Authors Note: Hey guys! Heres the new chapter for Stars!

Warning! This is a really sad chapter!...At least I think it is, but I'm emotionally attached to all of my characters, no matter if I write about them or not.

I also recommend listening to "Hurt" By Thomas Bergersen while reading this chapter. I think it kinda enhances the mood of it.
I would also like to thank these lovely people for following/favoriting my story:
Sora Yumiko
EllieMarieG
GreenAndPinkBubbles
Lead Owl
lynnelay
and nachobeats823!

You guys are amazing! I hope to hear from you soon!


3 Years Later

The sky was dark, rain plummeting to the earth, making it muddy. The streets were grim, and empty. There were no vendors, children, or horses; Except for two poor souls, an old man and his starving daughter. They sat on the side of the empty street, wet, starving, and ill.

The girl looked up as a grey horse rode by quickly splashing mud upon her and her father. The old mad Red liquid oozed from between his fingers, once more. He quickly wiped his hand off of his nasty tunic, which was covered in filth, with multiple holes, scantily patched up, by their small supply of dingy rags. The old man coughed viciously, as his beloved daughter cursed the rider. He glanced down into his warm, wet hand.

"Nasty men, they are Papa." The young maiden spouted off to her dear father. He grasped her hands, with his. The once smooth skin of her palms, toughened by long days of labor, squeezed his hand tightly. There were now unsightly scars from various burns going up her forearms, and along her hands.

"Your hands, my dear," he wheezed, "They are so rough. I remember when they were smooth; like the softest velvet. Now they are no more than hands of a woman who has a burden to heavy on her shoulders."

"Oh papa, you are no burden." She whispered. She kneeled in front of him, taking her burned hands and wiping the tears that fell from his eyes. The old man only brought up his wrinkly hands, to her face as he cried, feeling the deep scars, that resided on her now tarnished face. Tracing them, he felt her sigh as his hands went from her left temple across her face to her right jaw. Her once innocent beauty was marred by his incompetence, to care for his child.

They sat there for what seemed hours, just holding each other's faces, his blind eyes crying as he imagined the horror done to his once beautiful daughters face.

6 months later

Her ragged skirt billowed in the warm spring air, as she cried. It was only her and the priest, praying as her father was buried. Aston, Son of Elton, Blacksmith of Minas Tirith, was dead. Now, she was alone. So frightfully alone, in this large world, that refuses to show her mercy or kindness. As he was finished being buried, she laid a single xeranthemum on top of his grave. A sign of immortality and eternity, for her father will forever live in her heart. She returned to the town, where her and her father spent the most recent winter. She gathered her small knapsack and continued onward, to Bree. It was there that she planned to start a life.