A candle flickered in the drafts of air through open windows where the two travellers sat, its light merry and straggling against a myriad of looming shadows. A thick, brown trail of rimose earth surrounded the table between them; it formed an almost perfect circle.

Both spoke up at the same moment,

“A beautiful evening,” said Erya.

“I’m heading north. Will you come with me?” Said Carastar.

The fact that they were both lying descended between them like a veil, thick with pride and heavy with bitterness; yet through it, they both saw the silhouette of the other.

“North it is,” Erya said, the corners of her mouth bending into something that could have been a warm, confident smile if her eyes did not stay cold and lightless as blocks of ice. “I have nowhere else to go. I was wondering about you, though.”

The Elf shrugged nonchalantly – so nonchalantly in fact, that it was a work of art. It was a perfectly rehearsed, thoroughly calculated gesture (much like the curving of the Dunadan’s mouth).

“I have anywhere to go.”

. x .

A bottle of wine disappeared in mysterious silence. Their companionship deepened somewhat, the veil between them blurred.

“I came to the Valley some three years ago,” Erya admitted hesitantly. “Heard rumours. Everyone thinks you’re dead.”

“And are you under the impression that I am alive?”

Erya swallowed the pill of scorn. “I suspect it.”

“I have always thought you were a smart woman.”

“So smart that I challenged you with a sword in the middle of a dark forest?”

“Miscalculations included.”

That earned something like a laugh from the Dunadan. (It could have been a laugh, if only her heart was in it).

. x .

“Why don’t you come home, Tirmo?”

 “Don’t you call me that.”

They stared at each other with mild irritation, and the veil between them thinned. Perhaps the wind was playing with it.

“I’m so full of emptiness,” said Carastar softly. “It feels as though I was the Void itself. The deepest of silences, the darkest of pits, the hollowest of wastelands. The noises of this world echo through me, and I find that I cannot answer. I have nothing to answer. I am not the one I once was – I am either my work, or nothing, or something fell and evil. I am one of the Exiled.”

“Your mother was, and her fathers before her,” Erya said gently. “You are not.”

“I’m not even that, you mean.”

Another bottle of wine disappeared in silence.

“Why don’t you come home, Thilia?”

“Thilia is dead,” said the woman matter-of-factly.

“And did you burn her or bury her?”

Erya’s eyes widened in surprise. “I don’t know,” she hesitated. “Perhaps I buried her alive and then burned her.”

“All right, then why doesn’t Erya of the North go home?”

“She doesn’t want to – face things. No more than Carastar the Builder does.”

(There it was. She said it).

There was a low flicker of understanding (recognition? acknowledgement?) in Carastar’s eyes. He nodded.

“North, then?”

“North it is,” she said, and held his hand.