She had never been a particularly brooding or isolated soul.
Words and smiles and politeness had flowed so effortlessly in her youth. She went where she was told to go. Spoke affably and easily to whoever she encountered. And smiled without having to muster any measure of will to curve her lips upward into a convincing expression.
The summers of her childhood were carefree and easy. Even beneath the disapproval of her mother for simply existing, and the unfeeling cowardice of her father. She found sufficient solace in the dust-speckled sunbeams of the high, airy barn, the warmed air that smelled of horse-sweat, hay, and manure, and the wide, golden fields around the farm. When visitors came to the farm, she greeted them and helped her mother in serving. When her father rode to Edoras, she went along and listened and observed and answered readily when spoken to.
But Time has a way of changing a person, and it had been no different with her.
She had still been open and amiable and pliable when her father sent her north upon payment of an obscene sum of money that would never touch her own pockets. Friends were made with little struggle, and the number grew with every passing day. She did not withdraw to be alone, nor to ruminate on the reason for her existence.
Now, sitting under the wide-limbed willow tree that grew at the pond's edge, she could do little but ruminate.
It was baffling to think on how much time had passed. Was she really so much older now? She lifted a slender hand and examined it. Perhaps the skin behind her knuckles looked a little less smooth and flawless than it had before she left home. A freckle here or there seemed darker. More defined. Mercilessly declaring her mortality and her limited time in Middle-earth.
She did not think of Conrob day and night now. He was not a violent presence, thundering about in her conscious senses with every breath, threatening to shatter her and undo her. She could draw deep breaths now, without the ache behind her ribcage, that she thought would never, ever dissipate as long as she lived. She did not sit under the tree and sing mournful dirges of departed love, nor weep bitter, endless tears in a wordless prayer for Death to come and spirit her back to her beloved.
The people of Snowbourn and Bancross had always been welcoming to the grieving young widow. Loving, even. They would become like family, if only she would embrace them as such. And Saexwyrd...would he have married her? He was a man true to his vows.
Would he marry her still?
Would she marry him?
Solitude felt comfortable now. She cared for her new friends, and appreciated their kindness and hospitality. But something had been broken within her, perhaps irrevocably. And it would not do to ignore it, or turn a blind eye to the care her heart required.
The late-summer sun was still oppressively hot, and the air shimmered over the lush, wide-stretched grass beyond her shady tree. She put out a pale foot that was bare of shoe or stocking, and dipped it into the cool water. A tiny thread of ghost-white skin shone on her calf.
Scars were the inevitable consequence of life. Did anyone reach the escape of Death without a few, at least? Unconsciously, her hand lifted, and a fingertip ran across the more jagged line of light-pink flesh that flowed from her collarbone, down until it vanished beneath the scooped neck of her dress.
A wren warbled overhead. The heavy, warm wind dragged itself sluggishly through the boughs, whispering the graceful willow fronds against one another. She leaned back on her hands, dragging her toes lazily through the water. Her eyes beheld the rolling plains, her ears heard the crickets and frogs in the rushes, and her skin felt the airy kiss of the breeze.
But her mind remained elsewhere.
