Disclaimer:  I do not claim the world, the characters, nor anything else that has to do with Middle-earth as my own.  It is Tolkien's and I hope he doesn't mind me "borrowing" them for a time.  I shall return them in due time.

A/N:  I can see you all are getting bored with this story.  I'm sorry for that and I hope your interest returns.

Chapter 26

EVER AFTER

            "Where are we going?" Atira wondered aloud.  From several steps ahead, Kharutis halted and peered back at his companion.     

            "Where are we ever going?" he countered.  In all their travels together, never had either one commented on their destination, for more often than nought they never had one.  It was an unspoken agreement that they would go where their feet and hearts took them.

            "No where," Atira sighed.

            "Is something the matter?"

            At first, Atira said nothing.  Almost a month had gone by since she had left the Last Homely House and already she missed him.  She couldn't help but get this disquieting feeling in the pit of her stomach whenever she thought of him.  She didn't like it. 

            "Carrot?" she ventured finally and they continued on, walking side by side.  "You like the elves, don't you?"

            Kharutis grinned.  "Well, I ought," he said, "You are one after all."

            "Would you like to see more?" she wondered.

            The halfling frowned.  "I have seen more."

            "Then you wouldn't?"  He saw the disappointment in her eyes. 

            "Why, Apple?"

            "I thought that--well, perhaps that you might want to--" she faltered, became instantly hesitant.  She sought out the passing clouds overhead.  "I know you do not talk of them, my friend, but do you never miss your family?"

            Kharutis was caught off guard.  He did not respond immediately but let the question settle for a moment.  Once, a long time ago, he might have gotten upset with her for bringing up those he had long sought to banish from thought.  But the years were an interesting, if weary friend and they had taught him many things and he had listened.

            "Yes," he said finally and Atira looked down at him in surprise.  "I miss them very much indeed.  Sometimes so much that it hurts."  He looked over at her and smiled wearily.         

"Have you not thought to return to them?"

            Kharutis laughed weakly.  "You have no idea how often."

            Atira did not understand.  "So why don't you?"

            The halfling shrugged.  "I am craven."

            Atira laughed.  "Perhaps a long time ago, my friend, when I came across that wee child fleeing a band of orcs.  Perhaps then were you craven, though I deem it not so," she smiled down at him.  "But not know.  Most definitely not now."

            Kharutis merely shook his head of curls.  "Why do you ask me now of my family, Apple, when never before had the thought occurred to you?"

            "Oh, it occurred to me.  You have no idea how often but I never said ought for I saw the pain in your eyes.  Perhaps someday you will tell me what happened?"

            "Perhaps," the halfling said softly, "but not today."

            "No," Atira agreed, "Not today, I think.  Tomorrow maybe, for today we shall turn around upon our very feet and you shall be granted another family."

            Kharutis looked at her oddly.  Atira grinned.

            "Come, what say you to this?"

            "What can I say when I have no idea what you are talking about?"

            "Come back with me to my home, Carrot.  Come see my family."  She grasped his hand within her own and pulled him in the opposite direction they had been going.

            Kharutis laughed.  "I see I have little choice."

            "Indeed no choice at all.  Please, my Carrot, I want you to meet my family and then perhaps someday I shall meet yours."

            "Very well," the hobbit said finally, seeming to come to a decision.  "Let us return upon the same road you walked and see this place I have never been."

*     *     *     *     *

            Apryl formed the word but did not speak it aloud.  Carrot.

            The land chuckled at her discovery.

            She remembers the little wretch, Sauron mused and seemed displeased with this.  Does she remember me? . . . No, she does not recall the Dark Lord whom she defied.

            "Because you killed him," Apryl whispered and her sudden fear of the Dark One vanished.  "You killed him."

            You killed him! she spat savagely.  You killed him for no other reason than to sport me on!

            A halfling, he waved it aside.

            My friend!

            The Dark Lord merely laughed at her mortalish sentiments.

            I see why they call you the Child of Sorrow, he chuckled, highly amused.  You have the heart of a child.  Foolish and altogether too young.  Grow up, my Lady Atira.  Mortals die, for Eru so chose it to be so.  We all must bow under the will of the Father, and with this last there was a bitter tone to his thoughts and his lips curled into a disdainful sneer.

            Atira was livid, her face pale with rage.

            To the Beyond with you, Sauron, and it was nothing more than a hiss in his own thoughts.  I hope you rot in your own weavings of loneliness and despair.

            And she was gone, vanished from his sight to return to her friend, nothing more save a mangled and altogether unrecognizable body sprawled upon a muddy road in a wilderness far from any inhabitants.  Sauron had seen it fit to discard the body as such.  Atira knelt beside him and wept.

            But as the child disappeared, Sauron straightened in surprise.  His face flushed in anger.

            He had brought her to his land to because he was bored and had decided not too long ago that he was due whatever entertainment he so chose and he had chosen her, for she was weak and vulnerable and for once not in the company of Olórin.  He had weaved his magic about her, both to bring her to him and so that she might not escape. 

            And, yet, she had.  Sauron cursed. 

            Atira had escaped him with seemingly no effort on her part, departed his company with not so much as a by your leave.  The Maia child was not as she appeared and Sauron suddenly realized this.

            She is great, the Maia admitted distastefully.  Perhaps greater even than Olórin, though untrained and unaware of her abilities.  She is a child after all.

            Suddenly, her words came back to him.  'To the Beyond with you, Sauron.  I hope you rot in your own weavings of loneliness and despair.' 

            The Dark Lord smiled.  "I think not, my child," he said aloud, his thoughts filled with pleasurable malice.  "May you be cast into the Beyond and may you rot in my weavings of loneliness and despair."  And Sauron, the Dark Lord of the Land of Shadows, a place inhabitable only to fear, chuckled in quiet amusement.

*****