Author's Note: Odd Théoden drabble-and-a-half (one hundred fifty words, exactly) inspired by a brief glimpse of The Two Towers on television recently. It festered in my mind all evening afterwards, until it decided to formulate itself almost in completion while I was attempting to fall asleep (as usual).
Dark Have Been My Dreams Of Late
There are, he supposes, tunnels, and this is very like one: a long, dark, smoky existence, bending down towards a pale mote of light. And so he wakes, the old man, no longer so old, and he stares at his hands in the sunlight. They are long hands, more careful than before, and they are ill-used to curling their circles around an ornamented sword-hilt. But they are not withered; no longer dry, brittle branches creaking in the whispers of Eastern winds.
He thinks he remembers this.
He thinks he remembers many things, before the sunlight, unhopeful and unlovely; trees that leer and worlds that crumble and eyes that flame. He thinks he remembers Eastern wind, grasping and soothing from pale, dark-touched lips.
He says, Dark have been my dreams of late, giving his weary, wondering hands to the sunlight, but he is afraid that there were never any dreams.
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