Secrets revealed...

Two sets of fingers concealed behind leather gauntleted penetrate between the opening flaps of the Lord Cuthalion's tentsand and then deliberately throw them open. A rain of sunlight assaults the tents contents and against this curtain of white stands the darkened silhouette of a Lordly man. His head takes entrance and it bears the face of Endaerion. He seems to be searching for something.

A soft voice comes from a few steps behind Endaerion. A woman only a few inches shorter than he, clad in the rainment of the healers, tilts her head at the man. "Endaerion," she says. "May I speak with you?"

The Lady Cuthalion has come to seek her husband.

The Lord Cuthalion does not need to turn back to see who speaks. He knows well the voice of his Lady. Yet he moves further into the tent. Couching before a small chest, he opens it and rummages through its contents. "Yes. What is it?" he says with the impatience of distraction.

Stepping in after the man, Zaira walks up behind him and lays a soft hand on his shoulder. "Can I help you?" she asks first, the attentive wife before anything else. "What are you looking for?"

The man pauses as if to sigh, but he does not. "Nothing that cannot wait." he says then as if having considered the situation. He turns and offers full attention to his wife.

Zaira looks at Endaerion for a moment and finds herself unable to speak. It is unlike her to tremble before her Lord. And yet, she's trembling now. A couple of times, she opens her mouth to speak only to close it again, and she seems to be having trouble meeting his gaze.

Definitely unlike her.

The Cold Lord, notorious for being able to dominate most men with but a glare, looks now at his Lady wife head tilted in concern or confusion. "Zaira, what is it?" he asks, a bit more forcefully.

Zaira winces a bit before covering with another unusual response: irritation and anger. "Look, you don't have to snap at me, Endaerion!" she snaps back. "Would it ever occur to you that maybe I'm having a hard time telling you something and that I might be scared or hurt or upset already and that your battlefield manner might not help? I am not one of your men. I am your -wife-! Would it be so hard for you to be a bit more sensitive?"

She exhales long and hard, taking a moment to calm herself down. But once the moment is past... Her eyes suddenly fill with tears and she shakes her head, looking down. "I-- I am sorry, my Lord," she says softly. "This is just very hard for me to say. My heart is broken and the words are elusive."

Unto her torrid maelstrom he merely blinks, an otherwise stoic countenance is all that encounters it. Silence follows, and the Dunedain's eyes attempt to gather from her frustrations what ails her. He takes a step towards her, and slowly his hands come to rest upon her arms.�

"Zaira," he says then, a calming mildness entering his tone, "what is it that distresses you so?"

Zaira's hands lift to rest on Endaerion's chest as he places his hands upon her arms. "I-- I'm sorry," she whispers, still not looking into his eyes. "I didn't mean t--That is.." After a few false starts, she just sort of blurts a few words out. No finesse to their delivery. And likely not the source of her troubles.

"Aunt Laeraelin says we have to stop trying to have a baby."

A cold haze comes into Endaerion's eyes, but perhaps s he doesn't see it. His response does not come immediately, but when it does, suspicious might perceptively tinge it. "Why not?"

And finally, it's with sheer terror that the girl lifts her eyes to Endaerion for the first time since entering the tent.

"I've miscarried," she whispers. "Twice."

Her varigated eyes search his silver, something akin to pleading there. "She says that it is the campaign that is causing them. That the diet is insufficent, the hours too long, and the work too hard to support a pregnancy." Tears are falling down her cheeks is abject misery. "She.. she said that my body is trying to bear children... Our children... But that the campaign is killing them. She says we ought to wait until we return home, until I've had a chance to rest. And then we could try again."

For awhile, Endaerion stares into her eyes, searching for her fear. What is pulled out from them remains unsaid, and he draws in his lips in thoughtful contemplation before at last opening them to speak. His words are hard, yet barely audible above a whisper and there intoned with a deliberate resolve.�

"The water.." he says. "It must be the water. They say the waters that flow from the Ephel Duath bear with them an evil taint. It is some wicked device of the Enemy in our contest for this realm." With firm hands he straightens her shoulders. "Once we are free of these dangers, then there will be children." he speaks with assurance.

Zaira nods, these words cold comfort for a grieving would-be mother. "But our children, Endaerion..." she whispers, her tears in her voice. "Two of them lost before we could ever even -hold- them..."

"Yes." he says, his eyes straying to the floor as he fails to truly comprehend the sense of loss that she so demonstrably feels. "It is unfortunate. But there will be others. They will live." Again he assures her.