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"Look," he begins, "not that I expect I'd find this convincing in your position, but -" and then the ground shimmers under them and half a second after that it's not there at all.
They fall.
The ground they hit instead is cold and muddy. The stars are exceptionally bright, and close overhead.
" - what?" says Ryan.
Alex doesn't answer him. Alex is looking out into the darkness, horrified.
Uh, dig the Silmarils out of Angband, first thing, and then I guess use them to try to end orc pain since that seems like the easiest way to end - all of the problems caused by orc stuff without hurting any orcs, and then build an awesome Quendi civilization no Valar needed thank you very much I guess. We'll stay on the lookout for humans.
That makes sense.
Ryan wanted to go and maybe find the humans, I guess. Or he did, before everything - happened.
Yeah.
Before everything happened I said I'd think about going with him, but I figure that's not really on the table anymore. Wouldn't want to right now even if it were.
Did something happen that - uh, that wasn't what we were expecting to happen?
- I don't think so. Other than, uh, the memory loss and stuff. - he just really loved her. And - I knew, when you all forgot, I knew I was gonna have to do it and I wouldn't be able to explain it to him, and -
It's OK. I just - kinda figure he probably wants to never see me again. Probably. Which is fine.
No. I mean... no.
It bites a little bit. Not more than anything else, though. Just, there's a hypothetical timeline where - where this wasn't as hard as it was, and where Ryan likes me, and I like him, and we go off and look for the humans together, and it's not good or anything but it's - something, it's a place for a story to go from here, it's a way for things to not just be over. And it's not my story. I don't have any of the pieces of that story. I don't really want it, from here, it's - it'd make me feel sick, I guess, trying to have that world now. But it was a world that could've existed. And maybe that world hurts a little less than this one. But lots of worlds hurt less than this one, you know, it's not like that one's special.
(Some warm fuzzy feelings appear, underneath all of the suffocating awful feelings.)
M'just really tired. And I keep doing this thing where - this is the good timeline, you know, so maybe I shouldn't feel like everything is the worst it's ever been, except probably feeling like everything is the worst it's ever been is part of the price of all this, so maybe I should be feeling worse, you know, maybe if I really cared I'd be crying more, and then I think about how I don't want to, like, stand up and stuff, or do things, and maybe that's also a sign of being not OK, and then I think maybe I shouldn't be OK but I am and maybe my brain is covering for me or something and doing stupid things about it like not letting me do basic stuff -
I should sleep. Before I get any dumber about this.
He carries her in.
Humans don't die of grief. Elves do, sometimes, when - when keeping on having a body is just so hard that you can't make yourself keep doing it, it's not about wanting to stop, it's like - letting go of your hold on the side of a cliff after it's been too long. But, like, knowing that some people die of grief, then if you're grieving and it hasn't literally killed you yet you always wonder - is this really what it's like to be sad, though -
I don't know if that's relevant.
That's good. I mean, it won't help anyone else now, me being slightly less sad about things, but - thank you.
Hug.
She keeps being pretty sad, over the course of the next while. She doesn't cry about it. She prays strange aimless prayers that ask for nothing and promise nothing. She talks to Alex about nothing in particular. She writes stories, and then crosses out large chunks of them when she doesn't feel that they're going in the right direction.
He keeps her updated. They're exploring east. They're excavating the ruins of Angband. Ryan's left.
And eventually -
Well, we found the Silmarils.
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