It was the third dream she had had in as many nights. She was walking along a dark, dirty lane lined with crude huts; her bare feet trod through pools of mud and blood and water that burned to the touch. Cries of pain and despair could be heard on all sides, yet she made herself go towards them. Above her head the sky was streaked with fire, and the black silhouette of spiked towers loomed over her like a giant's grasping hand. Before her stood an iron gateway, a pathway with utter darkness at its end and there, crouched in the path and doubled over was Cynraede. She ran to him, throwing her arms around him wanting to draw him away from the things that were causing such pain and despair, yet when he raised his head at her touch it was not Cynraede, but the Amber Man, his eyes pits of darkness, taking her by the throat with one hand and grasping her body in the other where he had placed his mark upon her. He would draw his face close to hers as he had done on Weathertop and snarl, "You are mine..." and she would wake drenched in sweat and her heart pounding into the peaceful silence of slumbering Imladris.
As she lay in her bed blinking away the fear, she felt anger begin to rise from the very depths of her spirit. There was an answer to this. She had felt it before and knew it to be true. She had seen the darkness and lies flee before it. She quickly rose from her bed without even putting anything on her feet and quietly left her chamber, left the house and made her way to the bank of the river. The wretched voice echoed in her memory.
"You are mine." No.
Fairlain swore under her breath as she tripped on the long, gossamer white skirt for the third time. She gathered her skirt up above her knees and quickened her pace to the river's edge.
"You are mine..." NO.
She stepped into the cool water, striding forward quickly and letting the living waters swirl and dance around her. The water rose to her knees, her waist; it touched the place above her heart that had taken the burning wound, it rose to her neck. She stood for a moment with the light of the stars above her, then let her head sink beneath the current.
She burst from the river's embrace gasping lungfuls of star-blessed air, cleansed of fear...cleansed of doubt. She lifted her hands as she had seen the Woodlark do, as her own spirit had done before the dark Dunlendish hovel, and cried out to the One beyond the stars.
"I am Yours! And woe to any that would challenge it!"
And in that moment it seemed that a star had come to rest upon the water's surface as Faerlhain turned her face towards heaven and a light shone in her eyes that rivalled the brightness of Ëarendil himself. She stood there a long moment in joy before returning to her bed and a deep, dreamless sleep.
