Disclaimer: Joyous glory! Celestial music rings! Praise your God(s)! I ow-
No. Wait... Oops.
Not mine. Seriously.
Chapter 26: Strangers
Shlunk. Shlunk. Shlunk. The colours jerked and wheeled and faded. Shulunk. Black edged the vibrant swiral as it was swallowed up. An insistent voice echoed sounds too soft to hear as the colours staggered away. He held suspended, again. Covered in the dark. Now it was a void, an empty one of blackness. He dropped and lurched and rattled against his will, pulled this way and that and never touching aught. Shlunk. The Voice, too. It followed.
He was drawn away to a pit of deepest darkness. Inky and viscous, he struggled away from its grasping tendrils. They wrapped around wrists and ankles, closed about his waist and chin. The viscid tentacles clove to his skin, pulling it taut and squeezing him slack. Dark hair clung and was yanked. Struggles faded, and he was immersed in a silky ebony paste.
NANANANANANA
"Erestor! Erestor!" His body jerked as Lindir shook his shoulders. "Erestor! Wake!"
Bleary eyes drifted into focus, but still withdrawn, more than one step removed. He smiled vaguely at Lindir. "Suilad." He glided to his feet. "Are we leaving now?" he continued serenely. "We ought to." He raked a hand through his hair; it caught on snarls as a rain of stones and leaves slipped out. He plucked out rocks imbedded his palms with the same blithe indifference. An odd little half-smile graced his lips as he scooped up a pack and started up the mountain without a second glance.
"Wait! Erestor!" Erestor just wheeled about with another strange smile before continuing. Lindir spat a virulent curse before snatching his own packs and kicking the Man in the side with a sharp admonition to wake. He jogged off after his dreamy friend.
Erestor strolled; there was no other word for it. He hopped gracefully over stones and sauntered up the rising mountain slope like a Mannish noble on holiday. "Erestor...Erestor, what are you doing? Erestor!" Lindir trotted along beside him, hanging on his arm in a vain attempt to slow him down.
"Yes?" His eyes slid to Lindir sidelong, something almost condescending in his air. "That which you wished of me, that I wake and depart, has been fulfilled. What is the trouble, little minstrel?" He spoke in crisp Quenya heavily tainted with Noldorin dialect. Lindir could scarcely pick out the barebones Quenya Erestor had painstakingly pounded into his brain—under his withering assertions of its uselessness. His Quenya had been clean and clear...
The scathing derision it was laden with now was even clearer than his Quenya had ever been.
Lindir's breath caught a little in the back of his throat as he bit back a surging sadness. He was so harsh, so cold, so strange. Like they barely knew one another, as though the millennia had fallen by the wayside. He sounded it, too, and amplified a hundred times.
He released Erestor's arm like hot coals, a small moan fighting his way out his throat as he stumbled back. "Ai! ...No trouble, milord." The words whispered sorrowfully past his lips. "No trouble." They trembled in the cold air.
He stood shellshocked as the cool arrogance retreated from the impassive visage and another joyless smile took its place. "Good." Erestor turned his eyes away and back towards the peaks. "Very good."
Lindir stood stock-still, mouth gaping slightly open as his hair fluttered around him. "What...what did I do?" The breathed sentence was caught up by the wind and spirited away. "Why...?" His eyelids blinked spasmodically and moisture glinted on his lashes. "I..." Lindir winced and nibbled his lower lip. "I..." He jolted forward and trailed forlornly behind.
"Mud! ...Mud! What...on?" The Man jogged up, panting harshly. His olive skin was still dotted with raw burns and his sparse, raggedy hair fell to the middle of his ears at its longest point. His breath grated with each gasp, rough and painful. When he stumbled up to Lindir, he collapsed onto his hands and knees, hacking coughs ripping their way up. Crimson blood dripped out of the corner of his mouth from a vicious bite to the tongue. Single wheezing breaths were eked out during of laborious lulls. Black and red speckled phloem spattered onto the rocks below him, and moisture bloomed in his eyes.
Lindir shoved aside his petty hurt when the Man crumpled beside him. He seemed almost to writhe as he coughed. Agony glinted in his eyes. Lindir stood by helplessly, unable to aid at all. He had almost no healing ability at all. Erestor had been the one to try to help the man before. "Sîdh. Sîdh." He rubbed small circles across the Man's shoulder blades. "Peace, mellon. Breathe. All is right. Breathe."
Sobs caught in the Man's throat before dissolving into coughs. His lungs ached and his throat was a column of searing flame. The wind cut; the air froze; the vultures circled and screeched. "Breathe. Breathe." The words fell breathy 'gainst his ear. "Breathe, mellon. Sîdh." The rock was wind smoothed but hard as any. His knees were bruising where they pressed against it, and blood trickled down his fist as it was clenched, dripping onto already blackening knuckles. "Breathe. Breathe."
The light crunch of Elvish footsteps on loose stone drew Lindir's eyes from the hacking Man. Lindir continued with his comforting caress and stream of reassurances and encouragements as he met the brunet's cool gaze. Erestor's head was tilted slightly to the side and a pale hand perched lightly on his right hip. "Why do you care so for the mortal?" The enquiry was voiced in a garbled mix of Noldorin Quenya and very old Sindarin. Genuine bewilderment rang in his voice this time, and his brow furrowed as he stared in mute question.
Lindir still struggled to garner any meaning from the query. "Care" and "mortal" were pushing the limits of his knowledge. His own halting mixture of Quenya and Sindarin was nearly equally indecipherable. "Because he deserves to be aided." Erestor's eyes narrowed in concentration. "Will you help me?" Between muddled sentences, Lindir kept up his soothing litany. Desperate eyes pleaded with the Noldo he seemed to no longer know, but whom he knew to be the better healer. The coughing was petering out, but it still came out in bursts. The Man's moans of misery yanked on both Elves' heartstrings.
The Noldorin elf cast his eyes to the ground for a moment before drawing a few pinches of disintegrating wood—perhaps bark. "Alalmë parma," the scholar explained as he ground it finer in his fist. His eyes scanned the surroundings for a brief second before he unsheathed a thick knife and tossed it to the ground before him with a deafening clang. Erestor awkwardly unbuckled it with his left hand. He tipped the powder into the sheath, followed by a slosh of water. An alabaster palm sealed the top as it was lightly shaken.
Erestor dipped two fingers in the mixture, rubbing them together in front of eyes before nodding, satisfied. He wiped the thickened liquid on the hem of his tunic. Erestor then turned his gaze on Lindir. With a kind of a helpless gestured towards the still-miserable Man, he brandished his makeshift vial.
Lindir snatched it out of his hand with unmatched zeal, nearly dragging Erestor along with as the Noldo struggled to keep it from slopping over the brim. "Tira!" Lindir took it this time with gentle fingers, suitably chastened by Erestor's mysterious reprimand. Maybe he did still know him...
When the Man's more violent coughs had quelled, Lindir tilted the Man's chin upwards and slipped the tincture down his throat.
Each of the three dwelled hesitantly, unsure of what to do with themselves until the Man's paroxysms returned.
Finally Erestor, one eyebrow cocked once again, spoke.
"Well, that went awfully well."
Translations:
Suilad: Hello
Sîdh: Peace
Alalmë parma: Elm bark
Tira: Watch it!
AN: So it's late. Again. But long! I couldn't find much of anywhere to stop it, so... I'm planning to make the next chapter entirely Erestor's point of view (but let's not count on it.)
I'm not ill anymore, but I'm fast approaching the realm of final exams and projects, so if it is late (again!) that's likely why. Sorry!
Thank you to teapot of transformation and Kai-Aala for reviewing. I really, truly do appreciate it so very much. I'd reply by PM, but I can mostly only log in to post.
Thanks to everyone for reading!