Remember How I Love You (Sequel to 'Through Fire and Water')

Alone

Ana's P.O.V.

Danger I can do; fighting I can do; running I can do; chasing after children I can do; sitting around I can't do.

Over the past few hours I have been through several changes in mood. I've been confident of rescue; confident of escaping by myself; in complete denial, and finally I have arrived at this hopeless stage when I have decided I have nothing to do but sit around and hope that something will save me, that anything will save me.

I can't do being useless. I do things, that's what I do. I always have something to say, something to do, even if it's an awful plan, even if it all falls down around my feet there is always a course I can take. That's what being a warrior makes you, that's what being a parent makes you.

I've only been here just over a day and I'm already going insane from the inactivity. I've tried screaming for help, for hours I screamed, but no one replied.

I tried crying as well, but that didn't do any good so I stopped. Now I'm thirsty and I'm hungry and I'm tired but I don't want to sleep.

The warg is still staring at me, with his lifeless and empty eyes. About an hour ago I decided that I might as well name him since I had nothing better to do. I wanted to call him Úan, which is elvish for monster, but that was when I was angry. Now I see him for what he is, just a desperate animal who needed food and paid the price. It wasn't his fault, and I can't sit him and stare at him calling him monster when he's not. So instead I christened him Úmarth – ill-fate.

I turn to him now, his still body only meters from mine. I can see the ribs sticking out of his sides, the skin stretched across them due to lack of food. Now I have to wonder why he wasn't eating, what had gone so wrong in his life?

"How did you get here?" I ask into the silence. Úmarth looks at me with his sad, empty eyes.

"Don't worry, I don't blame you" I say "It's not your fault"

There's silence for a while and I feel the need to fill it.

"Do you have a family?" I ask him "is that why you needed me? To feed them?"

Silence

"I have a family. I have a husband, Legolas, he's the prince of Mirkwood but that's not why I married him, I did that out of live. I have 2 children as well, Estel who's 6 and Thalion who's 2, nearly 3. They're so beautiful, in every way"

Úmarth is silent, it's as if he's listening.

"I wasn't supposed to be out here actually. I fought with Legolas and I ran off, I just couldn't be around there any longer. It was foolish really but I wasn't thinking. I do that a lot, act without thinking. Less so nowadays, I sort of grew up a bit.

I didn't mean all those things I said, he knows that right? It's just that I was angry. And now I've disappeared and he's probably worried sick and the kids will be terrified, and all I want to do is tell them all how sorry I am"

If I had it in me to cry anymore then I would, even though it's useless and even though it makes me weak. But I've cried my fill today.

"At least you're not hungry anymore" I say to him in little more than a whisper "That's got to be something. At least you're not in pain"

The sun is setting. I can't see it because I can't see the horizon but it's getting darker and I can just about make out the orange tint to the sky. It's getting colder too and I pull my scant garments around myself. I don't want to spend another night here, all alone in the darkness. I want to be at home, safe and sound with my beautiful children and my beautiful husband, because that's where I belong. I've been gone about 30 hours, give or take a few hours. I've never been away from my children for that long, never.