The substantial weight of the man slammed his back to the ground, his forearm like an iron bar pressing down on his throat until he was struggling to breathe, blinking away black spots as he tried to pry it away, but with a shudder he realized that this human was stronger. He yanked out the knife at Curufin's waist, long and curved and deadly, held it up in clenched fist. Curufin felt it then, shuddering along his body, the frisson of fear he had never intended to know as he looked his own death in eyes the color of the sea on fire-
Curufin jolted bolt upright, the covers tangled around his waist, panting. The wind through the window chilled the sweat lingering on his skin, and he stared into the dark, trying to calm himself even if Beren's eyes still blazed in his mind.
A mortal. A mortal woke Curufinwë, made him shake with fear. It was not as though he had never come near to death before, or after, but only this…
Haunted him.
He threw the covers off and stood, rolling his shoulders back and rubbing his aching neck; paced back and forth, agitated in his uncertainty.
It took him several moments to realize that someone was leaning against the door, and then he wheeled around, teeth bared. And stumbled back, the snarl strangled in his throat.
"Something haunting you, Atarinkë?"
"Don't call me that," he snapped, and then hated himself for responding. "—you are not here." He turned his back, continued to pace. A dream, or some trickery…it would vanish. It could do him no harm.
A hand fell on his shoulder and he stilled. "It was your name," and he knew that voice, remembered the music in it as he begged for aid in his mad quest, and the plan had burst like rotten fruit into his mind. "It was your name Finrod uttered last of all. Not his beloved wife. In the end, it was only your betrayal he could think of."
"He made his choice," Curufin snapped, shoulders drawing upward. "It was his decision to go. I made the choice that was right for me-"
"And what did you gain for it?" He could feel the apparition's breath on his neck, and neither of them moved. Curufin said nothing, knowing that there was no other answer. He had lost his son, and any power he'd had before. And gained…
"You smell of fear, Atarinkë. What are you afraid of?"
Curufin shuddered, and did not answer. If I say nothing, it can't do anything to me. Whatever it is. Whatever tool of the Enemy…
A powerful hand closed like a vice around his throat. "You broke him, humiliated him. As I will humiliate you." He could feel their bodies pressed close together. Intimate.
Curufin gagged, and couldn't for the hand around his throat. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe.
"This isn't happening," he said, and behind him he heard Beren, the thing that wasn't Beren, laughing...