Shatter on the Sharp-edged Horizon by Independence1776

Chapter 1

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Gray on gray, written in tears,

The Sea crashed on the shores of the house at the end of the world.

A solitary figure stood there, waiting for me as I rode up.

As if she had always been there, waiting.

I knew she hadn’t-- she had her own concerns

Like I had mine: craft, parents, husband, sons.

But two of the four ended in grief and I had not turned to her.

Nienna grieved for the world, all of the world

I could only grieve for what I had lost.

I do not think she waited for me; how could she, when she did not even know I was interested?

When I did not know my attraction.

Not to drown in grief, but to live with it.

Not permanently, not always, not even for an Age.

But for a time.

 

I didn’t know to wait for her.

How could I? Those who hearken to me 

Do not do so out of love for me.

To learn compassion and mercy, yes.

But love?

It was strange, for me, to realize that Nerdanel had come to stay.

Not to learn from me, not in that way,

But for attraction.

Attraction to me, the ever-weeping, the quiet one, the gray one.

Yet I saw how she looked at me even as she formed gray driftwood into a sculpture

Visible from one angle as a hooded woman

From another angle as a tangle of wood that nevertheless carried the silence of the world.

When she came to me late that evening with a candle and a hesitant smile, I knew.

I knew then what we had would not last;

These things never do.

But her love, her attraction--

I would not, could not, say no.

For I had studied her: her auburn hair streaked with red in the sunlight, her sculptural form that had changed since the Darkening, her silences and her speech.

I loved her, though it took a dark hallway lit only by a candle for me to realize.

 

The candle did not light the dark of Nienna’s private sanctuary, giving a glimpse

Of strange shapes on the walls and the wall-sized window of glass overlooking the Sea.

But the nest of pillows, blankets, and other soft objects in the middle of the floor--

That captured my attention more than any curiosity about the room could.

She gently took the candle and put it on a nearby low table, leaving me standing

Momentarily in the dark, Nienna silhouetted against the light.

She drew me down into her nest, reaching for the laces of my bodice.

I leaned forward, kissing her, using a thumb to wipe away a tear.

“Why,” I asked.

She looked at the drop of water glistening on my thumb and smiled.

“Because I am happy,” she said.

Nienna made love to me, there in the near darkness.

We woke with the sun and I smiled at her reclining next to me, as resplendent in the growing light as a flower peeking out of the snow.

We dressed and left her chambers holding hands, her gray cape and hood over my shoulders, my cloud-thin pastel green scarf looped around her neck.