Eclipse of Hearts ✔

Chapter 67. [Alyssae]

The kiss with Eldinòr gave her a feeling of relief. It helped her to accept the fact that Thorin had slept with someone else for years. It felt as if harming her own purity helped crumbling off the wall between Thorin and her. It gave her a feeling of freedom, for she had had been in conflict with herself since Eldinòr came into her life. A conflict that was over know. It had been something that had to be done, although the foundations of it were nothing but emotions that couldn't be described with words. 
She did not know what occupied Eldinòr's thoughts. He turned around after their kiss and grabbed the wheel again. There hadn't been a thrilling reason, as the time that she had wanted Fíli to shut up, nor was there a stunning result, as the time Thranduin was knocked over, leading to Thorin's torture. It felt like nothing had happened. 
Alyssae turned around and left the wheele house. She did not know if the kiss had excluded angry screams, but as far as she knew it had been remarkably silent on the ship. Had the dwarfs cleared things up in a peaceful way? Or had Thorin avoided the confrontation?

As soon as she passed the cabin, she saw him. Thorin sat with Dwalin and Kíli, but his head was bended and she decided not to disturb them. Iorwen was with them as well, but Aymara was not. She stood at the handline and stared at the shore, that glided by slowly. 
After a moment of hesitation she walked to the woman. Seeing her face still called up an image of Thorin and her, but she tried to push it away and she knew she would never succeed if she wouldn't get to know her better. Aymara looked just as sad as the moment she had placed her foot on the ship. Although life seemed to have returned into Thorin as a flower that slowly opened up again, the same couldn't be said of his former mistress. 
"You think of home?" she asked when she stood next to her. She leaned with her elboyws on the edge, over which Aymara could barely look.
"Home is nothing but a blurred memory."

Her voice sounded fragile, as if she could fall apart any moment. Alyssae wondered whether that vulnerability was the result of Thorin's action or whether she dragged herself through life for much longer. 
"Have you been born in Erebor?"
Aymara shook her head. "My parents did not have a stable place of residence. They wandered around and on their way they sold the fur coats my mother stitched. Nature was our home, that was what we learned." She sighed and stared at the cloudy sky. "It turned out to be our enemy."
"What happened?" Alyssae asked. 
It was a personal question and she wouldn't blame Aymara if she deciced not to speak, but it felt rude not to ask. 
"I had a brother," she told with a plain voice. "He saw something that attracted his attention, a butterfly or a bird, and went after it without looking. He just ran off a cliff." She was silent for a moment. "By a miracle he could seize to a protrution. My father climbed down and tried to save him, but he lost his balance and they both fell into the depth."
Alyssae was speechless. She had no idea what to say and sighed deeply. "I am so sorry for you." 
Aymara shrugged indifferently. "My mother could not cope with her loss. She hanged herself. My brother found her."
The tone of her voice was so apathic Alyssae got the idea the dwarf woman wished she had jumped after her brother and father herself. Alyssae was familiar with that longing for the dead, since she had tried to kill herself too after Thorin had tried to murder her and Fíli sacrificed himself. Her instinct had forced her to raise the sword and fall into it, but experiencing that feeling every day without giving in proofed this woman to have an prodigious willpower and she must hope from the bottom of her soul to get a better life someday. She could only respect this dwarf moment. 
"I do not want to go back to Erebor," Aymara said after a while. "But neither do I know where else to go." She raised her head so that she could look into Alyssae's eyes. "I would like to stay with you and serve you." Her eyes flashed to Thorin. "Until you decide to stay together."
Alyssae did not know how to react. She didn't want a servant and certainly not Aymara. Still she realized the woman was desperate, daring to try to build up a life amongst elves. Alyssae could not take away that future from her, not after the things she had just heard. She was afraid her hope would finally slip away and that she would jump overboard. 
"I will help you to find a place where you feel save," Alyssae said eventually, "until we've done so,  you can stay with me."
A smile appeared on Aymara's face and she bended her head gratefully.