I have remembered music in the dark
Sara Teasdale, Love Songs


It kept him going, that beat that was his heart, but not simply because it pushed blood through his veins. Not simply because it kept him warm in the frozen wasteland that was the Helcaraxë.

The beat, the beat, the steady, pounding beat kept his feet moving, kept hope alive (if music could be found here, where naught but the toughest of creatures roamed..and insane Elves…) and kept Ecthelion walking. His mind found other noises to add to his song; the crack and groan of the ice, the howl and moan of the wind. The songs were wordless, but the cold was too great for any of them to sing for long. It robbed the breath, stole the warmth and, too often, took their lives when the depthless crevasses yawned open at their feet or the ice slipped with a great crack and silently, slipping beneath the waves, the poor souls simply disappeared.

Elenwe, Almáriel, Helyanwë, Meneldur, Tulcaner, Vëantur …. The long list of names was fixed in his mind, the names of those carried away in the dark, stolen by the ice, gone, gone, gone.

It was a madness, but it kept him sane, marching, marching, the beat never stopping, never steady, never forgetting.

Ecthelion chanted it, breath harsh in the cold, puffs of white freezing the song in the air, but it was a song and it kept him going in that long, long dark cold night that lasted how long, how long?

And when the light, the blessed, glowing light arrived, flaming into the dark sky, chasing the darkness from their night, and they stumbled from frozen waste to land rife with flowers and the trumpets sounded, Ecthelion fell to his knees in the grass and laughed, and sang the song in a voice rough and ragged.

Alive, alive, alive!


Thank you so much for reading! Thank you especially to SarahDraven, Cupcake155 and Sian22. Your reviews made the sun glow brighter for me and lightened up what has been some dark days. Thank you so much!