<center> Dawning Sunrise Since the beginning of time, there have been travelers, wanderers.. Those who have no home. But there are also those who have been exiled out of their own will – those who have no wish to return. </center> </center>
Alya wearily blinked against the sudden rush of sunlight. It was past dawn, much later than she should have been awake. Sitting up abruptly, she pushed her hair out of her eyes, suddenly alert, looking around for Ainion. If he had run away she would never forgive him, not this time. If he had left her, she would carry on without him. Yet despite these thoughts she still knew that she needed her brother, needed him badly, for without him she would have no one else left in all the world.
Suddenly, she heard footsteps coming up the hill. She threw her plain cotton shawl about her shoulders and reached for the dagger at her belt. She did not say anything, but only waited tensely, her expression bereft of any kind of fear, wearing only wariness.
Alya recognized the figure coming towards her immediately, and sheathed the dagger with relief. It was him, it was Ainion; she would have known him from a mile off. A tall, slender figure, clothed in worn Imladris garb, his once long hair cut short in the mortal style. He had cut it last month after he declared his wish to die. He no longer wished to be immortal. Alya could not say that she blamed him after all that had happened, but she found his need for death frightening; what if he went and sought it? What if he brought it about himself?
“Ainion!” she went forward and hugged him. “Where were you?” she pulled back to survey his face. He was smiling faintly; she was the only one he smiled at nowadays. He gently pulled her hands from his shoulders to take them in his.
“Calm down. I only went for a walk,” he said. “I needed a walk. I wish you wouldn’t worry so much about me.”
“Can you blame me?” she exclaimed. “You always make me worry about you. We’re about a day off from Lorien, and I’d thought you’d run away. I thought you’d gone.”
He shrugged, and looked away for a moment. But then he looked back, his expression suddenly serious. “You know I’d never leave you. I’m coming with you. I wouldn’t abandon you,” he said.
“So you are coming?” she confirmed.
“I don’t want to. It’s not that I want to leave you, Alya. I just don’t want to go to Lorien, not now.” His grip on her hands grew a little tighter. “Why should we go, anyway? What have those people ever done for us?” his tone was intent.
She paused, the silence uncomfortable. “We belong there,” she said. “It’s our home.”
“It was our home. And we don’t belong there, if we belong anywhere at all,” Ainion said.
The death of their parents lay heavy between them. It had been two years now, two years since they had been killed by goblins in Lothlorien, their place of heritage. What had happened afterward seemed all like a blur now, a confusing blur. The burial ceremony, their departure. Ainion had decided they had to leave. That decision had changed their lives forever. Too much had happened in between their parents’ deaths and how life was now. Alya did not know what to say to put it right.
“We could go back to Imladris,” Ainion suggested. Alya shook her head.
“Ainion, it isn’t our home! We’re going back. And you know that everyone will welcome us back with open arms. How on earth can you blame them for what happened?” she demanded. “Do you blame them still?”
“I do. Our mother and father were completely unarmed, they were alone, they were ambushed, and an attack that should have fallen on the soldiers fell on them.”
“You would trade their loss for the loss of other families?”
“I would. Wouldn’t you?”
Alya drew back from him, frowning with pain. She turned her back on him. A long pause stretched out, and when she finally turned back, Ainion looked drained of strength. “We’re going back,” she said steadily. “We’re going home. And it might just make you well again. You might come to be happy again.”
“Happy?” he gave a short bark of a laugh. She nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “And then maybe you would let me be happy, too. After so long.”
They looked at each other for a few moments, brother and sister, determined to go different ways but somehow stay together. Ainion finally gave in. “Fine. If you are so set on going back. I won’t leave you,” he said bleakly, before sitting down, looking away.
Alya sighed, looking at her brother. She remembered how he used to be. Smiling, happy, laughing. With long hair. He looked like a mortal now, except for his elegant features and the pointed tips of his ears. His wish for death scared her.
They would be in Lorien by tomorrow, they would be home again. And then maybe, finally, life could go on.
~~~
This RP will be set in Lothlorien, in the Third Age of Middle Earth. Alya and Ainion are on the outskirts of Lorien. You don’t need to post bios, you can just jump in with your characters, so we can discover their histories and personalities as we go along! You can post pictures for your charries if you like, and you can have more than one charrie – on the characters list I’m going to put the names of two of my other characters I may or may not use =) Please post with content, and have fun! <center>
~CHARACTERS~ Alya – played by ~Goldleaf~
Ainion – played by ~Goldleaf~
Ellethwen – played by ~Goldleaf~
Arwen Goldleaf – played by ~Goldleaf~ </center>
