1st Day of Harvester, 565 CY

The Royal Palace, Chendl, Furyondy

Elrohir was not sleeping when he heard the door of his guest room slowly open.

The ranger always slept lightly in any case and being in a strange room, even one deep within the bowels of the royal palace of Chendl did nothing to quell his uneasiness. Even if he had been asleep, he was certain the almost-inaudible sound of a well-oiled door hinge swiveling would still have been enough to trigger his alertness.

But tonight, sleep was a lost cause.

The ranger had lain wide awake in the pitch black, staring up at a stone ceiling he could not see. The room had no windows and at this late hour not even the torches on the hallway sconces outside his room were lit.

That was fine with him. He wanted it dark. He felt dark.

Elrohir brooded endlessly over the scene with his wife that morning; or the previous morning, if it was past midnight now, as he guessed it might be. That would make it the first of Harvester. A new day and a new month.

The first month of the rest of his life without his wife.

His eyes narrowed. Whoever was opening the door was doing it very slowly, as if they did not to wish to awaken the sleeper within.

The ranger's hand slid under his pillow and closed upon the handle of his dagger.

He sensed that the individual had entered the room, but he could not hear any footsteps. The person might be right at the edge of the bed by now.

With one fluid movement of his left hand, Elrohir grabbed the black piece of cloth that lay wadded up on the end table next to his bed and lifted it up.

The continual light-endowed coin that the cloth had been wrapped around fell down back on the end table, rolled off and fell to the floor. Shadows danced crazily around the room from the shifting light source, but it was still more than sufficient to reveal the intruder.

Talass gasped from just inside the doorway.

Elrohir stared at her.

Despite how anyone else might have viewed it, the ranger had not expected his wife. He was sure she would have sought other quarters within the castle. After all, it was only for one night.

The priestess of Forseti slowly lowered her hand from her mouth. Her ice-blue eyes blinked rapidly from the sudden light, but they did not leave her husband's face.

By instinct, Elrohir considered the possibilities. An illusion, a disguised assassin, even a doppelganger, but threw them all away just as quickly.

He knew those eyes.

Talass, clad only in a white cotton nightgown, still gazed at him. It seemed to be the grieving Talass again; that ineffable sadness seemingly carved forever on that face. She opened her mouth but closed it again after nothing came out.

Elrohir's wife was never at a loss for words, but the ranger himself was all-too familiar with that feeling. Sometimes Elrohir felt he had been born that way; a silent baby emerging from his elven mother's womb, too stupid to cry because he didn't know that was what babies was supposed to do.

And he realized that in that moment, that one little idiosyncrasy connected them, even if nothing else did.

Elrohir thought for a while.

Talass still stood there.

And then the ranger shifted his body, as Talass had done the previous morning to make room for someone else to sit down.

Putting the dagger on the table, Elrohir patted the bed beside him and tried to smile at his wife. He didn't quite manage it, but Talass knew how his face worked.

The joyous Talass now at least shared the cleric's features, if not displacing them. She walked slowly forward and sat down beside him.

They stared into each other's eyes.

Elrohir didn't know who had made the movement, but he was suddenly aware that underneath the blanket, their hands were touching.

A single tear ran down Talass' face.

"Make love to me," she said.

The ranger heard the question in her voice.

He took her in her arms.

Elrohir knew nothing had changed.

Even in the throes of the passion he welcomed, as he watched the silhouette of his wife straddling him rise up and down with his movements; even as they shared in the explosion of ecstasy simultaneously, Elrohir knew.

He breathed her scent deeply as they lay together afterwards facing each other. Her head nestled against his neck, his face buried in her blonde hair, one hand absently caressing her shoulder.

It was wonderful. As wonderful as it had ever been, but he knew this was their last night together. Their last coupling. One for the road.

Elrohir tried to shake the cynicism away from his thoughts, but it clung on tightly, as if with claws. His grip on Talass tightened and she raised her head to look at him.

He was too full of hurt. Too full of pain. He tried, but the words leaked out anyway.

"Don't go, dearest."

She sighed, but her expression held only sadness, not reproach.

"I have to," she whispered.

"Couldn't," Elrohir's mind whirled, desperately seeking ideas or possibilities that a part of him knew Talass must already have considered, "your sister Talat do this?"

His wife's eyebrows raised and what was almost a smirk appeared on her face. "You've never met my sister, Elrohir, yet I know you loath her with all your heart."

"I have several good reasons," he replied, grim-faced.

"True," Talass countered, "but Talat did more than turn her back on our father. She turned her back on our god."

"I thought she had repented."

"To regain the favored status as a priest or priestess of one's god takes more than repentance, Elrohir. It requires almost a cleansing of one's entire soul, and my little sister has a long way to go down that path. Plus, I'm not sure she even wants to. Her only concern right now is keeping her unborn child safe."

Elrohir pursed his lips together and turned his face away but Talass cradled his cheek with her palm and pushed it back to face her.

"Dearest," she said, more earnestly now. "Even if you don't have faith in the Justice Bringer, don't you at least have faith in me? Don't you believe that I will succeed in whatever task lies before me? Do you believe so little in my own ability?"

"It's not that," he argued. "What happens afterwards? What happens if Forseti imposes some new condition or new task upon you? You can't say that won't happen- he hasn't been honest or direct with you so far! Or what if your people still won't accept us? Just because they can't throw me in jail doesn't mean they can't make life miserable for us. They could still stay away from your church just to spite you for being my wife! What will the Justice Bringer do then- demand you divorce me?"

"Elrohir-"

"And what about Barahir?" he continued. The ranger's voice was rising higher than he wanted, but he couldn't help it. "Will our son ever be accepted there? He's only half-Fruztii! Will that be enough? Do you really want to put your own flesh and blood into such a situation?"

Talass was crying now.

"Dearest," she sobbed. "I know that Forseti will provide for us! He would not ask this of me if he did not intend to do so, and he is the god of Truth! He is of the Aesir, headed by the very god you worship yourself!"

Elrohir held onto his wife until her tears had subsided. When he spoke again, his voice was low again in volume, but still hard in tone.

"Talass," he said. "I was raised in the elven faith, because that was all my mother's people knew. According to my mother, my father told her that if he ever were to have a son, he would want him raised in the Asgardian faith. It was only because she told me this that I sought out the Aesir after I left Samseed. I only worshipped the All-Father because my father did, and I wanted to respect his wishes!"

She looked at him, and he thought her eyes were going through him.

"Even to this day?" she asked.

"No," he admitted after a pause. "I came through so many dangerous encounters that I believed that Odin really was looking out for me. And then when I found the Asgardian faith here on Oerth-"

He hesitated.

"-when I found you," he went on, "I was sure I had made the right choice."

"So what happened?"

Elrohir sighed and sank back down on the bed, Talass still nestled close to him.

"Everything seemed to start falling apart about the time after Barahir was born. The Year of War & Peace, the battles against Iuz, and now everything that's happened this year." He swallowed hard. "And I can't help but feel that the worst is yet to come."

Talass kissed his chest.

"And if it does, we will rise above it, dearest," she murmured. "The next year will find us all together again, stronger than ever."

Elrohir closed his eyes, hugging his wife for all he was worth.

"I want to believe you, dearest. Oh, God, how I want to believe you."

But I can't, he thought as he turned over on his side. "Go to sleep, dearest. It's going to be a busy day tomorrow- for both of us."

For both of us, the thought intruded. I'll never be able to use that phrase again.

Elrohir was not surprised that he had nightmares when he finally fell asleep. All he could remember later was a dead, skeletal hand reaching out for him.