A Middle Earth One-Shot: Brightest Dream

Brightest Dream

"Beor!" He heard his name over the roar of the smith's fire. Her voice reminded him of soft windchimes in a slight breeze. Casting his tools aside, Beor ran outside, looking for her. Her slight form ran toward him and he swept her up, spinning her around in gleeful circles. She shrieked with laughter.

"Beor, put me down, 'tis indecent to hold me such." Beor set her gently down but still cradled her close.

"I thought today would never come," he mumbled into her silvery hair.

"I have been gone less than a month, Beor."

"It felt like decades."

"I shan't be leaving you again," Marien said with a soft kiss on his cheek. She had to stand on the tips of her toes and reach up as far as her slight form would allow. Beor picked her up again. For a moment he thought she felt thinner than before she had left, but he quickly dismissed the thought. Beor was simply glad to be with her again.

They parted ways, Beor taking his tools made by the smith, and Marien making her way to her father's house where Beor knew her father waited to give her news he had been waiting to give for many years. From the day Beor saw her walk through the gates into Dale shrouded in a shimmery blue dress, he knew that she would be his bride.

...

A small body slammed into his broad side, nearly upsetting the carefully placed medicine vials. It was early the morning after Marien's arrival back in Dale.

"Oh, Beor," she cried clutching at his arms. He held her firmly to keep her from upsetting his medical instruments. She hiccupped, laughed, and cried all at once. "I will, I will." Her pretty face was a mess of tears, strands of hair stuck to her cheeks which flamed red from the run across Dale. She threw herself at him again. Beor laughed loudly; his laugh rang through the hall, lifting the spirits of all who lay sick within.

"You will have me?"

Marien squeezed him as best she could, for her small arms could not wrap around his body.

"There is no one else I would rather marry, Beor. You are my brightest dream."

"You are my only dream," Beor whispered. Marien leaned into him and sighed happily. Her sigh turned into a soft cough. Beor held her at arm's length with a worried gleam in his soft eyes.

"When did that begin?"

She waved his concern aside. "I must have strained myself running so far. It is nothing." Beor listened to her breathing, there was a slight raspy, heavy quality, but he attributed it to her having run nearly a mile across town.

"All right," he said still doubtful. Beor pushed aside his worry. "When would you like the ceremony to happen?"

Marien clapped her hands and bounced on the balls of her feet. "After the planting season, so my father can come." Her father lived in the country, working the fields to help keep Marien's mother, who fell ill years ago, in a home where proper care would be given. He spent the winter months in Dale and returned before the spring planting began. He would leave again in two days.

"After planting it is."

...

A week passed and Beor had never been happier. Each time he saw Marien a small spot within filled with warmth and spread to the tips of his fingers and toes and made his skin tingle. She was a bright spot in the grey and dismal work of a town healer during a deadly outbreak of some infection. More people died each day than he cared to count. Counting made it worse, numbers; those numbers were lives claimed. He gave up counting years ago. As long as he had Marien, those that died under his care could not overshadow his life.