~*~
Faith makes everybody scared
It's the unknown, the don't-know
That
keeps me hanging on
to you I've got nothing left to defend
I cannot pretend that everything makes sense
but does it really matter now
if I do not know how to figure this thing out
-Lifehouse, The Unknown
~*~
Soft sounding piano music drifted through the office, causing it's sole occupant to relax his strained mind ever so slightly.
"Ah, Beethoven, you are a good reason not to enslave and murder the whole of these pitiful little beings…except that your dead…so you don't count…pity…"
Seerin groaned as he leaned his elbows on his desk and massaged his temples. "I know him…I know I know him…but the me that I was knows him which is impossible because the me that I was…never lived in this time and place……Melkor help me."
The former Maia now made exceptional immortal being was currently faced with the same problem most elves were faced with when they were reborn on Aman. He couldn't remember many details like names of important (or so they liked to think of themselves) Elves and Men. Faces he could vaguely recall and that was the problem.
The man he had seen, or so he thought was a man, that he recognized by eyes alone. Eyes, which he supposed, must have belonged to someone he once knew in his former life.
But, for the life of him, Seerin couldn't figure out who the hell it was.
At this moment, Duke tapped lightly on the door of the office and poked his head in. Seerin did nothing but say, "what Duke?"
Duke cleared his throat. "The Post just called asking for an interview concerning the takeover of Ikea and Michael & Grayson."
Seerin looked up at his assistant with his head still in his hands. "Tell them I'm not taking any personal interviews and that Ikea and M&G will stay intact once under my indomitable fist." Finished, Seerin dropped his head with a 'thunk' on the hard oak desk.
"Um, people might not take the 'intact' part of that statement seriously if I leave in the 'indomitable fist' part, sir."
"Fine, change it, just go away." He mumbled in return from beneath the hair that had fallen to cover his face.
Duke, never having to be told twice to leave by his boss, went out immediately.
"I know," thunk, "that I know," thunk, "Him. Damn it." He growled, rubbing his head after beating it into his desk some more.
~*~
Gil-galad, former High King of the Noldor on Middle Earth, kneeled over a dummy's mid-section, learning proper CPR techniques when a sweaty, rumpled looking man in a suit burst into the classroom.
"Thebloodyfriigen'eveilbastar'sbackan'Isaw'imande's'ereandwerealldoomedan-," Celeborn blurted out, his roughneck accent not quite as intimidating.
Gil got up and shoved his friend out the door, firing a quick apology back at his teacher and fellow students.
Bracing his friend with both hands on his shoulders, Ereinion looked at him and asked, "now, slower and proper, what?"
Celeborn breathed and breathed. "I swear to Ilúvatar, I saw him, I saw Sauron."
Gil-galad's grip became iron on Celeborn's shoulders as he seemed to stare right through him.
The look the silver haired elf saw in his friend's eyes made him want to not be near him particularly so much so that he was happy when he let go and went back into the classroom.
Ereinion returned with his Halligan and walked out of the firehall. Celeborn saw the tool and realized what his friend was going to do. Chasing after him, Celeborn caught him by the shoulder and spun him around only to be thrown against the wall by Ereinion's free arm.
"He's at your office then?" He asked coldly, the Halligan's pick pointing threateningly at Celeborn.
Celeborn remained silent for a moment until the arm brought him forward and slammed him against the wall again. "Where is he Celeborn?" The frosty, quiet question was driven home by the empty glare that went with it.
"Think about this, Ereinion, you need more people, we need an arm-gulgh." The last sound that came from the elf was caused by Ereinion tossing him to the side as he ran off.
~*~
The minor course Galadriel was taking on psychology was slightly amusing but pointless to her. At the moment, the disgusting professor was having some very lewd thoughts about her while the woman in front of her fidgeted because she hadn't had a fix in two hours.
Like a violent mountain wind descending into a valley, these despicable thoughts were shoved over by the pain of her lover and the pain and anger of her greatest friend. Such a jolt were these feelings that she doubled over to the side in her desk..
Those about her asked her if she was alright as she quietly got up and left the hall, clutching her stomach from a broken rib and ball of pain and rage that didn't belong to her.
'I didn't know where else to go'
'It's alright love.'
'But I couldn't stop him, he's going there right now.'
'Is Sauron still at your office?'
'I don't know, Ilúvatar, He could kill him.'
'That won't happen. Go and ask one of the nice healers Ereinion told us about that work there to help you, that rib is killing me.'
'Please be careful…'
'Always love.'
~*~
Running through the downtown core when rush hour was just about to begin with a tool as big as the Halligan is rarely enough to startle the average New Yorker. But they did clear a bit of a path when the six-foot-nine, nicely built man ran through wearing an FDNY cadet shirt.
Ereinion cleared his way to Celeborn's intern office faster than he had. Hopping over a couple cars, Ereinion bounded up to the glass doors but stopped.
'I understand that you're mad, that the pain and suffering he caused you through more than just your own death but the deaths of those around you is a pain I can never fully know no matter how I feel it. I understand your anger for what happened that day is something I can never truly calm but you need to know this Ereinion, you are an elf, he is a Maia and in a fight purely against one another, you can never win.'
Ereinion looked at the handle of the door and let his hand drop from it. "Everything he's done, all of the evil in the world I knew, he caused it all. What created him created that which slew my father, what he became tore apart my lands, my people, my family. How everyone I love has suffered because of him. Your family, meldis nin, so close I consider it my own, has known no end of pain…all of this and I could do nothing to stop it…"
The strong and furious speech which he had started with melted into a soft whimpering as he began to cry, sliding down with his palms upon the door.
In that same instant, the New Yorkers crowded about the sidewalk put up their umbrellas as a heavy, smothering rain began to pour. As it did, the crowds slowed as, indeed, did the droplets of rain themselves.
Galadriel looked as though she was stepping through her homeland as she walked up to him from the dim surrounding them.
It may have been that the citizens of New York are generally to involved with their own lives to notice much of anything during the commute or maybe that they were unaccustomed to the blanket of magic that surrounded all the elder creatures. One way or another, nobody took notice of the woman akin to a goddess holding the quivering, rain soaked man.
They walked for a long time, unnoticed by those about them, wandering through the rain, Ereinion looking a bit like the mythological Thor with his Halligan in hand. They spoke softly in each other's minds, Galadriel offering comfort to her friend as best she could with soothing words.
When they came to one building, which they were only able to see in the black, clouded sky when lightening silhouetted it, they looked up and stared for a long time, their brows furrowed.
"Look at it, in the heart of the city, surrounded by a million buildings." Ereinion thought aloud.
"A veritable fortress." Galadriel whispered.
~*~
At the same moment, Seerin, whose forehead was red and sore, sat up, looked about the stood and went to his window. The height at which he stood and the brooding sky overhead afforded no view of what was below but he had no need of vision.
His chest tightened as he laid his palms flat against the freezing glass and clouded it with his struggled breath.
"There you are…" He breathed.
~*~
The tightening sensation in Galadriel's abdomen threatened to make her sick as she laid a hand on Ereinion's shoulder and leaned against him.
"I need to be with Celeborn," she whispered to him.
Ereinion took one last look at the skyscraper before he took his friends arm and began leading her down the sidewalk.
~*~
"You din't whip 'er 'bout to, did ye?" Celeborn growled, sitting next to Galadriel on their bed who looked more pale than usual.
"Hush Celeborn." She said weakly.
Ereinion stood in the doorway, less than pleased with himself and thought quietly.
"I didn't mean to upset you or…him."
"It's alright, meldir, you need rest yourself. Go home."
He left quietly seeing that Celeborn, bandaged rib and all, was stroking her hair and whispering to her quietly.
He stood outside of his apartment, looking into the night which had descended down upon the city, the dark that meandered through it. Ereinion stood there most of the night.
~*~
I remind
myself of somebody else
feeling like I'm chasing
Like I'm
facing myself alone
I've got somebody else's thoughts in my head
I want some of my own
Lifehouse, Somebody else's song
~*~*~*~*~*~
Yay, I updated without waiting for forever, huzzah! Anyway, it's because I'm on break, very helpful to the writing process.
Thank you for all the reviews thus far!
