Chapter 13: Dreams and Moonlight Hopes
Aubrey slept soundly that night, as if she was millions of miles away from the palace and from the looming threat of orcs. She was dreaming of times long past when she would play in a big, grass field with her mother that used to only be a walk away from her home. She even had memories of her father lifting her up when he came home from work. She longed for those memories, to see his face again. To have his strong arms lift her above his head and give her the bear hugs that every little girl needed when they were that young. His smile would always place the same thing on her face. It almost seemed as though they were reading off each other. Whatever one felt the other felt just the same. She loved those days with her father, even the ones when he would only come in to kiss her good night.
But she also remembered the days which daddy could barely get out of bed and play with her. Mommy couldn't stop from crying some days and for a whole week they wouldn't let Aubrey see her father. Then that one day came, where everyone was wearing black and her mother was crying into the shoulder of their neighbor. Aubrey could not see her father anywhere, not knowing why; she asked others where her daddy was hiding. At that age she only saw it as a game. How could she not, when she was only two years old?
But even after her father's funeral she still swore her daddy came in and kissed her goodnight every once in a while. She would remember him whispering sweet goodnights and little stories in her ear as she fell into sleep. She would tell her mommy, but she would only tell Aubrey that daddy wasn't coming home, no matter how many dreams Aubrey had. She knew they couldn't be dreams. At one time she yelled to her mother that daddy was in her room. Her mother came in and actually looked around the room hoping for something that wasn't there. She just hung her head, told Aubrey to go back to sleep and walked back to her empty room. Aubrey didn't go to sleep that night; she stayed up looking for her daddy.
She remembered something he said during one of his last visits to her, 'If you listen really hard, Aubrey, you can hear the stars and clouds talk to you. They will tell you more stories then I could ever come up with. This is probably the last time you will see me, honey. Remember that I will always love you.'
After that night, he did actually come back one more time to kiss her on the cheek then disappeared. She still remembers the feeling of his lips sweeping over her soft cheek. She knew then that he wasn't coming back to tell any more stories, or to sing to her. He wasn't coming back at all. After years went by, she did see the late night visits from her father as dreams. She also learned the hard lesson of what it meant to die and that her father indeed was never coming home.
Her small two-year-old self sat in dim light in a black room crying into her hands. The ground she stood on in her dream turned black and crumbled beneath her. She fell down a deep hole; aging into the young woman she was now. She dropped into a bed of moss, so comfortable that she never wished to get up from it. She let her hair spread out around her head like an eagle's tail feathers. Her eyes remained closed she did not want to see the next scene before her. She was tired of living in the past, but did not want to move on toward the future.
Then she felt a hand on her cheek, and ever so softly the hand pushed some hair that was still on her face to the side. The bed seemed to sink a little on one side as she felt the other person lean on the edge of the bed. "Aubrey?"
Aubrey squinted her eyes tighter; maybe she was still thinking of Drogo and was dreaming of him. She groaned as the hand started to push on her shoulder, "Aubrey, I need to talk to you."
Aubrey opened her eyes and barely saw the figure of some one in front of her. She jumped up and looked at the figure shrouded in darkness. They leaned into the small bit of light illuminating her bed and she saw Drogo staring back at her.
"Drogo, what are you doing?" Aubrey rubbed her eyes, "You should still be in bed, the moon is still up, and it's not even morning yet."
"I need to talk to you," he repeated and held out his hand to help her up, "I'm sorry I woke you up."
"Well, who needs sleep anyway, right?" Aubrey said with a light chuckle. She took his hand and he pulled her out of her bed. Her hair was everywhere since she let it fall loose when she went to bed. He covered his mouth so he wouldn't be too rude by laughing at her.
She noticed that he was trying to restrain himself from laughing, "What?" She felt her hair and her eyes grew huge. She turned away from him and tried to fix her hair the best she could. She took her brush from the vanity at the side of the room and began to try and tame her hair, "Um, so what did you want to get me up for?"
She walked back over to him and brushed her hair with ferocity hoping that the tangles would retreat very soon. Drogo looked at her; she was in her nightdress, which was light blue in color. She watched as he just stared at her.
"What, is there something else humorous about my middle of the night appearance?"
"No- of course not," Drogo said fast, "Um, are you up for a walk?"
"If I was in proper dress, but even then I wouldn't be so sure about you," she looked at him and noticed that under his light shirt she could see his bandage over the wound.
"Oh, don't be silly. I'll be fine, it's nothing really," he tried to convince her that he would be fine.
"Really? I would think that when a person faints on the road it would be from the humongous gash in their side," Aubrey said crossing her arms over her chest.
"I'll be fine, really," Drogo said placing a hand on her arm.
Aubrey loosened and knew that he had gotten to her. "Alright, we'll take a walk," she grabbed another dress by the edge of the bed and disappeared behind a dressing curtain, "But so help me Drogo. If you get hurt even worse then what you are . . ."
"Then what?"
"Then," Aubrey stepped out of the curtain in another dress, white in color, "Then I will have to hurt you more then that. Then I'll feel guilty and lose even more sleep worrying at your bedside."
She struggled with a bow in the back of the dress, "Here Aubrey." Drogo went behind her and tied the bow in the back.
"Thank you," she whispered, "So where are we going?"
"Anywhere really," he shrugged his shoulders, "This is the first time I snuck out of the hospital room. I don't know where anything is."
Aubrey thought back to Elrond's garden, but then decided that that place may not be the best place. It is beautiful, but it may be too special to Arwen and she didn't want to upset her with an intrusion, "On another thought Drogo, why don't we just step outside on the porch outside my room. It has a beautiful view."
"Alright . . . in other words you don't know where anything is either," he smiled and followed Aubrey out to the porch after she set down the brush deciding that she could do nothing more with her hair.
The porch was pretty big and was half the size of a normal apartment bedroom. It was made of white marble and looked over the whole of Rivendell. Aubrey leaned forward on the railing and looked at the streams and trees. She let out a heavy sigh and closed her eyes. Drogo leaned on the railing backward and looked at Aubrey after glancing at the scenery.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked her.
"Many things . . . my future, my parents, the amulet, these people, all people, my life . . . you."
"Me? What is so important about me?"
Aubrey opened her eyes and looked at him, "I've already told you that you have grown precious to me. Is there that much more to say?"
"There may be . . . what is it in you future that you must think so much about?"
"How do they expect so much of me?" she looked over the scenery, "Me? . . . You have no idea how much I have to live up to. My father is legendary, my mother . . . just the same. The elves see me as going to be a great leader, and I know nothing of how to lead a great civilization as this. I mean, I barely could lead a group of people in my class, let alone a group of people I almost know nothing about."
"Well, I might not know about leading, but you are a great person and it will not take you long to find out that you are great. And I know what it is like to have everyone look at you as though you must live up to the name you have. Like you have to amount to something you can never even phantom. But you . . . you can live up to your name, you already succeeded that in my eyes."
"Yeah, well," she turned to him and squeezed his cheeks lightly, "You're my sweet Drogo. You always think well of others. I don't know if I can convince them as well as I have you."
"You can do anything, Aubrey. You just got to believe."
"Yeah, I know. 'Believe thy self; believe in thy future, and in thy past. All will be brought together,' that is what my mother used to tell me. And I always believed it."
"Do you still believe it?"
"In parts . . . But sometimes I just don't know what to believe anymore," she gave a faint smile and saw Drogo shift himself so that he was standing tall in front of her, "I mean, what if they do accept me? I will take the throne and you and the others will go back to the Shire and live the rest of your lives there. While I'm here, and alone. I would love to go back to the Shire and stay there with you all. To be a part of something, maybe not a full family, but at least I have something there. Here, I'm pretty much on my own. Sure, I will make new friends, but none like you. And then there will defiantly be suitors to take the hand of the Cander maiden. What shall I do when I love another that is so far-" Aubrey's eyes grew huge and turned to Drogo with her hands over her mouth.
He was almost as equally surprised by her outburst, "Yo- you love someone?"
Aubrey threw her eyes to the ground of white marble, "At least I think I do . . . I don't know. It just kind of happened out of nowhere. He was there, I was -well here- and it all kind of fell together. Afraid of what might happen, and what has happened I was so scared that I might get hurt. So I kept it inside, like all of my emotions until the day I could finally let it free. All I can do is wait and see. I know that I'm now babbling and that you probably don't want to hear any of this, Drogo, but you are so easy to talk to and-" she was suddenly cut off by Drogo's lips touching hers in one swift motion. He held her chin up with his left hand and held her back with the right.
She was a little surprised to say the least, but she was- well nothing could explain the feeling inside her. She felt happiness, longing and nothing but ultimate joy radiating within her. She had closed her eyes only a few seconds after he took a hold of her and started to push against his lips. She didn't care about what he thought any more and just let everything go. She let everything release and wrapped her arms around him. Her left arm wound around his back and her right hand went to the side of his face and wrapping around into his hair.
Drogo felt her lips start to press back against his, her arms wrapping around him, and he held her closer. His side was crying out in pain, but he didn't care. The wound didn't matter to him anymore. He just knew that he had done it. He had finally told her - in at least one way- that which was burning inside the back of his mind for the past month.
They both started to loose their air, but only took a few gasps of air before retreating once again to one another's lips. He was a little unfamiliar with kissing, but kept contact with her lips just the same. Aubrey had never really kissed a guy before, let alone Drogo. She had known that Jeremy tried to kiss her before countless times, but she never let it go that far. But this, this was already too far. She was in love and it seemed that almost nothing was too much.
Soon both of them were out of breath and couldn't last very much longer. They pulled away reluctantly with both of their eyes still closed. Drogo's were the first to open and look down at Aubrey. Her eyebrows went up with surprise and she breathed out a, "Wow . . ."
"I'm guessing that you weren't expecting that."
"You can say that," Aubrey breathed a little harder and opened her eyes to look at him, "Least of all from you, Drogo."
"Why? You didn't think I had it in me?"
"No. It's just that, I always thought you liked me as a friend, although there were some red lights flashing that there must have been something more. But I never wanted to believe that you . . . you would like me like that."
"But I don't like you Aubrey," she looked up at him confused, "I thought the kiss would explain that I love you."
The corner of her mouth led into a smile and she hung her arms around Drogo's neck, almost jumping into his arms and fell into his lips.
"Ow," he said against her lips, "Aubrey, my side. Still wounded."
"Sorry," she let go from her tight grasp and just leaned her forehead against his, "And I should tell you that I also love you."
"I kind of figured that," he said with a smirk on his face looking into her eyes telling her that he 'knew all' like he did in their lessons together back at Bag End. She punched him in the side of the arm and smiled back at him.
"Why me?"
"Why not?"
"I don't know, me being human at one point."
"I told you that I don't care about that, Aubrey. All I care about is that you're here and that no one will ever take your place," he tucked her head under his chin, "Promise me something."
"It seemed as though I'm making a lot of those lately."
"Aubrey, I'm serious."
"So am I."
"Promise me that you will stay with me. No matter what, no matter where you go that I will be able to be with you."
"Drogo, what about Rivendell? What about me being a princess."
"I don't care about who you are here or any where. I only care that you are Aubrey, the real Aubrey. The one who loves to stare at clouds all day and then watch the stars at night while whispering to your loved ones. I love the way your hair just finds that right place on your face to make you look so beautiful in the moonlight like tonight. I love the way you feel in my arms. I love you, and only you. I don't care what anyone else may call you or know you as. I love you for only you."
"I can almost say the same things about you," she stepped closer to him making sure she didn't aggravate the wound, "I just love everything about you and everything that you've done for me. I promise that we will be together no matter what."
He placed his arms on her hips, placing his hands on the small of her back and they both swayed together with the wind dancing through the trees and Aubrey's loose hair. Their foreheads touching once again Aubrey tilted her head up to give another kiss and Drogo was happy to accept.
When they walked back into Aubrey's room, he sat next to her on her bed, "So now what, Drogo?"
"Well, you don't have to worry about suitors anymore, do you?" he smiled and looked at the door, "I should get going before the elf nurse makes her rounds to check on me. I'll see you in the morning."
"Drogo," she grabbed his sleeve tugging on it a little, "I love you."
"I love you, too. You know, no matter how much you say it, it never loses its meaning or its magic," he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and left through the door waving goodbye before he disappeared behind it.
Aubrey bit her bottom lip and fell back onto the bed. She didn't care what dress she had on; she didn't care if her hair was still a mess. All she cared about was that he told her that he loved her. He loved her. Drogo Baggins said that he loved her . . . Aubrey Cander. So what if this place was real or fantasy; it didn't matter anymore. She closed her eyes and just tried to keep her thoughts on Drogo. Her heart was so overwhelmed she was finding it quite hard to think of much else.
She placed her hand over her heart as to slow the pounding rhythm, but her hand found itself over the heat of the glowing amulet. She looked at it and then looked around the room, thinking it may be a warning, but she would have felt pain by now.
She took steps toward the great window and looked out at the moon and stars, 'Mom, I knew you always told me to be careful when falling like this. Well, you were right about it. Believing in my past showed me what I have to look out for, believing in myself to make the right choice and believing in my future with him . . . and it all came together. It all came together.'
Aubrey shut the huge porch windows and returned to her bed to go back to sleep, hopefully she could find a way to knock herself out. Maybe the future wouldn't be as bad as she thought it would be. Especially with Drogo by her side.