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To see Lenora here and now was nothing short of a miracle, to be able to listen to her voice again was only a notion she could dream about between nightmares, and to finally feel her touch, her warmth once more... it was all she had ever wanted.

But she did not need it.

It would have been better if she weren’t here now, that she didn’t get to listen to her voice, or feel her pointed ears grazing her skin-far away, far from here, far from this-that would have been better for her.

“I suppose you are quite content with yourself now, aren’t you?” Eshwlyn said, her casualness ringing hollow.

“For as long as you’re here, there is nothing else I could want,” Lenora replied, her eyelids fluttering close in bliss. “And the only thing that will change that is if you go.”

“I see...”

.....

There was a moment of quiet where Eshwlyn found herself unawarely running her fingers through her sister’s hair, and then...

“You do not regret it?” She asked quietly.

Lenora swung open her eyes. “Regret it?”

“Yes,” A pause. “Regret this.”

“This? You mean this? Do you mean looking for you? Wanting to be with the only family I still have left?” Lenora’s gaze turned defiant, staring deep into her eyes, as if already aware of exactly what she had just been thinking. “No. Never. This is what I want. I am not going to be alone. I am not going to lose the only person that has ever loved me for who I truly am.”

Eshwlyn wanted to stop, she did not want to ruin such a tender moment, but her instincts, her worries kept parting open her lips, “I... I understand you, but... Lenora, you should have stayed as you were, you were safe...”

“That’s not what I want, Eshwlyn.”

“But it’s not about what you want, dear sister. I want this too, just as badly, just as much, but here... you aren’t safe here... here, I-”

“I don’t want to be safe,” She cut across from her, her voice a little higher, “I just want to be with you.”

“Again, I understand you,” Eshwlyn said gently. “But Lenora, what you’ve done is neither for my nor for your betterment. There is no gain in this. You should have stayed, you should have kept away, you should have-”

“You’re scolding me...”

“I am not, no,” yet she felt something prickling the tip of her tongue. “Lenora, I’m just telling you. When I had left you then, I did it because I firmly believed that you would be safe after I had gone. And for you to compromise that, it just simply...”

The little Elf shot upright, the entire expression occupied by a tense vacantness. “What are you saying then? What is it? What are you saying I should have done?”

“Lenora...”

“No, tell me,” she insisted, an edge in her voice. “Litufar, Eshwlyn. Fremir notu’pa. What is it? What?”

“Lenora, you know what I mean!” Eshwlyn pleaded. “Just as I understand your intentions, please try and-”

“No, you don’t-you don’t understand me!” Lenora then shouted with a start, clambering up to her feet, her eyes rimming and flashing with bitter tears. “Clearly, you do not understand me at all!”

“Lenora! Stop, Lenora!” Eshwlyn called, but her sister was listening no longer. Violently marching forward, parting and trashing a patch of flowers beneath her feet, no longer caring.

Eshwlyn called out again. “Lenora, see to the reason! See your situation! Do you not know what you’ve done coming here the way you had done?”

“Yes, I do!” Lenora whirled back around, her eyes seething with resentment. “I came to be with you!”

“And I’m telling you that you shouldn’t have!”

“Why?! Why not?!” She challenged. “Because it is not safe? Because I might die? Like I don’t know that! Do you know what it is you are telling me right now? What you are actually asking of me! You speak as if I didn’t have to watch my beloved sister be dragged away from my life trying to protect me! That I didn’t see her bleeding! Nearly dying! Knowing that I can’t do a single thing about it! I just hid and watched! Cried! And you say to forget? You say to just leave you?! Like you wouldn’t have done the same as I have! No, you would have done more! More than I have! Much more! You would have done anything to save me and you know it!”

With a hasty swipe, she tried to wipe away her tears, but it was no use, streaking down her cheeks and into the clutter of grass, they continued to flow.

“But me, this is all I can do! This is the best I am able to accomplish! And you know what-I don’t care! I don’t care if I get tortured for it, I don’t care if it gets me killed! I got to see you, I got to be with you. And in the end that is all that matters!”

“No, your life is what matters!” Eshwlyn retorted, glancing up at her sister’s reproachful eyes. “I did not willingly sacrifice my freedom and potentially my life just for yours to get bound regardless!”

“And what if I say I don’t care about that?!”

“Then you are nothing but selfish!”

“GOOD!” Lenora roared, the tears falling faster than ever. “I am selfish, and you have no one to blame but yourself for making me this way! This is all your fault! Your fault! YOURS!”

Lenora shouted the words with all her might, that her lips trembled, her arms shook, and her voice continued to echo wide and far across the boundless horizon.

“If you didn’t want me to come then you shouldn’t have cared for me! If you wanted me to stay away, why didn’t you do the same then?! Why did you keep holding me in your arms every night?! Why did you treat me like a sister?! Why did you make me think that I was cherished? Why didn’t you try to leave me like our father?! Why didn’t you try to give me away like our mother?!”

Eshwlyn fell completely silent, her ears ringing shrilly with Lenora’s reverberating yells. As much as she wanted, she couldn’t wrench her eyes away from her sister’s expression, the pain, the anger... and the love falling with every teardrop.

“You should have just treated me like everyone else...” Lenora whimpered, her breath giving a hitch, and her hoarse voice succumbing to exhaustion. “What do you think would have happened treating me the way you did? That I wouldn’t grow to care for you? That I wouldn’t have wanted to do anything for you? Caring for me, protecting me all this while... you should have pretended then, you should have just lied! Tell me you hate me! Right now, tell me you don’t care for me all along! Because if you didn’t want me to love you in the first place, then you shouldn’t have loved me at all!”

That was when everything seemed to fade away. A blink, a faltering breath, and Eshwlyn found herself tightly embracing Lenora in her arms once more. She wriggled, she flailed, resisting with the deafening grief still resounding in her voice, “No, let me go! Let go! Stop it! You said it, you told me!”

“Yes, you’re right, and I am deeply sorry, I’m sorry!” Eshwlyn proclaimed, lowering them both onto the soft earth, into a bountiful meadow blooming and swaying a pure white. “I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have said it. This all transpired because of me... because I chose to care for you as I had...”

“Your fault...” Lenora repeated again, bitterly, meaninglessly, losing the strength to put up any more of a struggle. “All your fault...”

“I cultivated this. I see that now...” Eshwlyn continued, clinging even tighter and feeling the hot tears pour over her shoulder. “You’re right. You are right to be as angry as you are, to be furious with me as much as you are now. It’s true, if I wanted you away... then I should have distanced myself from you, that it would have been wiser to care only for myself. I should have hated you. I should have despised you...”

The whimpers of a child, the mewlings of a lonely, terrified little girl continued to resound. Lenora was always so strong, she always had this unfaltering strength... and very rarely did it ever falter, that it was frighteningly easy to forget just how frail, how sensitive she really was within.

“So please... please, Lenora... I implore you, please... find it in yourself to forgive me...” Eshwlyn whispered, feeling the back of her eyes beginning to sting. “For being conceited... for being selfish... for being unable to help myself and choosing instead... to love you with all my heart regardless... for loving you, for caring for you, as my darling little sister, Lenora, I’m sorry... I’m so sorry...”

More tears began to flow. More silence, just silence, broken only by wails and choked breath. The wind blew, and the meadow around them rippled. The silence persisted.

Forgiveness didn’t come easy.

Eshwlyn knew she hardly deserved it. But she also knew that Lenora was kind... perhaps too kind even... for her own good.

Because despite her screams, despite her shouts, rejecting every and all form of affection... like a small child not knowing what to say anymore after a tantrum... Lenora buried herself in her sister’s arms as tightly as she could...

And never once did she let go.