Welcome to Gaia! ::

Earendil went out with her and made sure that the door was closed after them. He walked in silence for a bit, simply watching the night sky, which was cloudless and filled with stars. He wasn't sure how to begin, what to say, and he found that the more he thought about it, the more his courage failed him, and the more he felt as though he might have been better off not saying anything in the first place.

Why did he always have to be filled with such self-doubt?

"Beautiful night," he ventured finally, not daring to look down at Lin, but instead admiring the stars.

A smile played about the corner of Earendil's lips, but it soon faded. He was thinking about what needed to be said ...

"Lin," he said finally, "I ... I'm afraid I must admit something to you." He looked down at her, and in the moonlight his anxiety was clearly visible. "I am ... a very selfish person, it seems."

At that, Earendil had to smile. He just couldn't help it.

"I have striven for years to keep it to myself," he admitted to her. "A man in my position ... cannot truly afford to show what he is really like. At least ... that is what I have been taught. But it is true. I am a selfish man. Because despite knowing ... so many things ... I there is still one thing that I cannot rest without."

He glanced down at her. "And yet I am a coward," he murmured, more to himself than to her.

"But I am," Earendil smiled sadly, speaking directly to her once more. "If I could find the words ..."

But for all the lessons he had had in speaking with others, nothing had ever prepared him for this, not even years of thinking ahead to it.

If only she knew what he meant, she would only be able to agree with him. But how to say it?

Earendil's heart skipped a beat when Lin took his hand, a gesture considered by many to be quite intimate, at least between adults, in a situation such as this. He felt his face grow warm, and was glad of the darkness of the night.

"Plainly," he murmured. "I shall try."

He took a deep breath again and tried to speak.

"Lin," he said seriously, eyes on the ground in front of him, "I know ... I know that you must return home tomorrow. Just as you always have before. It is your home. Your family is there, your friends. When I was young, I was disappointed to lose a playmate. As I grew older, I missed your company. But for a long time now, I have simply missed you."

He stopped walking and turned to look at her. "I know that you regard me as a friend, almost as a brother. But it has been a long time since I have felt the same way. I have fought to keep it to myself, because I could not take you from your home, your friends, your very world; but the harder I fought against myself, the more I found that I ... I love you ... and though I tried for such a long time to hide it, I cannot any longer."

There was a catch in his voice as he forced himself to continue. "I know ... you must return home tomorrow. And from your previous declarations, I know that you will return, and that someday, you hope to return here to ... well ... to stay. To make this place your home."

He swallowed hard. "When we spoke of this, up on the mountain, you asked me, if I loved a human, would I marry her despite the attitudes of my people. I said that I would, and I was certain then that you knew my heart, that you knew what I was thinking, what I was feeling ... but from your response, I knew that it was not possible. You simply replied that if that was so, then perhaps somewhere, someday, there could be another like me, and that you might perhaps have the chance, a one in a million chance, to find happiness here. Your words ... your words struck at me like a physical blow, and I resolved that if you were clearly uninterested in me then I had no place feeling the way I did about you. But again, the more I tried to fight myself, the more lost I became."

His gaze had gone down to the wet ground beneath their feet, but now he looked back at Lin again. "I know I have no right to ask this of you ... but Lin ... I must. I cannot fight my selfish nature in this, I cannot continue living without an answer. If you seek a one in a million chance to find happiness in this world ... may I dare to ask you ... if you would ... consider perhaps ..."

His face burned hot, but he refused to look away this time. He took a deep, slow breath, and tried to gather his courage one last time.

"Do you think ... that perhaps ... I might have the chance to be your one in a million? For you, Lin Winters, are my only one in all the millions of people in any number of worlds ..."

Earendil nodded slowly. Of everything she had said, the only thing that surprised him was her comment about what she'd said on the mountaintop: that she had said it to encourage him, rather than discourage him ...

He swallowed a lump out of his throat and tried to smile, but it was little more than a quiver before it faded again.

"I understand," he said softly, squeezing her hand gently before releasing it entirely. "I have ... always known that you do not love me. But I could not keep silent any longer."

He bit his lip anxiously and started walking again, slipping his hands into his pockets. "I just don't know how to help myself," he murmured. "Even with Miyuki ... she is also dear to me ... and I know I should not give her the attention that I do ..."

He trailed off and hung his head. "I am sorry, Lin. Again, I have shown my selfishness ... even knowing that Miyuki is no more mine than anyone else's, I have made very little effort to stop treating her as a daughter. And that has only made things more difficult for you."

Earendil nodded and continued on walking. Rather than continue on the subject (which now seemed a bit painful to both of them, he could hear it in her voice), he changed it.

"So how long do you think you'll be at home?" he asked curiously, trying to keep his tone light.