3rd brightening in the Month of Kalendryas, Winter
Era I of the Celestine Mandate, Era XV Post Fractum
Larien had surely lost her mind.
I need his help, she argued mentally with herself even as the other part of her brain, the sensible side, scoffed back:
You will only hurt yourself and you will hurt him. He is happily married now. He doesn't need ghosts from his past coming to haunt him. It was true. Even gazing upwards towards the Temple of the Blessed Hands caused her heart to throb painfully... what would happen when she actually saw
him again? Above all else, no matter what might happen, she had to remain strong. Yester-brightening had seen her weak and faltering, little more than a crying wreck as she found out and came to terms with the news that her beloved cousin Tito was alive. She would not cry in front of Venn. She would not even mention the past. She was no longer the woman who held his heart -- she had released him from his prior commitment to her some time ago -- and she had come to terms with that fact.
The time right after her rescue from the bandits had been a very trying time, indeed. Not only had she heard the news that Motito was dead, but then her betrothed had admitted to her that in her absence, his heart had found another. She had seen how torn he was and she knew that even if they tried to go back to the way things were before, there would always be that part of him that loved the other woman. She hadn't wanted him to be torn. She hadn't wanted him to fret over which one of them he should choose -- Larien, his first love, or Avrie, the woman who had taken her place. So, the young elven woman had taken the only path she had seen at that time. She had removed one of his choices so that her beloved wouldn't have to make that heart-breaking choice for himself.
Larien would regret that brightening for the rest of her long, long life.
But there was no going back, only going forward, and go forward she would. She would find little comfort in being Venn's friend, but having him as a friend would be better than not having him at all. She trusted him fully, even with her own life, and when she was in need of advice or aid -- as the case was in that moment -- she knew she could turn to him. She would remain strong. She would not cry. She would not bring up the past... but by the gods, if only she could turn back time. She would spend every brightening with him, never leaving his side for more than a few candlemarks. She would remind him every moment, through actions or words, how much she loved him, how much she appreciated him, how much he meant to her.
Stop it, she reprimanded herself even as the young woman blinked away the tears that had started to form.
Stop being silly. You can't go back. You're just going to make yourself sick with 'what if's and 'if only's.
The rest of her journey to the Temple she spent in mental silence as a trained numbness began to settle upon the elven maiden until she thrummed with calm and indifference rather than her usual fire and passion. She would not make this trip any harder than it had to be. She would remain strong. She would not cry. She would not bring up the past. It was like a mantra she repeated to herself as her booted feet fell upon the ground, carrying her lithe form methodically closer and closer to her end destination until finally, she was within. Larien was immediately taken with the beauty of the temple, with the peacefulness located therein. Despite the fact that the young woman had been born and raised beneath the trees of Natura, she had not spent nearly enough time within the temple -- a fact she was beginning to regret as her eerily light green eyes swept along the interior, caressing over every square inch as she tried to commit it to memory.
On that brightening, she was wearing the simplest of outfits -- a loose blouse of white cotton with lacing at the chest and a pair of closely cut brown breeches with her brown riding boots pulled over. She didn't think Venn had ever seen her in anything other than a dress, so her appearance could very well startle him a little, but she hadn't wished to wear any of her finer gowns for fear of possibly intimidating her ex-fiance. She had left her cloak back at the inn -- and had thoroughly regretted it during her walk -- so the young woman spent her first few moments within the temple rubbing at her numb arms to bring some life back to them. Her angular cheeks were flushed with the chill of the season but with something else as well -- knowledge of what she was about to do. Her pale green eyes, unique to only her, her father, and her half-brother Eladrian, shone with a light of their own behind her thick eyelashes as she continued to gaze about her with a sense of quiet appreciation. Her long auburn hair, usually in a neat plait down her back, was on that occasion windswept and tumbling over her shoulders in a wild cascade of red, brown, and gold. In her current state, she hardly looked like
Arwen Larien Gil'dae of the Syl'rosyan Combine... except for the pendant she wore around her neck. A miniature of the Gil'dae crest, shining in silver and gold, rested there at her throat on a chain of white gold. It was the only reminder she had left on her person of her new life.
As a man passed her by, Larien smiled and stepped forward, attempting to catch his attention.
"Vedui... I am looking for Venn Drega. Is he about?"