~`~
I can't meet
Losing sleep over this
No I can't
And now I cannot stop pacing
Give me a few hours
I'll have this all sorted out
If my mind would just stop racing
~`~
"He wouldn't"
"How do you know? I might go to such extremes had anyone done such a thing but you're father has a temper I swear only your mother can calm."
She looks away from her husband.
"And it is not as though he is above killing."
I stand off to the side of the couple, the ring and arrow still clutched in my hand as I ponder these events. How much had I harmed his daughter and yet no arrow came for me...I question it every day. He knows I feel for his wife as well and, if I read all things correctly, some hint of love still exists in her for me. Maybe he chooses his targets based on what he can get away with. Glorfindel wasn't exactly disposable but no one would call for the gallows over his death either. I question it still...
It seems odd to me but I voice nothing, merely watch as the couple discusses what should be done.
"We bury him, tell no one. It will be as if he has simply disappeared from the wrath of the Lords of the elven realms, which is still the official story." Elrond says, matter-of-factly. Celebrían looks uncomfortable but he reaches a hand towards her. "All exposing this would do is put you're father in a position of question which is not what he needs." I ignore the gesture; I hate that he is so close to her. I have no right.
She nods after a moment of looking questioningly into his eyes.
Elrond sighs and leans back. "At least we can sleep with a little more peace, knowing that he is gone."
Neither Celebrían nor I respond. She is shaken by the thought of her father with blood on his hands. I am not. I know full well what the Lord of Lorien is capable of.
~`~
I can be this unsturdy
This cannot be happening
~`~
Blood, pounding in my ears. It's making me nauseous but I can't stop, they're so close, I can almost feel their nails of their toes on the heels of my boots, their breath on the back of my neck. But then the noise of a thousand arrows being let loose comes to my ears, Elrond's not afraid to gamble with my life unlike everyone else. I can see him standing at the head of the archers, his sword drawn, his face grinning. He lusts for the moment of their defeat; it gives him such a high.
He's laughing when he pushes me back into the trench, just before he sheaths his blade and reaches for his own bow. The poor bastard never saw the arrow coming. I wonder if the Peredhil wrote 'flying death' on it like the others. Probably did.
"You keep getting yourself into these situations and sooner or later, one of us is going to wind up dead." The same laugh. I wonder if either of us knew that I would come to love it as much as I do.
"Probably, Peredhil, probably."
I am given a horse and we ride back to the main camp, a short ways from where we are. He's sitting so straight in his saddle, carrying my banner as high and as straight as he can. He's proud to serve under my command but would do so for no one else. He tells me so.
"If you should die, Ereinion, my King, I would take your crown and I would lead your people. For no other would I bear a standard."
I am not happy with this revelation but I say nothing, I just watch him ride on, gripping the banner tightly.
"Would you not carry your ladies crest, bear it upon your chest for all to see?"
He looks back at me and smiles. "I will make a new crest for us and have a house that is ours, not our forefathers. The stars of my King, the light my lady brings." He's laughing again but it is as cold as dusk's air. I know that her love is worthy of his death in his mind but he will never admit it to me. He will never say that he would follow her as he follows me. He would never say that her love was worth my betrayal.
I go to my tent after I leave him with the horses only to find another there. Her cloak is a grey that almost allows her to blend into the shadows. After all these years, I am amazed to find that her sent still makes me knees weak. And as she turns to me, eyes brimming with tears, I feel her heart aching for the man she loves...and I hurt as much as she does.
But she will never know that. Even as I hug her to me, she will never know that I still dream of her and that it warms me in this cold place, these war scarred plains.
"Ereinion...he's searching for the Nazgûl." I frown into her hair. He is an assassin, one of the best I have ever known but he does not know how strong they are. I feel badly that as I hold his wife close to me, I am praying that he finds his target...or that his target finds him.
I kiss her forehead and run my hands over her shoulders. "He will come home to you, to you both. All you need to do...is be there when he calls out for you." Those seemed the hardest words I would ever speak but I say them as sincerely as I can. Though I fear that she knows it, she does nothing to lead me to believe that she does. She simply kisses my cheek and walks from my tent. And I feel colder than I ever have before.
I dine with Elrond that night but his good-natured wit barely registers with me.
"What's wrong Ereinion?" He's staring at me queerly. Should I tell him that I dream of the mother of the woman he loves nightly, he would still bear my standard but I fear he would never speak to me as a friend again.
"Tired." He hands me wine, not what I would need based on what I said but he knows that I am a private person. He senses that I am tired of more than just the fighting.
When he leaves, I sit, alone, and ponder my life. I think of the one who stalks the nine and wonder if he cares of the blood which will be spilled in his pursuit. He does not. I wonder if he cares for the woman who loves him and the child who calls for him in her sleep. Perhaps. I wonder what he would think of his daughter sharing her bed with a half-elven. And I laugh.
When I step from my tent, I see Anar burning the sky and know that I have wasted a night best used for sleep but I am not tired any more. I burn for the flesh of one I cannot have much as I still do.
~`~
This is over my head
But underneath my feet
Cause by tomorrow morning I'll have this thing beat
And everything will be back to the way that it was
I wish that it was just that easy
~`~
I look up from the arrow clutched in my hand and wonder how long I have been leaning against the window as Elrond and Celebrían have already gone. Sighing, I turn and look out the window.
Everyone becomes preoccupied after that. Celebrían with writing to her parents, Elrond with writing to Glorfindel's distant cousins, his only relatives known to the house of Elrond. I, however, seek solace from the seemingly endless array of thoughts assaulting my mind. The libraries of Imladris are filled with tales of many things. The books I seek contain the vast history of Doriath and the elves that dwelt there. One in particular has much of his past written in this volume which I readily take and begin to read in the midday light.
It amazes me that his ruthless nature does not emerge in the youth of his life, rather in the latter. It briefly crosses my mind that it might have been war which tore the gentleness out of him.
His face as drawn thousands of years ago holds a smile, warming even from the pages of a cold book. He stands with his father, proud and tall, a boy.
I look at the date.
A year later from the time this was drawn, he falls in love with a beautiful, golden haired Noldor and angers many when she falls in love with him as well. All the blame for it fell upon his shoulders. They were angry with him for falling in love, for following his heart.
And it becomes clear to me why no arrow has sailed for my chest to pierce my heart.
Thousands would cry for my blood if they only knew what I had done. He sees his own struggle within me. The night he touched her skin was the same night he was beaten until blue by her family. The screamed that he was not allowed to love her, he cried out that Ilúvatar could not hold him back from her.
There's no doubt in my mind that he couldn't either.
Closing the book, I ponder how long he will ignore what goes on simply based on his own previous struggle and I vow not to touch Elrond for as long as I can bear not to.
~*~
I eat alone, still trying to calm my racing thoughts.
'No such luck Ereinion.'
The voice which whispers its disgust in my mind laughs at me as well. I vaguely recall it as the voice of my father. Probably because he'd kill me if he knew the man I'd become, it seems only fitting that his voice would be my conscience.
I glance to the painting hanging upon my wall. I stand over the Dark Lord with my spear raised above his head. Nobody knows that I saw fear in his eyes the instant before I drove Aeglos through his chest. I would never tell. Boasting that your enemy was afraid before you killed him is not something to be proud of.
'Whatever twisted view of love you have for the Peredhil has made you disgustingly sympathetic, Ereinion. You should have announced it to all your people, cried out to them that they made him afraid.'
And my mind becomes numb, as the voice grows silent. It seems funny to me that my father's voice berates me for being a fool for following my heart. Unsettlingly funny.
~`~
Cause I'm waiting for tonight
Been waiting for tomorrow
I'm somewhere in between
What is real
Just a dream
~`~
Time stands still as our eyes lock, my breath hitches to a stop and my spear grates against and pierces his armour. I hated him. I still do. So much so that I wake in the night, thrashing about the covers as I try to throw him to the ground.
He kicks me off of him and I could swear I smelled the desperation in the air around us. He grabs his mace and goes to strike a blow but Aeglos hit just blow where his ribcage should be and he's slowed considerably. I dodge to the side and check him to the ground again. Whether or not I was surprised by the fact that he was bleeding, I cannot say. I stood over him, Aeglos' wood threatening to splinter under my grip.
His eyes were tired, probably mirroring my own at that moment and I see his arms drop to the ground. His mace slips from the seat of his fist.
I wouldn't have cared if he crawled onto his knees and begged for forgiveness, surrendered his army and promised to be thrown into the void with his former master. I plunged Aeglos straight through him, two layers of armour and flesh and bone. I wanted him to hurt from it.
I couldn't retrieve Aeglos until I had Elrond's help sometime later. I have little doubt he didn't suffer from the wound.
But I didn't get the chance to do that just that moment. A stray arrow, probably from an orc who had yet to realise what had happened, struck my back, just below my shoulder blade. The last thing I remember from that moment was looking down and seeing it sticking out from my breastplate, blood pumping out from it in time with the beating of my heart.
Darkness engulfs me and I slip into its arms gladly. I just want to sleep, away from the pain and fighting and fatigue. I just want everything to stop.
~*~
My mind drifts in and out of consciousness but I can vaguely see him take his gloves off as he reaches for my tunic. His eyes are wide, afraid, something I'm not used to seeing in him.
"Don't die on me Ereinion, my King...please." He's pleading to the Valar.
As the last whispers leave his mouth, he bends over my bare chest and places his mouth on the wound just above my nipple. As much as it stings, almost unbearably so, I feel better with his hands on my abdomen and shoulder. A slight sting makes my nerves writhe as I feel a sliver of metal move out from my flesh to greet Elrond's lips. He looks up at me, still gripping my flesh. What I felt looking into his eyes then is what I feel every time I see him now.
He sits back on his heels and spits out the foul splinter, washing his mouth with a harsh alcohol used primarily to numb the senses of elves while they're wounds are tended to in the field. I see him drink some of it after he spits out the first gulp. He's shaking. I'm bleeding. But everything's all right and the comfort of this knowledge floods over the both of us, I feel it.
~`~
Would you catch me if I fall out of what I fell in
Don't be surprised if I collapse down at your feet again
I don't want to run away from this
I know that I just don't need this
~`~
When we came back from that battle, I watched Elrond wed Celebrían and stood in place for his father. I watched them as they gave one another their first kiss as husband and wife while her parents beamed and held one another for a moment.
No one knows that a few years after that, I took him to my bed. I hated myself for it, still do. But when I hold him, I can almost go back to that place where I could have slept forever, in peace. I can almost let go of it all.
The knock on my door seems hollow and far away. Only when Elrond steps through it do I acknowledge him.
"Ereinion...are you well?"
I look up and into his eyes. For some reason, I am not surprised to see that he feels uncomfortable here. He doesn't want to be here...with me.
"Fine, Peredhil, fine."
I make no move towards him or to imply that I wish contact tonight. Neither does he. I do not know if it is because he senses that I do not wish it...or because he has a more important bed partner.
I find myself hoping It is the latter of the two but I cannot say why.
He leaves and I sit back.
The birds outside my window stop singing as dusk's light becomes blinding for a moment, then fades to black.
~*~
I cannot stand still
I can be this unsturdy
This cannot be happening
Cause I'm waiting for tonight
Been waiting for tomorrow
And I'm somewhere in between
What is real
Just a dream
~*~*~*~*~
The song which I used in this is 'Somewhere in Between' by Lifehouse. You guys rock.
At last, a new chappie! All reviews will go to feed the muse!