An Unexpected Love

TWENTY

Navaheya felt at peace, lying in a field with a warm cloak wrapped around her small frame, children surrounded her, staring up at the stars in the sky as she described tales of beauty and love to explain the stars that twinkled in the sky above them. None of the small elleth complained about the cold, they were all too transfixed by her words as if they could see the stories she told appearing before their very eyes.

The seamstress did not have an ounce of magic in her body like the wizards or lords who were guardians over the realm, however, her words surrounded the small group of children like the sun's brightest light on the darkest of nights. Their imaginations are all actively taking in her words and twisting them into images in their heads. Time spent with these children made Navaheya wish to bear her own child, to care for them, and to love them as she was doing for the sweet and innocent children in Imladris. We all wish for things we cannot have.

The chances of her bearing a child were zero. She would not take the risk of bearing a daughter and having Pandora Decay continue in Middle Earth. Navaheya would make the sacrifice to allow every other elf the ability to live and bear children without the fear that the rare elven illness would rip them or their families away. Navaheya Silverlace would end the disease, for all of Middle Earth, no matter how much mental anguish and loneliness she would have to endure. Let alone remaining a virgin for her entire life, Navaheya was cursed to be stuck. Stuck in her head, stuck in her body, never able to experience the love of sharing her body and a body being shared with her, no matter how much she truly desired it. She would never bear children, she would never risk it by giving away that piece of her to someone.

As hard as that sacrifice was to make, there was no one else other than Prince Thranduil that she trusted that part of herself with, that she trusted with that level of her purity and virginity. Given the circumstances of not being able to have the prince at all, she was a bit more okay with the sacrifice of not having children. Maybe one day she would be able to see him again, or one day she would be able to open the letter that rested in her pocket since she had received it. But that day was not today. Realistically, she could understand that there was no reason not to open the letter, yet she still couldn't bring herself to read the words written inside.

A full week had passed since her visible change in mood, a week of feeling slightly more like herself. Every day she sat with the children of the city, her afternoons were spent at her mother's side, and during the nights, she would either be with the seamstresses of Rivendell assisting them with their projects or designing garments herself or occasionally she would be back with the children telling them bedtime stories.

As she finished retelling a story her mother had once told her of dragons made of stars finding love in the skies, she realized that dark and thick clouds had begun to crawl their way over the sky, making the stars disappear one by one. 

She ushered the children up from the ground and back to the orphanage within the city before the clouds completely hid the view of the stars above. Navaheya wrapped her light blue with a silver trim cloak around her tighter as big white flakes started to float down from the sky. The seamstress slowed her pace as she traveled back up the city paths to the palace with the snow falling on her and settling into her cloak. The air bit at her body but she didn't seem to mind, even when it would take far more effort to warm her body back up than it would for a normal elf. The cold flakes hitting her face were soothing.

Acceptance can do wonderful things for people, it can destroy them just to build them back up stronger. Navaheya was at a point of feeling deeper than she ever had before, the little things felt larger than they used to, her emotions ran deeper, and her whole self felt like it was basking in the environment around her. The silver-haired elf was aware that there was only one more thing she was waiting for, one more shoe to drop to make all her progress reverse. However, she was hoping that day was far enough in the future for her to fully heal her wounds so they wouldn't be so deep when they stabbed into her soul.