AN: A little note: * is for the memory.
Elen means star in elvish. (I'm not so sure whether it's Sindarin or Quenya)
Chapter 12: Too Late, Too Early
Firiel woke up as she heard a voice calling her in her mind.
*"Mother. I'm scared, mother. It's so cold here"*
She looked around, confused, though fully aware of a person sleeping next to her. She started to call out to the non-existence person in her mind. "Elen. Elen, where are you?" she whispered, as she fumbled her way around in vain attempt to reach her.
Her movement woke Er-Galadh. He heard her whispering, calling out for a star and he could not help but wondered why. But before he could say anything, her whispering changed into hysteria as she tried to break free from him. "Please let Elen go! Are you so depraved? Let her go, I beg you. She cannot survive the mountain."
She turned around to look at him. Her eyes pleaded him. They were filled with deep sorrow and a hopeless wish, as though she had said those words over and over again with little or no use. But it only lasted for a while, for she then stared in confusion, not recognising the person in front of her.
"Firiel?" His word turned into a question, as he was not so sure himself whether it was Firiel in front of him.
Firiel stared at him, but she recognised him this time. "Er-Galadh." She called out as she encircled her arms around him, clinging desperately to reality. He heard her sobs, muffled by his body and felt the tears seeping through his raiment. He stroked her slowly, trying to calm her.
"Do you want to talk about it?" He felt her body stiffened at the mention and he decided to leave it for a while. "You don't have to." He continued soothing her in a routine gesture. Gradually her sobs stopped as she fell once more into a dreamless sleep.
But he could not. He lay awake, unable to put away the memory of what just happened. Who is Elen? He wondered. Elen was obviously a name of a person. Who could it be? There were only two choices. Was she a friend? The other choice he would rather not think about. She could not be her daughter. But the more he thought about it, the more unsure he was of the first option.
The way Firiel had reacted was somewhat exaggerated for merely a friend. His blood burned as he thought the possibility that she had bore a child from *him*. How could one affair become this complex? How could this happen? He had never thought about it and now it hurt him more to realise that the girl…no, woman that he loved was wronged and there was nothing he could do to prevented it.
He stared down at Firiel beneath him and wondered at how changed she was. The Firiel that he knew, the one that he left was so trusting. Slightly naïve perhaps but she was delicate and more innocent. However she was never truly innocent for she had lived with an assumed knowledge that she was the reason for her mother's death and why her father never could love her fully. This much he knew for she had told him. She used to trusted him completely then. The experience changed her.
She grew. He should have expected that much, yet he found himself unable to let go of the past. How much he wished that she would tell him everything that happened to her. He wanted to help her, comfort her and most of all; he wanted her to trust him again. He knew he shouldn't have left. No matter what she said, he still blamed himself for leaving her without any message. Perhaps that was also why she did not trust him anymore. Could he possibly have hurt her that much?
His thoughts left him dry. He thought and thought until he did not have anything left to think about until, at last, he felt the weariness seeping over his conscious mind as he let himself drifted away.
He woke up after a while. His sleep was uneasy, as the horror from the war has not truly left him. He wondered whether it would completely left him at all. Sometimes during his sleep, he could hear the cry of his comrades again. One stayed clear in his mind. It was his brother's death. The way he died haunted him even until this very moment. It was the most brutal way one could kill another. He shivered impulsively as he remembered the scene in his mind. The person that killed him must have little or no feeling at all.
He saw Firiel snuggling close in his embrace. Her breathing was regular but he saw that her eyes were open. Firiel never sleep with her eyes open. It was one thing that she took from her father. He smiled and kissed her hair; her fragrance filled his nostril, clouding his mind. Softly, he heard her sighed. "Why are we doing this, Er-Galadh?"
Er-Galadh looked at her, confused. She was staring at the empty air in front of her; the expression on her face was incomprehensible. "I don't understand…"
"Our relationship," she replied bluntly, "Whom are we trying to fool? It will never work out. You know very well that I am the apprentice of Radagast. To him lay my first and foremost loyalty. And to him I will return when my task finished while you'll remain for your loyalty are to this kingdom."
Now it was him that stared at the cave wall, lost in thought. "Will death be preferable then?" he asked. Silent hung between them, not because they were contemplating but because they knew the answer already. And the truth struck them, creating the silent, which was broken by another question. "Is there anything that can prevent this?"
"Only one Er-Galadh, and you know of it, " she replied and laughed a bitter laugh. "Cruel is our fate. Are we to gain only to lose again?"
"There has to be another way."
"If there is any, I cannot see it right now. Perhaps this relationship was never meant to be. Admit it Er-Galadh, you have changed and so have I. our relationship can never be the same again." her voice was strained and his doubts surfaced again. All his thoughts. Is it too late?
"I know of that Firiel. How many times had my mind told me that we have changed. That this relationship will not work yet my heart bids otherwise. I knew that yet I still play the game."
"Yet this game will end soon."
"All must come to an end. So will this and any other relationship. It is inevitable the moment it began. Should you choose to end it now, I will hold no grudge against you."
Firiel looked up at Er-Galadh's expressionless face. A mask hiding all feelings it contained deep inside. How much she wanted to say that she would stay with him forever, forsaking everything she had. That this relationship should not end now or ever. How much she wanted to say that despite of what had happened she still loved him.
But she kept all her feelings inside for should he know, the truth would kill them, more painful than any weapon could. Her secret was the bone inside the meat, poison inside the honey. She wished that it was never existed. She was too different from him, impure in many ways. Dark secrets were contained within, waiting to surface, destroying everything in its path. He deserved better than her.
She broke away from him. Clutching her staff in her hand, she struggled to stand up. "We better go now. We should be able to reach the other side soon enough." And with that, she left him, walking forward towards the darkness. She embraced it, leaving the light behind, leaving the reality of life.
But the game was not finished.
