Something Less
by Tremayne
Author's Notes: For
LiveJournal's 15minuteficlets challenge #103. Also, in the Silmarillion
section over Lord of the Rings, though technically it doesn't quite fit
in either location.
Archival: Just ask.
Constructive feedback: Please.
It was becoming something less of a romance every day. In fact, it was no romance at all at this point - Queen Beruthiel of Gondor no longer felt a thing for him.
Tarannon Falastur. Once someone she thought she could love. Trust. Even need. Now, he had left naught but an awkward hole in Beruthiel's heart that she wasn't sure how to rid herself of. The only love she had went to her cats. Ten beautiful cats that needed her as she needed them. And Osgiliath, full of people who hated her for what they thought she was ... Black, a Black Numenorean, a dark soul. Nothing that Beruthiel herself thought her to be.
And Tarannon, in his filthy loyalty to city before love, no longer loved her. He had said he had, of course, when they met -- no matter where it was that they met, or when, because it no longer mattered. And no longer ever would, for Beruthiel could not have it.
It had become something less than a romance. Something less than a marriage. Something less than life and love and need. It had become a war of the emotions - she tore at his heartstrings and he tore at hers, and alone into the fur of the cat that came nearest to her - normally the white, the most sympathetic. Sympathy was something that, every now and then, Beruthiel had come to appreciate. Even need.
Because despite what they thought of her, dark, brooding, mournful, pitiable, evil ... even Beruthiel needed something at least similar to love.