Some resolution of old angst in this chapter-and a nice boatload of a new problem. Enter Orophin, stage Mirkwood.
Happy holidays, whatever you're (not?) celebrating. Enjoy yourself no matter what.
Five days passed, slowly, like the slow pour of treacle from a wooden spoon. Aubrey spent her days in the solitary peace of her talan but quickly came to hate the walls she resided within. She stared up at her bedroom wall, reading and re-reading the message there until her eyes blurred.
Golden are the leaves of Lórien.
That message was meant to be her reclaiming, her mark upon the talan to wipe away the intrusion of the trespasser; it was meant to be the physical representation of her friends' love for her. She could barely look at it, now, without feeling sick.
She paced forwards, letting her feet scuff against the floor. She laid her hand upon the smooth wood, overlaying the handprint Orophin had left behind. The woad stain had seeped deeply into the wood, leaving his presence forever ingrained on her wall. His handprint was larger than her hand and she could see an outline of each of his fingers and the side of his palm around the edge of her skin. His middle finger was positioned slightly to the left of where hers naturally fell; a lighter patch in the woad showed where his palm had been calloused by the grip of a sword. She dug her nails into the wood and breathed out a short, sharp sigh, then pounded the wall with her fist.
"Why?" she demanded, sinking to her feet. She pressed her forehead to the wall—Evan had always done that when things were too much, as if by pressing hard enough the weight of the wall would force everything else out of his head—and felt tears prickle in her eyes. "Why did you have to hurt me? Why didn't you just tell me? I would have gone."
Her heart broke over the entire situation. She was furious with Orophin—understandably, in her opinion—but equally she missed him. She wanted to sit down and sort through all of her tangled feelings but overwhelming every other issue, the mammoth in her mind, was Evan's death. Her breath shuddered and she squeezed her eyes shut.
She recalled with perfect clarity the awful moment of realisation when Evan's life had slipped away in her arms. Her grief made her anger towards Orophin troubling—because if his death, Rúmil's death, could have revived Evan, she would have wielded the sword herself.
It was simply too much to think about.
The dull noise of a fist on wood caught her attention and she looked up. Rúmil stood framed in the door. His expression was flat and hard, so unlike his typical joviality that Aubrey couldn't help but pay attention to him.
"What do you want?" she demanded bluntly.
He snorted, but there was no humour in the sound. "I want a great many things. I want you to stop moping. I want Haldir to do anything other than train, or plan patrols. I . . ." his voice trailed away, then his face hardened and he said firmly, "I want Orophin to come home."
"Stop moping?" she echoed incredulously. "My brother is dead."
"One of my brothers is gone, I know not where. He called my attention to the fact that my other brother will be dead soon as well, thanks to his love for you," Rúmil said flatly.
Aubrey flinched. "I never wanted that," she said defensively. "I didn't ask him to fall in love with me."
"Of course you did not want it," Rúmil assured her, softening slightly. "Yet you have his love nonetheless—will you waste it moping here?"
"I'm not ready," she murmured. "I still haven't sorted my head out."
He gave her a long look that somehow managed to sum up every one of her misgivings, each of the tangled, riotous thoughts that had careened through her head for the past fourteen nights. "It has been two weeks, and you seem no closer to being 'sorted out'. Will your head ever be right, if all you do is stare at a wall, a wall that causes you pain?"
She shivered and looked away from his burning gaze; though his eyes were green where Haldir's were almost silver, the look could have been in the elder ellon's eyes. "I don't know if I can face anyone," she whispered. "They all know that Haldir loves me, and it will kill him."
Rúmil crouched beside her and his hand settled on her shoulder, squeezing lightly. "I love my brother," he told her. "And I think that you do too, even if you do not know it yet." He forced her to meet his eyes and said, "Allow Haldir the dignity of his own choices, Aubrey. He knows what it is to love a mortal woman; he is not a fool. Do not take love from him because of fear."
"I—I don't know . . ."
Rúmil's hand tightened on her shoulder. "You will never feel ready. A wound cannot heal if you pick constantly at the stitching; it must be bandaged and allowed time. Go out there and be with us, your friends. Put everything that hurts aside until it no longer hurts quite so much; only then can you hope to understand what you feel and deal with it."
Aubrey wanted to believe him, wanted so badly to trust in his advice and let him lead her away from her miserable solitude. "Orophin used to give me advice," she muttered. "He smiled at me and comforted me and at the same time he was planning to kill me. How do I know you're not doing the same? You love Haldir too."
He gave her a slightly lopsided smile. "Haldir is half my father," he said. "I have never known another. I suppose I trust his judgement more; he has never led me astray. I trust his choices. And besides—I did share my horse with you."
Rúmil had a way of saying exactly what she needed to hear and making her believe him. A small laugh bubbled through her lips and she bit it off before it could become a sob. She was reminded suddenly of the way she used to help Evan, how she used to find him when he was in his darkest moods and slowly, slowly, draw him back. "I want my brother," she gasped, and pitched forwards into Rúmil's arms.
He pulled her close. "So do I," he whispered into her hair. "So do I."
o0o
The further they walked into Eryn Galen, the more disturbed Orophin became. The shadows beneath the trees seemed to stretch and darken and when he brushed his fingertips against the bark of a tree, the trailing fronds of fern or bracken, he felt the plants shrink from him. His guides exchanged weighted glances from the corners of their eyes that he only just caught, flinching away from the long shadows and whatever stirred within them.
At last, when they came upon an oak tree that should have been proud and spreading even within the depths of winter but was withered and sickly, dark stains crawling up its branches, Orophin stopped.
He pressed a hand to the tree's bark and forced himself to concentrate, shoving aside any thoughts of his brothers, of Aubrey, of what he had done . . .
The tree was almost silent. Darkness greeted his fëa where there should have been the warmth and vivid green of life. Gritting his teeth Orophin allowed the brightness of his fëa to fill the hollow where the spirit of the tree should have been. He recoiled at what he saw. The tree was there, but it was swathed and choked with sliding, viscous darkness so thick that nothing could escape. Orophin felt the tree's agony resonate within him and pulled back sharply, clutching at his temples with his free hand.
The captain of the guard regarded him with something between distrust and hope. "The forest has grown sick," he said steadily. "But we have heard of you, and your skill with plants. Perhaps you can aide where our swords have failed."
"This forest is not sick," Orophin said hopelessly, "it is dying."
o0o
Haldir clenched Curmegil's grip tighter and flexed his arm. He swung the sword in a clean overarm movement and ducked an imaginary counter-strike. His forehead was beaded with sweat and he'd long since discarded his tunic. The training field was entirely deserted; dusk was setting in and all of his wardens were with their families in their telain, or at the dining hall. Haldir curled his lip disparagingly; he had no family to turn to. Gone was Orophin and Rúmil was pulling away from him with every passing day. As for Aubrey—a fortnight since she had woken, and still not a word from her.
He swallowed thickly and Curmegil fell to his side. There was only so much comfort to be found in the repetitive motion of training; he had sweated out as much as he could and what was left, he could battle with no sword.
He sat heavily upon a long bench and wiped his face with his damp tunic. He slid Curmegil into its sheath and set the sword down beside him on the bench. He let his head fall into his hands and sank forwards, resting his elbows on his knees. A shiver ran over his skin; the winter dusk air was cool and now that he had stopped exercising, the slight breeze was cold on his bare chest and back. He shrugged back into his shirt which did little to warm him, sweat-dampened as it was.
Before him, at the far tree line, he heard the unmistakable sounds of undergrowth parting. He looked up sharply and his breath caught in his throat. Two weeks of misery prevented him from calling out to her, but his lips shaped her name regardless—his name for her, the name he had whispered over her sleeping form a thousand times.
Palarran.
His chest was still heaving from the exertion of his training. Memories whirled through his mind—her slumped body against the mirror; holding her seizing body; her bleary eyes upon waking; her screaming at him to go, get out, go away. The agony of being sure that he had lost her.
Aubrey stepped forward into the clearing. Her hands were fisted in the hem of her tunic and she played nervously with the embroidered border. "Hello, Haldir," she murmured. The sound carried on the soft breeze and he breathed in sharply.
He tried to speak again; his mouth was dry. "Palarran," he finally croaked.
His voice seemed to break something in her. Her face crumpled and she sprinted forwards, hurling herself at him and banding her arms tightly around his chest. He did not move, too stunned to do anything but keep himself upright. Aubrey rubbed a soothing hand down his spine. "I'm sorry it took me so long," she whispered. He felt her lips stir against his chest. "I couldn't get my head around—I just couldn't think."
"What changed?" he asked softly, finally bringing his arms up around her. His fingers slipped easily into her soft hair and he felt every muscle relax.
She shrugged. "Rúmil talked to me. Made me see things a different way."
"Then thank the Valar for Rúmil," he smiled. "I missed you, Aubrey."
"Evan is dead," she told him unnecessarily.
He nodded slowly. "I am sorry for it, I truly am."
She was silent for a long moment, before finally she said, "I'm dead as well. Do you think—is there any chance Evan could be here as well?"
He found the possibility too unlikely to entertain, but he could not bear to break her heart. "You can only hope, meleth."
She stiffened and he cursed his word choice—of course she would understand that endearment, and all of the weight it carried with it. "You—" she did not proclaim his love; it hung between them with such presence it was almost physical, there was no point in voicing a truth so evident. "You are going to die," she said instead.
He sighed softly and loosened his hold on her, working his way out of her arms and leading her back to the bench where he pulled her down beside him. Curmegil's hilt pressed, cold and unforgiving, into his thigh. "We will all die, one day," he said practically.
"Is that meant to comfort me?" she demanded, some of her usual fire touching her words.
He supressed a small smile. "Forgive me. I only meant—well, even elves do not always live forever. Our friend Celedan is proof enough of that, no? I would rather meet my death willingly, at the end of a long, long life, having known the love of the woman I adore than on a cold battle field."
"I don't want to be the cause of your death," she whispered.
He squeezed her hand. "You would be gone anyway, you would feel no pain."
"But I would live the rest of my life knowing that my death would bring yours."
He closed his eyes and nodded. "I know. I know, Aubrey, and I'm sorry. But allow me this. Allow me the choice of loving you."
He could not bring himself to open his eyes, so sure was he that she would pull away and leave him alone once more. Instead he was startled by the warm touch of her fingers against his cheek. His eyes blinked open and he turned into her touch until their gazes met. Life and warmth danced in her eyes for the first time in almost a month. "Kiss me," she said.
He grinned.
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