It cannot be. My mind's reeling at the sheer impossibility at what stands before me. Or rather, who.

I saw him get killed. Scara's maw shredding through flesh. The screams, the blood, the deaths. The events of that dark night are equally etched into my mind as much as I've been trying to erase them. And what I didn't do after the attack started to ease.

Elves bury their kind. We have rites and traditions. But I did not follow tradition when my company was slain. I could not face gathering their limbs, to tell which part belonged to whom. Some of the elves were dragged away by the wargs, to be feasted upon after the massacre. Feiron was one of them being hauled away from the slaughtering. I knew he was already dead. He had to be. He did not move, he did not fight. My heart broke and my soul felt a tear when the killing blow came, when Scara took him from me.

I did not want to see what was left of him among the twisted trees. I didn't want my last memory of him to be anything else than his full self. His flesh was torn apart, but to me, he was still whole. Wholly dead.

I sat in the tree till dawn broke upon the land. The light painting a grisly picture below me. All the blood, the ripped flesh, and weapons of warriors lost. My graceful friends reduced to a grotesque remembrance that will haunt me for life.

The snarls and growls from the wargs quieted down sometime during the night. They fought amongst themselves, bickering about their prey. I could only imagine what Feiron must have been diminished to, but I did not want to visualize it. When his form left the field, he was lost to me. Dead to me. Our joint map cruelly torn and divided down the middle. Our journey ended, but his spirit would travel across the sea.

In the dreary morning mist, I did not feel worthy to even think we might see each other again. That he would wait for me. I felt like a coward. I wasn't, and never will be, worthy to travel the seas to join him.

But I don't have to wait till my death. He's standing right before me very much alive. I knew I felt someone's presence in the woods when I left the Uruk camp in my bloodthirsty haze. A presence I've been trying to forget. His memory might have urged me on in my killing spree, but I see now that I lost my purpose long before I was captured by Adar and his children. My raging rampage was the only thing I had left. But it was just an excuse, a lie I told myself to right my cowardice when doom descended upon us.

---

I'm not breathing, but my heart's slamming against my ribcage in rapid succession. This should be a good dream, but I'm terrified. Feiron's death created my nightmare, terrors now tamed by a son of the dark. I'm not ready to face my betrothed. Even in death, I don't think I'd ever be ready to meet him. I sealed my fate a long time ago, and the only place I can go to is a place where Feiron can't follow.

Scara snarls viciously, snapping me out of my stupor. "It cannot be," I say, my voice barely a whisper, my first thought words in the air between us.
"Malwen," sounds his voice from among the trees. He's not moved. He's as frozen as I am.
"Feiron." My voice cracks while uttering his name. I've only uttered it aloud once since his death. His presumed death. A death that I, just moments ago, realized set me free from a road I did not want to follow. A venture my heart did not want to undertake.

He steps towards me. Scara gets ready to pounce, but I tell her no. "Please," I beg the warg. "Do not make me relive his death once more. You had your chance, but he clearly eluded you. He will cheat death again, and it will claim you instead. And I will help."

Scara slinks away reluctantly, staring down Feiron, who's drawn his weapons, stealthy as a spirit. But when he's mere inches from me, I can feel his heat, his flesh, and warm blood beneath his skin. So very much alive.

"Malwen," he says again.
"Feiron." Speaking his name, I try to make this impossible sight before me more real. He reaches for my hand, and his touch is as real as the sun rising and setting each day.
"How?" I ask.
"I was dying. I should have been dead," Feiron starts saying.
"Y-y-yes," I stammer.
"I was unconscious with shock when the warg dragged me away. When I woke, the wargs were fighting over my flesh. I crawled away as quietly as I could, the wargs' fog of bloodlust so thick, they did not pay me any heed. I knew it was only a matter of time before they caught me again." He takes my other hand. "I fell down a long hill, crashing my head against a rock. I knew death would claim me for sure as my mind went black."
I look into his familiar sky-blue eyes. "I woke up in a house, my wounds bound and tended to. I had already begun to heal. A woman sat nearby on a stool, watching me. She told me someone in her village had found me in the forest and that I was brought to her, barely alive. She saved me."
He means to put a strand of stray hair behind my ear, but I flinch away. Holding his hands to grasp that his touch is solid, not a ghost's, is one thing, but having him caressing my face is too soon.

"I'm sorry," he says, his eyes emitting hurt.
He's sorry, I think to myself. Even if I begged for his forgiveness, and he gave it, it will never remedy how sorry I am. I can never forgive myself for letting him slip from my life still alive, still breathing. "I thought you were dead. I could not stand to search for you cadaver. I did not want to remember you in pieces. The wargs left none alive by our camp, just torn flesh, gore, and sinew. If I thought there was any hope..." I start saying.

"I do not blame you for letting the woodland claim what you thought was left of my body. I commanded you to stay in the tree, to live, and here you are, very much alive. I never thought I'd see you again." He takes another step towards me, leaving almost no space between us. I look up into his face. He looks as beautiful as ever, though his features are more stern than the last time I saw him.
"Oh, how I've longed to hold you in my arms," Feiron says softly, tracing his hands up my arms. I'm standing rigid, my body unable to yield to his touch. We've been intimate, but it was never like Adar and me. Adar makes me burn, and I pine for him already. I want my Heru. I want to return to him and tell him I never want to be apart from him ever again. I will never let my rage separate us, but I owe Feiron an explanation, even though I have no idea how to tell him my heart never belonged to him. Feiron was a placeholder while my true destiny lay waiting in the dark shadows of the earth. The tear I felt through my being when he was attacked wasn't loss, it was deliverance.

"What happened to you?" Feiron asks. "After the warg attack."
I swallow hard, my depravity almost choking me.
"I came and went," I tell him. "I tried to leave the forest and its killing ground behind me, but it kept calling me. It wanted me to come back and feed it more blood. The blood of our enemies. And so I did. I fed the earth blood and bones, just like the wargs did."
"Orcs," Fairon says.
"Uruk," I hear myself correct him.
"What?" Feiron looks baffled.
"They prefer Uruk," I say, remembering when Adar told me this when we first met. When I hung tied up and torn, ready to embrace death. But death did not come. Adar had meant to kill me, the threat of demise coating the air, but as soon as he laid eyes on me, and I on him, a change came over us both. I did not want to feel death's cool caress, and he did not want to send my spirit on its way. He wanted to keep me, and I wanted to be kept.

"I kept killing," I continue. "Till I was finally outnumbered and captured. I was brought below ground. I was to meet..." I stop myself. How can I tell him how Adar opened up my black heart and soul, craving what spilled out of my being when he touched me; my words and my want?

"But you escaped," Feiron says.
"Not exactly," I say. As much as I want to lie about my capture and how I fought my way to freedom, I can't.
"I was set free," I say. It's the utmost truth. "I was set free in every way."
"I don't understand," Feiron says.
"Perhaps I can shed some light on the matter," we hear a voice behind us say.