(Continued from "A Finch's Beginnings: A Woman Named Averill and a Man Named Bên - Part the First")
Though he had told her that day that he would not always be around to help her, more often than not, Bên was there.
When Averill was taken from her lowly place in the slaves' hierarchy and made the personal servant to Erach of the Unsealed, largely separated from most others, Bên was there to see after her.
When she often defied Erach and was soundly beaten for her insolence, Bên was there to bind up her wounds.
When she was caught trying to escape for the hundredth time from the walls of Carn Dûm, Bên was there to plead for mercy and offer himself up to take her punishment in order to silence those who would report it to Erach and save her from a far crueler consequence.
Where Averill was angry, Bên was kind. Where she defied her captors, he appeased them. Where she puzzled over the mystery of Erach's fixation on the features of her young face, he implored her to keep that face angled downwards and her hands to her tasks.
Different as night and day, as fire and water, these two were. Yet, there was a kinship between them, a sort of understanding, and something else that was both tender and sure; like a lifeline adrift in the midst of a black sea. He was as a moth drawn to her unquenchable fire. She felt his kindness soothe the sting of her hurts whether they were physically on her body or when the fire of her anger over her injustice burned too hotly within her. The darkness of Carn Dûm and the brutal nature of their captivity and enslavement did not break them and they did not break each other.
In time, under the noses of the Unsealed, they found comfort in each other. In time, even Bên could not forget Averill's name, though he never remembered his own. He began to wonder if he was able to continue on longer than he thought was possible for himself for her or because of her.
Until, one day, Averill uttered words that Bên wished she never would have.
"... I'm with child."
He ran.
Deeper and deeper into the dark city, he ran, arms curled around his head as if afraid that a rock would fall on top of his head and kill him. And, perhaps, in that moment, he wished it would. He did not stop until he found the darkest corner to hide himself away in; he cared not that he would likely be punished by his masters for his absence.
He began to panic, there in the dark. How could this happen? Why did this happen? Who else knew but them? In time it would be a difficult thing to hide. Was there no way to undo it? Surely Averill could squirrel away something from the red-robed priestesses to--... No, he knew very well Averill would do no such thing; either out of pure defiance or out of the kindness she pretended that she had little of while he had excess.
Bên did not feel very kind in this moment. He felt fire kindled in his chest; fire he had not felt in years - or pretended not to feel. Maybe, all along, he had pretended not to feel it so that he would not be confronted with the same bitterness and anger that Averill felt. The metaphorical and proverbial ground opened up beneath him as his sudden anger and grief began to swallow him whole.
He had run from her just now. He had hated both himself and Averill for letting this happen. How could they have been so careless? How could they have let those strange, tender feelings that were not quite real love blind them to their reality even for a second? He didn't want this child, this source of future misfortune now growing inside of Averill's womb. Angmar was no place for a child. This dark city was no place for a baby to live or even survive. He had seen young children brought here waste away slowly. He had even seen babies killed or fail to thrive in the oppressive darkness that surrounded them.
It felt too much for him to bear. But what else was there to do but swallow the bitter pill and face the impeding doom?
Bên remained there, in that dark hidey-hole for several hours more, shedding tears he thought had long since run dry. And when he had finished, he picked himself up and climbed out, facing the horror of Carn Dûm under Angmar's red sky once more. He put one foot in front of the other. He went back, knowing she would likely be waiting right where he left her. Averill was always clever like that; clever about how he would act. She knew him too well by now.
Yes, she would likely know what to do. Clever, insolent, and persistent Averill would know how to face this better than he.
When he returned to the place he had left her, she was there, waiting for him, expression calm but eyes burning with that same fiery determination that overshadowed any lingering fear. Her hand rested on her still flat stomach and he could feel his own expression drop.
No woman who did not have the first stirrings of a plan - or, probably, many plans - looked like that. No woman who did not already love the child growing within her looked like that.
Bên closed his eyes for a minute and resigned himself to his own doom.
(To be continued.)
