[Elora]

How to begin, Uien wondered as she gazed skywards at the emerging stars. She remembered a similar night, but this time he did not shrink away. Still, even as he had she had seen something else glimmer within, a hint of the spirit and man that shone beneath the recent years of toil and weariness. Blankets she had given him, and watched over his sleep from her vantage in the hayloft through the rest of the night. He had been bewildered then, and truth be told she too had wondered at what had moved her to cast aside years of wariness and safe reserve to approach him. The star she gazed at gleamed, a shifting dance of silver and Uien returned her gaze to the man she had named Lauréatan. The answer was written in his face.

"I do not think I could have guessed at what lay before us on that night, beneath this tree," she murmured softly. The corners of his eyes crinkled as Falowik smiled.

"Nor I, Fair One."

Did he guess now at what lay on the tip of her tongue? The words she would let free of her heart's hold? Uien gathered his hand in her own, cradling it's strength between her palms gently. A tremour ran through her.

"Are you cold," Falowik asked in concern. Uien smiled at his hand and shook her head. "I am not, yet," she replied mysteriously. The tremour was not one of chill, nor fear, though by no means could she foresee what would follow what she was about to say. She raised his hand to her lips and pressed a soft kiss to his knuckles. Uien raised her eyes to Falowik's and set the truth free, sending it out into the twilight.

"Not yet, but winter will come, Lauréatan and I will feel it's cold breath. The years will pass, season upon season, and I will mark their passing now. They shall not sped by in a blur, too fast for me to catch, bleeding one into another. I shall paint them, I think, now that I will be able to hold their passing in my life.

"My love, do you know of what I speak of?"

Falowik was very still, studying her intently in the velvet shadows of the evening. He slowly shook his head from side to side.

"There once was a time when years meant nothing to me. Either I willed them to pass me by, longing only for oblivion, or their passing made no difference to me. For what matter the passage of time to those who are immortal?

"My road, wherever it may lie, will take me not into eternity, either here or across the Sea. It lies with you, as does my heart and my joy. Such have I chosen, and joyfully."

Uien fell into silence, though the truth of her joy could not be quietened. It was writ upon her and leapt within her own starlit gaze. Falowik's brow furrowed a little.

"Do you mean to say," he started. Did he dare not finish his question, or wish never to ask it?

"A mortal life is mine now, Lauréatan. The years shall pass, and I with them." Uien's heart was racing. She could hear its gallop threading faintly through her. Falowik's eyes drifted to the bole of the tree they stood by, in deep thought. Uien released his hand and freed him to the paths of his mind. She watched the breeze ruffle his hair and wondered if she had troubled him. Perhaps he did not wish to pass the years with her and fretted now at the spectre of being fettered. Uien let the moments pass her by and clasped her hands before her. What would be, would be. She could not undo what had happened, and never would she regret her choice. She'd make it again in a heartbeat. That certainty steeled through her.

"Glad tidings, Lauréatan, or so I believe them to be... Yet if they are not so for you, I ask one thing of you only. To say as much, to speak freely. Please Falowik, my love."

His eyes drifted back to her own, which were large in the darkness. The expression upon her face was of a vulnerable shyness, yet she did not appear ready to pull away. Uien remained where she was, open to Twilight and whatever words the man she loved so much that she had chosen mortality might have to say.