roseandheather wrote:
I've been torn on the "will it go romantic?" angle for months.
On the one hand, if Eloise Pritchart was ever going to fall in love again, with anyone, I'd say it could only ever be Thomas Theisman.
On the other hand, I'm not sure my President is capable of falling in love again, because what she had with Javier was so extraordinary.
But in the end, it really doesn't matter. They have each other, in whatever way they end up having each other, and that's the only important thing. They'll have each other in whatever way they need each other, and as long as she's happy, so am I.
JeffEngel wrote:
Indeed. I don't want to think of Eloise hurting the way she has indefinitely. She deserves to heal and perhaps love again. It diminishes what she had with Javier not an iota. Goodness knows, I'd stay awake at night feeling sick if I thought my loss would leave my wife with a wound only death would ease.
roseandheather wrote:
It's not so much that I think the wound will never heal - although it won't; it will scar, and over time it will ache less, and eventually she won't want to cry every time she thinks his name - but that there are some people out there who can love that way only once in their lives, and I've half a notion that Eloise Pritchart may be one of them. Her grief will abate, over time, and eventually the good memories will win out over the pain, but it may be that she's had her great love and will never want another, because the one that she's already had is one she will always have.
Of course, it could just as possibly be that one day, a few years from now, she'll wake up and realise that she's been slowly falling in love with Thomas Theisman from the moment he took her hand as she fought with the decision to authorise Beatrice, and she'll find her second love in him. Or perhaps even someone else; how many of us guessed when Paul Tankersley died that Honor would wind up falling in love with Hamish and Emily Alexander?
As I've said, I'm square on the fence with this one. But there's one thing I do know - no matter what happens, nothing will ever take away from her the memory of the man she loved - or the way he loved her.
*crawls into bed, pulls covers over head, and cries a lot*
David has done something similar in the Mutineers Moon (AKA the Dahak) series so he might do so again:
Empire From the Ashes, Heirs of Empire, Chapter 1 wrote:Colin nodded at his father-in-law in agreement, but he was watching the Tsiens. Tao-ling seated Amanda with an attentiveness so focused it was almost unconscious . . . and one that might seem odd to those who knew only Star Marshal Tsien's reputation or knew General Amanda Tsien only as the tough-as-nails commandant of Fort Hawter, the Imperial Marines' advanced training base on Birhat. Colin, on the other hand, understood it perfectly, and he was profoundly grateful to see it.
Amanda Tsien feared nothing that lived, but she was also an orphan. She'd been only nine years old when she learned a harsh universe's cruelest weapon could be love . . . and she'd relearned that lesson when Tamman, her first husband, died at Zeta Trianguli Australis. Colin and Jiltanith had watched helplessly as she hid herself in her duties, sealing herself into an armored shell and investing all the emotion she dared risk in Tamman's son. She'd become an automaton, and there'd been nothing even an emperor could do about it, but Tsien Tao-ling had changed that.
Many of the marshal's personnel feared him. That was wise of them, yet something in Amanda had called out to him, despite her defenses, and the man the newsies called "the Juggernaut" had approached her so gently she hadn't even realized he was doing it until it was too late. Until he'd been inside her armor, holding out his hand to offer her the heart few people believed he had . . . and she'd taken it.
