Her one particular scythe, the one that never seemed to leave her side, sat against the wall with a thin layer of dust and dirt from lack of use. Yet one scythe, that didn't seem to have moved from its place on a particularly nice stand, was oddly clean.

People changed in time, he knew, but some people simply didn't. Dabria rarely went through any change, yet she had in the decades he had been gone. Despite all the things she did the same, she walked like she was a living dead, slow and steady. As if the world had slowed down for her.

She still met his gaze across the kitchen table – a table, he noted, that lacked any fruit. Her eyes seemed to be that of a corpse's – free of any signs of life. She was hardly an open person before, now she barely even spoke. Her voice lacked emotion, her clothes free of any dirt or blood. There was a shade to her skin that suggested she had not been out long in the sun. Now more than ever, he worried for her. He had seen her go through these spells before, but this had to be the worst one and it reminded him too much of a fading elf, an elf that had nothing else to live for, nothing left for them in the mortal realm, an elf that had no desire to fight to live anymore.

"There is a reason I do not like to make new friends Olorin," Dabria finally spoke, her voice betraying the emotion she must feel behind those dull eyes. She stared down into her tea cup, idly stirring it with a sharp nail. She spoke slowly and softly, yet he listened intently. He hung onto each word she spoke, hoping that anything she were to say would not be what he feared. But then she continued. "I have lost so much more than you can imagine, Olorin. For each life that I have taken, there is a life of someone I have cared about that had been taken from me. Friends. Family. Until finally I am one of the only ones that remain."

"I was searching for the others," she explained, "There are only two others, but it is better than having no one left. You can imagine how I felt when instead I stumbled upon a young elf maiden who was so eager to throw herself to me."

Her eyes met his and there were not tears, but rather a glistening to them like a fogged glass. As if she were trying her best not to cry. As if she did not want to show that weakness in front of him, or perhaps she did not wish to give into the weakness that was plaguing her.

"I had forgotten what that felt like – what everything felt like. I became addicted to the way I felt about her, I'm afraid. I grew old and thought I could not experience the way she made me feel. But she proved me wrong… Eru, she proved me wrong..."

"We are never too old to experience love, my friend." His voice was earnest, full of so much care and tenderness that last of her resolve broke as her shoulders dropped, her eyes becoming low and hooded. "But with each love we have, we become wiser."

She was quiet for a moment, not speaking nor moving. She sat motionless, staring off into the distance, thinking of something he could never guess. Finally, after an eternity, she spoke. Her voice so quiet he nearly did not hear her words.

"Perhaps I then wish to become a fool."


It took a century, maybe two, before she ventured out again. It seemed like it was a blink of an eye to her, time passing by so fast that she didn't even bother counting the number of times the sun rose and set. But that was exactly why she was venturing out. Her grasp of time, and how every moment and each life passed too quickly to be truly appreciated, only reminded her of something important. It reminded her of her immortality, of how she had more lifetimes than any other being could grasp, to find her comrades. But with time passing by so fast, it would not be long before eventually she would find them again.

And so ever so slowly, the darkness and grief over her love began to brighten with the hope that one day she would be with her family again. One day, she would hear the echoing laughter of her mentor and the teasing snides of her brother in her arms. But that meant that one day, she would face an enemy she could not defeat and would fall into the dirt as lifeless as she truly was. She didn't know which day would come sooner, nor if it would be the next day nor next century. She also didn't know which she would prefer to come first, but she supposed that either way, she would get what she longed for. So she may as well start reminding the dark creatures why no one was to venture near her land.

Bloodshed followed her path like a dark shadow, but it brought her no glee. She did it out of a necessity and ignored the way that her fingers twitched with an aching pain to cut the throats of her enemies. She ignored the itch beneath her skin and bit sharply into her lip, if anything still flood through her veins, she would bled. Yet instead it was an eerily dry, small tear that she left in her lip.

She tried not to enjoy it too much, reminding herself that she could not let herself become what she was before. But she still felt relief with each head she split open or cut off as if it were butter. These beasts were nothing to her, yet they were a stress relief that she desperately needed.

"Another session, my dear," Gandalf asked as she ventured toward her cottage.

Her clothes reeked and were stained so thickly with blood that there were no amount of washing that could save them. Her hair was matted to her head and formed long knots down her back, yet her chest still did not rise and fall with the expersated breath of a warrior after a long battle nor did she smell of bodily sweat. Despite the state of her clothes and hair, her skin remained pale, lacking any faint redness. It made her seem unearthly, out of place, yet her eyes did not have that dangerous gleam to them, for which Gandalf breathed in relief.

"We all have manners for which we relieve stress, Olorin," Dabria spoke evenly, her voice never wavering as she walked through her cottage, "Come, if you can excuse my state of dress, we may have tea."

She stopped short, seeing hesitation on his face. Hesitation was a rarity for him. The young trickster always had something up his sleeve, always prepared for every situation, he was as always as likely to have a strategy for a battle as she was to be running into it. He was, quite simply, never hesitant. Each time he was, however, rarely meant good news for her.

Her expression dropped, "What is bothering so, Olorin?"

There was a moment of tense silence before he finally spoke, "I have news… From Mirkwood."

Her jaw twitched at the mention of Mirkwood. She hadn't been to the forests there since she had left Fandas. There was no need to bring up her memories of her lost love, no need to relieve their happiness together when there were no chances for that happiness with her again. Last she had heard of Mirkwood was simply that since her disappearance, more darkness had crept in and while a part of her longed to go rid the woods of it to protect Fandas, the other part was content on staying away from the trouble it would bring.

"Oropher's son, Thranduil, has taken the throne and with it, a new Queen."

That was… unexpected. She knew of Oropher's fall, as she heard of that Last Alliance of Elves and Men. Gandalf had desperately wanted her to join its forces, wanting her to turn the tides in their favor, but she was not about to rush into yet another war. She was mildly, and pleasantly, surprised when they succeeded in defeating Sauron, but she knew that no war came without casualties. While she wasn't pleased to hear of his death, it was expected.

However, she knew of Thranduil, she had heard of his ruthlessness and cold demeanor. Him taking a new wife to be Queen wasn't something she expected. At most, she expected perhaps he would have taken a mistress to birth an heir.

"That's… pleasant."

She supposed, she didn't quite see what made Gandalf so hesitant to share this news with her. It was hardly noteworthy, even if it was a bit of a surprise.

"He married a common elf maiden, a chambermaid no less," Gandalf continued, if a bit slowly, "And from what I have heard, her name is… Her name is Fandas, my dear."

Oh.

Yes, now that was quite the surprise.