Anneth has long clung to her dreams, though sorrow has threatened to murder them again and again. There was a time when sorrow made her hopes only sweeter, but as Sauron grows yet stronger in the East, she feels everything she has ever held dear fal...
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
- John 1:5
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
- C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
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As she stared into the inky black darkness before her, Lindeth wondered what might become of the world. Yes, here in Imladris their own peace was guaranteed, but Imladris was a part of the world still, and should the world fall to evil, it would be selfish to worry only for oneself.
Every skilled, able-bodied ellon had marched on to the plains of Dagorlad with the intention to lay siege on the Tower of Barad-dur and claim victory over Sauron. Among those ellyn was her betrothed, and every day she went to the centre of the town to see if any news had come. What news did come was late, and could have been sent weeks before it reached her hands and ears. Yet she treasured every word from him, if only to see his writing and hear his voice as she perused every letter.
Though the world was uncertain, she was glad to have one thing certain: she loved him and he loved her. She had found her beloved and would go wherever he went that she could follow. A dreamer she never was, but what wishes she had were fulfilled in Voronwe, in the promise of a future with the ellon she loved.
Lindeth glanced down at her hand, and though she sat in the darkness of the trees, the silver of the ring on her third finger glistened. She smiled, for the memory was enough to numb the ache in her heart for but a moment. Only for a single moment, so accustomed to his presence she had become, that when he was gone, it was as a piece of her departed with him to war, for he completed her. The times they spent together she remembered clearly, how their friendship grew to be so much more!
The moment she began to realise the depth of her love brought to her bewilderment, and when Voronwe told her that he loved her, her joy overflowed. And then to be torn apart by war and evil in turn caused more pain than she imagined it would. Yet that is the price often paid for love, and one she both gladly and willingly paid. Few are so foolish as to cast away to the light and goodness of love for so called preservation of the heart.
Such fools lock their heart away until they no longer remember how they use it, for so long have they eluded pain that eventually they feel nothing at all. Their hearts have become hard and impenetrable. To truly love demands sacrifice, but it pales in comparison to the joy and fulfillment found in love.
That is why Lindeth worried not of the emptiness within her, for she knew that she could endure the discomfort of the time, and when the time should pass, love's joy would take the place of the ache that now resided in her heart.
