I decided, one last time, that I couldn't end it so simply as I did. You deserve more - again. I hope this makes it right. Thank you all. It has been a great trip.

Another time, another place... another her.

Girl meets boy... in the Wilds.

"Well, well, what have we here? Are you a vulture? I wonder...,"

So it had began. A group of petrified boys led by a man whose white/blue eyes were so cold and void of mirth and any trace of any love of life, she shivered to let hers linger, and yet, she knows... this one is the ideal sire for The old one.

Now here they stand: two years, and twelve feet apart; again face to face; and the only cold in the eyes of these two lovers, as they gaze achingly into one another's... is in the breeze between them.

He once more stands before her, his face bathed in blood, and sweat; and yet still beautiful enough to render her legs as stable as sand, and her anger as volatile as a flower blooming; and he gazes upon her as if she is the sun, and he a man just crawling from the coldest, darkest cave - this love is madness.

She trembles as she watches the fearless, relentless, freshly blooded legend before her... cry.

It takes all she has left of her will to not rush to him and drop into his arms forever. She has but one love greater, the one nothing will keep her from, the one who sleeps two steps away; and not even this love that spawned it will keep her from their son. She fixes him with her gaze.

"No further please," she commands, but her pleading voice and eyes betray her heart "one more step, and I leave... for good this time"

"You don't have to run." he insists gently, slowly, respectfully backing away from her.

"I suspect you know what 'this' is?" she says sternly, as her eyes threaten to flow free with tears, " I have gone to great lengths to find, and activate this portal; give me cause, and I use it... and you will not be able to follow."

"Then why have you not used it?"

The hope in his voice almost steals her breath. (Stop this... just turn, and go through.(NO!))

"I remained to see if it was truly you," she answers honestly, her eyes tearing as she squeezes the ring in her closed palm tighter, "I felt you approach... you kept the ring." (damn you Aeden.) "Tell me, why did you come?"

"I was just in the neighborhood, doing a little mythic elven spider killing, and.."

She smiles but closes her eyes, "Foolish man," she sighs, and sniffs back her tears, "Why?"

"What can I say?," he says with a gasp, "Do you not want me to lie? Tell you I can go a day without thinking of you? An hour? That I can look at a hearth, and not see you standing before it? That I sleep? That when I do, upon waking, I do not curse the morning for reminding me you are gone? Well I can't."

She makes to speak, but he goes on.

"I have tried to forget you. Tried to feel anything but emptiness in your absence... and I cannot."

She stands stone-like. Her heart breaking within her; his - before her.

Aeden smiles, "I have not come to drag you back. I don't give a damn about your plans. I just came to say please... show mercy. I have no want of the taste of any breath but what issues from your lips. Yes you called it weakness, yes I said it was not. I know you won't abandon your plans, and I love that you have stayed true to them... but your touch is the last thing I want to feel, your face the last vision I want to behold."

She steps to him, "What are you saying?"

He smiles even broader, "I have come to either live, or end my life in the fashion I wish to; not with my face being fed to a brood-mother many pointless joyless years from now... but seeing your face. I do want to live, but I want no part of a life you are no part of."

"Aeden... I..."

He kisses her lips, gasping as she holds on to him for life, "I want to live," he finally sighs, "I would have not fought my way through the last year; I would not have ventured this far; but by your side is where it ends for me - I care not when nor where."

She trembles, her tears flowing from her eyes unabated. She is trapped by the eyes of this longed for love... by what fools believe (Spirits, Please... help me convince him to go, to walk away; to find a full, long free, happy life... I can't give it to him. PLEASE!... I love him. I never wanted to see it end. But I can't, WON'T watch him... I can't be the cause of his death! Not now, not a decade from now. Aeden! My love, please...)"You cannot know what you ask..."

He is stalwart in his conviction, dropping to his knees before her as if in supplication, or worship: his face serene, his eyes almost tranquil as they gaze unafraid, lovingly into hers, tapping gently at the windows to her soul, "This life is yours, as is this heart; I cared for neither before you." he says smiling.

(DAMN YOU! Empty pockets, fear, cold shadows, colder people, that is all I can offer to you! My love... What LIFE is that?!)She stammers her speech, trying to give her love a chance at a 'life'... without her. "There will be no place to call home..."

"Your arms are the only comfort I want," he sighs as he softly, lovingly kisses her trembling hands. He is at peace with his world, even at it's possible ending... because of her, because of this love.

(CURSED WEAKNESS!(Where is weakness in this man?! He who is your heart?! he who follows his heart - you - unafraid?! As you run back to the shadows;You hide away from the light of this love for fear of suffering its end... creating greater misery by denying the space between this and that moment be filled with him! Where is weakness in love?! ) I... I... Aeden...)

Taking his tear-wet face in her sweating hands as if she were holding their son's tiny face to her lips to kiss away his long slumber from his eyes, She slips into adoration as she all but pointlessly adds, "No wealth..."

He breaks her last wall with his fearless smile; and her despair born, dark shadow arguments fall to the breathtaking light of their love in his eyes as they shine up at hers... these fires lit on that day so long ago; and whispers into the soft, reverent kisses he gives the smooth skin of her warm belly that held their son, "There is no sea deep, or wide enough to fill with diamonds, lyrium, gold... that I would trade for the two gold rings - that are your eyes."

She smiles.

He squeezes her hands gently, as he kneels before her, unashamed, and smiles at her red, smiling eyes, "You were, are, and shall always be - now, and for forever - my life, my heart, my love... be it for a century, an hour, a day... YOU are all I want out of life."

She smiles. It is somewhere in a dream where she sees herself in his arms, the early morning sun wakes their children, and they in turn wake them... a dream - for fools - is that not what they both so willingly are?

He was not always her heart...

"Than come to me my love..." she whispers as he stands before her.

... Once, he was little more than another shiny object to her eyes, a beautiful means to her mother's ends. That was a lifetime ago; before she ever truly felt it beating.

"...we will face the future together." They kiss, and walk together into the glow of the eluvian, and into...

the end.