A/N: Another drabble from me, although this one actually includes Tamlen dying and not being revived from the dead xD Hope you like it, review before fave please! :]

It's winter.

The trees are bare and barren, bark stripped on some so that they are forced to withdraw into themselves in fear of freezing. They're likely numb, standing there with thin cover.

Like me. Sadly.

I remember the epic winter tales Ashalle and Marethari would tell us around the campfire as we sat in blankets of snow and animal fur. Human tales on the conquering hero getting his happy ending with the beautiful damsel. The Elven tales on the smart elder getting his love that had sparked hundreds of years before he acted.

Is that how our tale would have spun out had we never run into that cave blindly, cockily and so damn sure? Will our tale end up as epic, if you're still out there?

There's a campfire in front of me, right now. It's nearly the same setting that was here a year before, we were forced to curl up under the same blanket for warmth that our clan was lacking that vicious winter. Only difference is, you're not here.

Teeth gritting, I know I'm at the exact same spot our clan camped in a year before. Zathrian's clan may be camped a mile away, but back then it was just ours. I still see the names we carved into the tree, I can see the image of us crouching down with that carving knife and marking the date.

I wish I'd know back then what we'd go through. Perhaps then I'd have moved quicker, acted out and stopped waiting for you to make the first move.

Snow falls, and I wonder if it's the longest winter I've ever faced purely because it has snowed and sent freezing wind my way more than usual, or if it's because you aren't here with me.

Perhaps I was never meant to be a bride. Creators, I'd only been a bride-to-be for less than a day when we went into that cave. Had we informed Marethari first of the personal developments, maybe you wouldn't have been sent hunting and I to assist Varathorn.

It's winter, and it's as cruel and as cold as the lack of your presence.

Ashalle told me it would get better as I wore on, that before I knew it I'd be back at the clan and the wounds from your death would have healed.

Three days later, and it is still winter. White snow covers the entire forest and, after helping out Zathrian, I can't quite decide if the crushing feeling I'd felt entering the clan camp was disappointment at them having not found a lone elf wandering the area.

Now though, two more things are lying in the snow that hurt me more than that disappointment.

The first are my tears, innocent things that I've hardly ever allowed free before, and only ever in front of you. Twice in pain, three times in sorrow and once in joy. They're mixing with the pure snow, creating little holes that are barely visible in the soft, practically untouched snow in front of me.

The second is the horrible, thin, dark red and coppery smelling blood that covers most of the few yards behind me, a tainted dead body lying there motionless.

A twisted, tainted, bruised and cut body.

Your body.

I can't control my breaths, sharp and short as they are, ragged at times as the sobs overwhelm every time I glance behind me to look at your body. My Dar'Missan lays thrown in the snow next to you, buried somewhat and a painful reminder that it was my hand that struck the killing blow.

Odd, that it strikes me only now that I'd forever been waiting for you to turn up, ever since I left you in the cave at Duncan's insistence. I'd never acknowledged it, the constant watch on the paths to the camp, the jumping whenever I saw an elf that resembled you, the dreams of seeing you when I returned home to the clan. Always waiting for you, even if I knew you were likely dead.

I don't tell them your name when they ask me, for if they know then it makes it even more real that you've gone forever. Your blood is on my clothes, in my hair, on my skin and splashed across my face so thickly that I don't need any more evidence that you're dead. I know it, I have to know it.

The ring in my palm is oddly cold considering you've likely been wearing it until the moment I killed you. Should it not make more sense that it would be warm, or had the taint taken that from you too? I can't slip it on my finger; I can't because it will give me hope again and turn me nothing short of delirious. Which, considering I'd contemplated sitting in the snow and sobbing with your body in my lap, might not be too far from the truth.

It's winter, and the falling snow is starting to cover your body for me, saving me the pain of having to look at your face whilst covering it with the dirt of the earth.

I was wrong; our tale will be even more epic than the ones our elders spun for us.

My dog comes and drops a mouthful of seeds over your body, knowing too well that I cannot and will not do it myself. Life from death. The perfect way to go, knowing your body will be the base for something that can last hundreds of years.

Cold and unbearable, winter takes the best of us well before our time. Others it will harden and roughen up, sharpening their edges and taking away the warmth that fuels them. Crushing them yet making them stronger.

You're my winter, Tamlen, and you've done exactly that with my heart.