Shades of Gray
A/N #1: This is another one of those strange chapters where I can't decide if I love it or don't really like it. I don't know. It was going to be longer, expanding on a conversation after Haldir found out that she was an orc, but I'm near asleep as it is so I just said the heck with it - I'll put it in some other chapter. #5 should be pretty good... -sigh-
lol, I already got the dialogue speech from Valor, who, by the way, missed several of my mistakes (shame on you... and don't bother calling me this time, it bores me too much... j/k) But you have to remember, if you were an orc and in denial about the death of your entire family, would you feel very much like talking to an elf, the first one you've ever met, when he suddenly pops up in front of you? Oh well, you'll see from the events in this chapter that there will be a lot of expansion and conversation from now on... And as for language, I'm taking Jean M. Auel's way out... It's less confusing for people than constant translations and a lot less work for me :). This fic is going to be more fluff than action I fear, though I do have a few tricks up my sleeves... -evil cackle inserted here- And thank you Ula! But maybe you should have read some more before you started swelling my head for me... Chapter 3 was not exactly the best of my literary achievements... (ha! achievements! ha!) But I promise to get better!
Romance? Why, whatever gave you that idea? -eerie music and thunder in the background- (oh yes, and my knees are going to be fine... as soon as I can bend them...)
Chapter 4: Child of Moria
~*~
Erashnak went completely still, holding her breath and taking extreme pains not to squeeze her eyelids and simply let them stay shut as they would normally be. Then she heard, and felt, the subtle movement again. Her eyes flew open, but all she could see for a moment was dark woven fabric, little hints of sunshine glowing between the fibers. Then her eyes focused and she saw an opening in the folds. Shifting her head just slightly she looked through.
The blurry image before her pierced her sleep-clouded mind at once, and she lay frozen again for a moment, then twitched with a muffled yelp of fear. A strange, pallid, calm figure with almost gray blue eyes and pale flaxen hair was standing not ten paces away, a surprised look on his face even as he chuckled at her expression with a mischievous grin that couldn't be helped.
"I was just coming to wake you," he said, lifting an eyebrow.
Haldir had been watching Erashnak for most of the night, only looking away to admire the slender sickle of the new moon or the subtle dance of the stars between the outstretched leaves above them. She wasn't all that interesting as she slept, mostly still save for the necessary movements needed to be sure she wouldn't be overly stiff in the morning. But during the day she had been quite interesting enough to make up for it during the night, the stream of thoughts in his head still raging on just as fiercely by the morning. Which had come some hours ago.
He had let her sleep as long as he could, and was more than surprised when she woke up as soon as he started to walk toward her. She had seemed so deep in sleep that he had thought twice about the dangers of trying to wake her up, imagining the look of horror on her face when she would open her eyes and see him standing so close, and was certain he didn't want to see it, or have her shrink away for the rest of the morning - or longer. But it looked as if things had found a way to mix again.
Once she'd regained herself, remembering Haldir and the events that led up to her being there, the annoyance quickly built up. "You... you..." Erashnak half-breathed, half-hissed, a snort added in for good measure, conjuring up everything she could remember about elves in her weak insult, mingling in every curse she could think of. Then she blinked, realizing that this weak outburst had been the first of its kind in many, many years. She could feel the gates of the emotional dam inside her bow under stain, and immediately shrank away from it. Best don fear and be terrified now - it was much safer, without meaning.
"I didn't understand a word you just said, if you were even speaking to me," Haldir replied with a pleasant smile, though his eyes seemed clouded and his jaw was set, seeming to ignore her annoyed glare. "But if you don't mind, milady, I was thinking that perhaps you should get up before the sun sets again."
She realized, with a start, that she had been speaking orcish. No wonder he seemed so uncomfortable - it had to feel just the same as listening to him speak elvish, and she wondered if he was angry. The expression on his face could have meant many things, and she felt herself huddle backward against her spine reflexively.
Erashnak stared at him for a moment, wide-eyed, before glancing up at the sun. It wasn't anywhere near evening, or even noon. It couldn't even be the ninth hour yet. Fixing a cautiously sour look on her face and setting her own jaw, she turned to glare at him once more only to find herself faced with a sniggering smirk.
"So much for the almighty perfection of the elves," she said, hardly able to stop herself from giving him the satisfaction of a smile. Obviously he had taken it upon himself to decide that their conflicts and their reservations were well done and over with, though she couldn't help but feel that she had given him 'permission.' But all she had to do was conjure in her mind that strange conflict of emotions he had painted on his face to make herself regret the fact. He might seem kind enough, she decided, but his bad side was not a side that she wished to see.
With a triumphant grin the elf stood up and walked over to the opposite tree, where he'd lain his pack. Shaking her head disbelievingly Erashnak uncoiled herself from the blanket and stood up with a stretch. She was still weary to the bone, but a night's sleep had hidden it under an outer layer of rested contentment. At least she would be able to go on for a couple of hours before she started to weave about half-dead again. She must have lost more blood than she thought.
She turned to watch Haldir, and suddenly realized that she felt almost perfectly comfortable in his presence now, even if she did fear to awake his anger. Anyone would have, of course, the elf could be very grim when he wished to be, and that wasn't the point. In her world, a blind world where scent and touch were the basis of all things, he was already known enough to her to be a member of her family. The anxious fear was gone. The caution lingered only because the words 'elf' and 'evil' had been beat together in her head far too many times for her to forget it. That strange difference only remained because she felt like a stranger to his very race. Curse that dratted blanket!
Of course, the only positions that were yet to be filled in her family were sister, husband, son and daughter... grandchildren... And father, now... and mother. And brother too, no doubt... In fact, there was probably an endless list of places now empty in the fabric of what had once been her life.
No! She wouldn't think of that now. Not yet. She needed time, time to sort everything out and decide just what she was going to do now. In a strange new world of trees and light, an elf the only living person she knew. It seemed... utterly hopeless.
Suddenly Haldir was there again, holding out the water skin, and cocking an eyebrow at her lost, bewildered look. She took it, gladly if hesitant, and rinsed out her mouth before taking a drink. Then, as an afterthought, she pored some out in her hand and wiped off the blood on her face as best she could. Handing the skin back at arm's length she noticed that the elf's hand was wrapped in a strip of cloth, and wondered if he really had stayed up all night, but the thought was cut short by her own large yawn.
"I see you haven't come out of such a deep sleep very refreshed," Haldir mused, handing her an apple. "I thought as much. I believe you've lost quite a bit of blood, and I dare say you have broken ribs. At this pace we wouldn't make it to the outpost until tomorrow night. Or the next night," he added when she yawned again.
He received a strange, muffled noise in reply.
Smiling, he continued. "I hadn't realized just how far you've taken us off track. You run fast for as tired as you seem," and at that he received another snort. Not quite sure if this reply was good or not, he made no comment on it. "Now I find that we are very close to a smaller village, and it will only take us a few hours to walk there. Then we can find some willing horse and cut our journey's time in half."
Erashnak only stared, not understanding half of what he had just said, and having a keen notion that it really didn't matter what she thought anyway. Haldir gave her another lopsided grin, looking like a cat who'd just caught a bird, and she shook her head again, taking a bite out of the apple. So much for the terror of the elves as well, she thought, and nearly smiled.
~*~
Such a small camp hardly took a minute to break, and they were walking again before Erashnak had even come fully awake once more. But Haldir seemed even more purposeful than before, taking full advantage of her current energy, and set a rather brisk pace. The orc followed him near abreast, which surprised him, when he had been forced to match her pace the day before, wondering why they had changed directions, but having a very anxious idea that it had something to do with an elven village. But after over an hour of silence, the now alert Erashnak simply couldn't contain herself any longer, remembering all of the questions she had asked herself, and realizing that she was currently walking with the first person she had ever met who had the answers.
Curiosity is a very bold and powerful emotion.
"What is the name of this forest?" she asked, and Haldir blinked at her for a moment, startled that she, Erashnak, had broken the silence yet again.
"It is called Lothlorien," he said once he had regained his wits, "or Lorien, if you rather a shorter name." But he was rather perplexed - he'd never met an elf who needed to be told the name of the Golden Wood before. Of course, they were hardly passed the forest eaves, but still.
"Lothlorien..." she sounded out, and Haldir wondered why he hadn't noticed the peculiar chords of her accent, or how deep and pleasant her voice was. "It's a beautiful name," she added somewhat later, almost hesitantly.
"The name must at least try to express the beauty of the place," said the elf, smiling at her sudden interest in... acting alive.
"I suppose so..." she bit her lip again, obviously thinking.
"Erashnak?"
The orc nearly jumped - it was the first time he had used her name, and hearing it said by an elf seemed even more wrong than the fact that she was talking to one. But he went on none-the-less.
"You do know... you do... do you have an elvish name?" Haldir chose at last, not quite knowing if he was simply asking or staking his hope on a word.
"I am Erashnak," she answered, lifting her shoulders in a slight shrug, half apologizing and half questioning.
"You must have an elvish name," said Haldir, wondering if he was saying that Erashnak couldn't possibly be her real name, or that she needed to find an elvish name to use instead.
Erashnak grew silent and almost grave for a time, and stared ahead of her as if seeing some other place entirely. Haldir glanced at her, becoming nervous of her near-blank expression, wondering if he had offended her. But then she spoke, her voice sounding far away.
"Atalante. Call me Atalante."
"Atalante?" he asked in surprise, then gained a strange, curious note to his voice. "Do you know what that means?" He felt like saying, 'that is not a name,' but simply couldn't. She hadn't spoken the word from among the few elven syllables that were locked within the stores of her memory - even he could tell, the very tone of her words spoke of things not known, half- remembered thoughts long-faded like mortal dreams with the morn.
Erashnak glanced at him with her strange eyes and made another muffled sound in her throat before looking away, and he wondered if she had meant yes or no. But she seemed to be asking for no definition from him, and the elvish 'name' she chose was far better than the orchish name she wore. Who knew, perhaps Atalante really was her name, and it was some faded memory that had led her to say it. And so Erashnak became Atalante to the elvish world she had always feared.
There was a moment when neither spoke, lost within their own thoughts and the quiet sounds of the wood. But Haldir had questions, and he had answers as well, but knew he could never believe the two fit together until she told him out-right. And so he soon took advantage of her seemingly improved outlook on him, which was, to his mind, most likely due to lack of true energy than actual acceptance.
"I must know... You are a very unique person, to speak the truth, and I simply cannot place you among any house that I know of. Tell me, do you remember your folk, and when were you imprisoned? I must know, for when this news has been taken to the Lady, we will then be able to take you back to your people if you wish it. But I simply must know."
Erashnak locked their gazes for a moment, trying to sense what sort of question he was asking her, deciding that she could do no more than state what seemed obvious to her alone, clenching her fists with the common determination to stand or fall with pride.
"You cannot take be back to my kin. There is no house left in which I might dwell, and no folk left to dwell there with me. But I do not know what you mean by 'imprisoned,'" though she had the eerie feeling that she could guess.
"When were you taken by the orcs? When did you become a slave of Moria?" said Haldir after a moment, the thought that she had lost house and family slow to sink into the mind of one who had lost so little of such value.
Erashnak's eyebrows knit, and a frown spread across her features. "I was born there," she said, slowly, as if speaking to someone who was touched in the wits. But her voice was strangely soft as the slow realization that he hadn't known she was an orc sunk into her mind, flowering out into her every sense like a drop of blood in water. "I am a child of Moria."
Haldir suddenly stopped, and she had to walk back several steps to face him again, having nowhere else to go, though staying decidedly out of reach, and seeming nervous enough to shake the very earth. But her last sentence had been spoken so strongly, so confidently, as if she had decided split-second to face some terrible wrath. The elf inclined his head, and looked at her. He looked closely, feeling his own eyebrows knit with the will needed so pause his thoughts of how she simply didn't remember...born to enslaved elves...or a stolen baby...years of torture...and just LOOK.
And what he saw, strangely, did not surprise him. In her strange eyes was the confidence and pride of her words, as well as the fear of them, and some unnamable other thing that seemed to leech her eyes even paler. Pain, he saw, loss, and struggle. But the pain was not all physical, but emotional, a pain of the heart. The loss was not her own loss, the loss of her own gains, but the loss of things that had once defined who she was and why she had bothered to live. The struggle might have been her own, but it was shared, and though often unrewarded, it was not what he would have thought to see. But most of all, what he saw was that her eyes, however elf- like they might seem, were not the eyes of an elf at all.
"You... are an orc," stated Haldir with the hesitation of one who has only begun to witness the dawning of understanding within him. "Moria was your home."
"No," said Erashnak, so soft he could hardly hear her, "Moria was where I, and my family, once lived. It was never my home, and it never shall be. I can't go back, not ever again. That way is barred to me now."
A moment passed, and then another, and then all time bled together to twist a second into an hour and a thousand years into a minute, time flowing and ebbing freely about them as they stood in silence, taking no notice of it at all. And then, just as time seemed to halt and double and slide to an endless sea of Right Now, Haldir smiled.
"I must say, you are the most beautiful orc I have ever met."
Erashnak, not quite sure of what had happened, took a moment to decide whether she should shrink away or laugh at what she knew was a lie. And so she did both.
The elf watched for a moment, a smile still lingering on his lips, until she fell silent once more. Something had changed, they both noticed at once. Something great and powerful had just changed in the vast fabric of life. Erashnak was an orc. Haldir was an elf. But for once in the great turning of the years, these words seemed to matter not a thing, nothing but a lingering memory of an old and crude way of life. This new place knew nothing of orcs or elves, and they smiled at it, wondering why it had seemed like such a big deal such a short time ago, and each knowing in their heart that, outside their newer, wiser world, those old torments still raged. But that was alright for the moment, too.
And so, for the first time in all the long years of this Middle- earth, an elf and an orc were walking side-by-side, a strange and sudden friendship beginning to bind two pieces of one puzzle together with a bond of unfathomable strength, so much stronger than the cruel blade that had driven the rift between them so long ago.
~*~
A/N: *ahem*too many small relatives influencing me*ahem* I love reviews, give me reviews, Then I'll be happy and write more too, For a great big chapter and a sequel - maybe two, Won't you say you will review...
A/N #1: This is another one of those strange chapters where I can't decide if I love it or don't really like it. I don't know. It was going to be longer, expanding on a conversation after Haldir found out that she was an orc, but I'm near asleep as it is so I just said the heck with it - I'll put it in some other chapter. #5 should be pretty good... -sigh-
lol, I already got the dialogue speech from Valor, who, by the way, missed several of my mistakes (shame on you... and don't bother calling me this time, it bores me too much... j/k) But you have to remember, if you were an orc and in denial about the death of your entire family, would you feel very much like talking to an elf, the first one you've ever met, when he suddenly pops up in front of you? Oh well, you'll see from the events in this chapter that there will be a lot of expansion and conversation from now on... And as for language, I'm taking Jean M. Auel's way out... It's less confusing for people than constant translations and a lot less work for me :). This fic is going to be more fluff than action I fear, though I do have a few tricks up my sleeves... -evil cackle inserted here- And thank you Ula! But maybe you should have read some more before you started swelling my head for me... Chapter 3 was not exactly the best of my literary achievements... (ha! achievements! ha!) But I promise to get better!
Romance? Why, whatever gave you that idea? -eerie music and thunder in the background- (oh yes, and my knees are going to be fine... as soon as I can bend them...)
Chapter 4: Child of Moria
~*~
Erashnak went completely still, holding her breath and taking extreme pains not to squeeze her eyelids and simply let them stay shut as they would normally be. Then she heard, and felt, the subtle movement again. Her eyes flew open, but all she could see for a moment was dark woven fabric, little hints of sunshine glowing between the fibers. Then her eyes focused and she saw an opening in the folds. Shifting her head just slightly she looked through.
The blurry image before her pierced her sleep-clouded mind at once, and she lay frozen again for a moment, then twitched with a muffled yelp of fear. A strange, pallid, calm figure with almost gray blue eyes and pale flaxen hair was standing not ten paces away, a surprised look on his face even as he chuckled at her expression with a mischievous grin that couldn't be helped.
"I was just coming to wake you," he said, lifting an eyebrow.
Haldir had been watching Erashnak for most of the night, only looking away to admire the slender sickle of the new moon or the subtle dance of the stars between the outstretched leaves above them. She wasn't all that interesting as she slept, mostly still save for the necessary movements needed to be sure she wouldn't be overly stiff in the morning. But during the day she had been quite interesting enough to make up for it during the night, the stream of thoughts in his head still raging on just as fiercely by the morning. Which had come some hours ago.
He had let her sleep as long as he could, and was more than surprised when she woke up as soon as he started to walk toward her. She had seemed so deep in sleep that he had thought twice about the dangers of trying to wake her up, imagining the look of horror on her face when she would open her eyes and see him standing so close, and was certain he didn't want to see it, or have her shrink away for the rest of the morning - or longer. But it looked as if things had found a way to mix again.
Once she'd regained herself, remembering Haldir and the events that led up to her being there, the annoyance quickly built up. "You... you..." Erashnak half-breathed, half-hissed, a snort added in for good measure, conjuring up everything she could remember about elves in her weak insult, mingling in every curse she could think of. Then she blinked, realizing that this weak outburst had been the first of its kind in many, many years. She could feel the gates of the emotional dam inside her bow under stain, and immediately shrank away from it. Best don fear and be terrified now - it was much safer, without meaning.
"I didn't understand a word you just said, if you were even speaking to me," Haldir replied with a pleasant smile, though his eyes seemed clouded and his jaw was set, seeming to ignore her annoyed glare. "But if you don't mind, milady, I was thinking that perhaps you should get up before the sun sets again."
She realized, with a start, that she had been speaking orcish. No wonder he seemed so uncomfortable - it had to feel just the same as listening to him speak elvish, and she wondered if he was angry. The expression on his face could have meant many things, and she felt herself huddle backward against her spine reflexively.
Erashnak stared at him for a moment, wide-eyed, before glancing up at the sun. It wasn't anywhere near evening, or even noon. It couldn't even be the ninth hour yet. Fixing a cautiously sour look on her face and setting her own jaw, she turned to glare at him once more only to find herself faced with a sniggering smirk.
"So much for the almighty perfection of the elves," she said, hardly able to stop herself from giving him the satisfaction of a smile. Obviously he had taken it upon himself to decide that their conflicts and their reservations were well done and over with, though she couldn't help but feel that she had given him 'permission.' But all she had to do was conjure in her mind that strange conflict of emotions he had painted on his face to make herself regret the fact. He might seem kind enough, she decided, but his bad side was not a side that she wished to see.
With a triumphant grin the elf stood up and walked over to the opposite tree, where he'd lain his pack. Shaking her head disbelievingly Erashnak uncoiled herself from the blanket and stood up with a stretch. She was still weary to the bone, but a night's sleep had hidden it under an outer layer of rested contentment. At least she would be able to go on for a couple of hours before she started to weave about half-dead again. She must have lost more blood than she thought.
She turned to watch Haldir, and suddenly realized that she felt almost perfectly comfortable in his presence now, even if she did fear to awake his anger. Anyone would have, of course, the elf could be very grim when he wished to be, and that wasn't the point. In her world, a blind world where scent and touch were the basis of all things, he was already known enough to her to be a member of her family. The anxious fear was gone. The caution lingered only because the words 'elf' and 'evil' had been beat together in her head far too many times for her to forget it. That strange difference only remained because she felt like a stranger to his very race. Curse that dratted blanket!
Of course, the only positions that were yet to be filled in her family were sister, husband, son and daughter... grandchildren... And father, now... and mother. And brother too, no doubt... In fact, there was probably an endless list of places now empty in the fabric of what had once been her life.
No! She wouldn't think of that now. Not yet. She needed time, time to sort everything out and decide just what she was going to do now. In a strange new world of trees and light, an elf the only living person she knew. It seemed... utterly hopeless.
Suddenly Haldir was there again, holding out the water skin, and cocking an eyebrow at her lost, bewildered look. She took it, gladly if hesitant, and rinsed out her mouth before taking a drink. Then, as an afterthought, she pored some out in her hand and wiped off the blood on her face as best she could. Handing the skin back at arm's length she noticed that the elf's hand was wrapped in a strip of cloth, and wondered if he really had stayed up all night, but the thought was cut short by her own large yawn.
"I see you haven't come out of such a deep sleep very refreshed," Haldir mused, handing her an apple. "I thought as much. I believe you've lost quite a bit of blood, and I dare say you have broken ribs. At this pace we wouldn't make it to the outpost until tomorrow night. Or the next night," he added when she yawned again.
He received a strange, muffled noise in reply.
Smiling, he continued. "I hadn't realized just how far you've taken us off track. You run fast for as tired as you seem," and at that he received another snort. Not quite sure if this reply was good or not, he made no comment on it. "Now I find that we are very close to a smaller village, and it will only take us a few hours to walk there. Then we can find some willing horse and cut our journey's time in half."
Erashnak only stared, not understanding half of what he had just said, and having a keen notion that it really didn't matter what she thought anyway. Haldir gave her another lopsided grin, looking like a cat who'd just caught a bird, and she shook her head again, taking a bite out of the apple. So much for the terror of the elves as well, she thought, and nearly smiled.
~*~
Such a small camp hardly took a minute to break, and they were walking again before Erashnak had even come fully awake once more. But Haldir seemed even more purposeful than before, taking full advantage of her current energy, and set a rather brisk pace. The orc followed him near abreast, which surprised him, when he had been forced to match her pace the day before, wondering why they had changed directions, but having a very anxious idea that it had something to do with an elven village. But after over an hour of silence, the now alert Erashnak simply couldn't contain herself any longer, remembering all of the questions she had asked herself, and realizing that she was currently walking with the first person she had ever met who had the answers.
Curiosity is a very bold and powerful emotion.
"What is the name of this forest?" she asked, and Haldir blinked at her for a moment, startled that she, Erashnak, had broken the silence yet again.
"It is called Lothlorien," he said once he had regained his wits, "or Lorien, if you rather a shorter name." But he was rather perplexed - he'd never met an elf who needed to be told the name of the Golden Wood before. Of course, they were hardly passed the forest eaves, but still.
"Lothlorien..." she sounded out, and Haldir wondered why he hadn't noticed the peculiar chords of her accent, or how deep and pleasant her voice was. "It's a beautiful name," she added somewhat later, almost hesitantly.
"The name must at least try to express the beauty of the place," said the elf, smiling at her sudden interest in... acting alive.
"I suppose so..." she bit her lip again, obviously thinking.
"Erashnak?"
The orc nearly jumped - it was the first time he had used her name, and hearing it said by an elf seemed even more wrong than the fact that she was talking to one. But he went on none-the-less.
"You do know... you do... do you have an elvish name?" Haldir chose at last, not quite knowing if he was simply asking or staking his hope on a word.
"I am Erashnak," she answered, lifting her shoulders in a slight shrug, half apologizing and half questioning.
"You must have an elvish name," said Haldir, wondering if he was saying that Erashnak couldn't possibly be her real name, or that she needed to find an elvish name to use instead.
Erashnak grew silent and almost grave for a time, and stared ahead of her as if seeing some other place entirely. Haldir glanced at her, becoming nervous of her near-blank expression, wondering if he had offended her. But then she spoke, her voice sounding far away.
"Atalante. Call me Atalante."
"Atalante?" he asked in surprise, then gained a strange, curious note to his voice. "Do you know what that means?" He felt like saying, 'that is not a name,' but simply couldn't. She hadn't spoken the word from among the few elven syllables that were locked within the stores of her memory - even he could tell, the very tone of her words spoke of things not known, half- remembered thoughts long-faded like mortal dreams with the morn.
Erashnak glanced at him with her strange eyes and made another muffled sound in her throat before looking away, and he wondered if she had meant yes or no. But she seemed to be asking for no definition from him, and the elvish 'name' she chose was far better than the orchish name she wore. Who knew, perhaps Atalante really was her name, and it was some faded memory that had led her to say it. And so Erashnak became Atalante to the elvish world she had always feared.
There was a moment when neither spoke, lost within their own thoughts and the quiet sounds of the wood. But Haldir had questions, and he had answers as well, but knew he could never believe the two fit together until she told him out-right. And so he soon took advantage of her seemingly improved outlook on him, which was, to his mind, most likely due to lack of true energy than actual acceptance.
"I must know... You are a very unique person, to speak the truth, and I simply cannot place you among any house that I know of. Tell me, do you remember your folk, and when were you imprisoned? I must know, for when this news has been taken to the Lady, we will then be able to take you back to your people if you wish it. But I simply must know."
Erashnak locked their gazes for a moment, trying to sense what sort of question he was asking her, deciding that she could do no more than state what seemed obvious to her alone, clenching her fists with the common determination to stand or fall with pride.
"You cannot take be back to my kin. There is no house left in which I might dwell, and no folk left to dwell there with me. But I do not know what you mean by 'imprisoned,'" though she had the eerie feeling that she could guess.
"When were you taken by the orcs? When did you become a slave of Moria?" said Haldir after a moment, the thought that she had lost house and family slow to sink into the mind of one who had lost so little of such value.
Erashnak's eyebrows knit, and a frown spread across her features. "I was born there," she said, slowly, as if speaking to someone who was touched in the wits. But her voice was strangely soft as the slow realization that he hadn't known she was an orc sunk into her mind, flowering out into her every sense like a drop of blood in water. "I am a child of Moria."
Haldir suddenly stopped, and she had to walk back several steps to face him again, having nowhere else to go, though staying decidedly out of reach, and seeming nervous enough to shake the very earth. But her last sentence had been spoken so strongly, so confidently, as if she had decided split-second to face some terrible wrath. The elf inclined his head, and looked at her. He looked closely, feeling his own eyebrows knit with the will needed so pause his thoughts of how she simply didn't remember...born to enslaved elves...or a stolen baby...years of torture...and just LOOK.
And what he saw, strangely, did not surprise him. In her strange eyes was the confidence and pride of her words, as well as the fear of them, and some unnamable other thing that seemed to leech her eyes even paler. Pain, he saw, loss, and struggle. But the pain was not all physical, but emotional, a pain of the heart. The loss was not her own loss, the loss of her own gains, but the loss of things that had once defined who she was and why she had bothered to live. The struggle might have been her own, but it was shared, and though often unrewarded, it was not what he would have thought to see. But most of all, what he saw was that her eyes, however elf- like they might seem, were not the eyes of an elf at all.
"You... are an orc," stated Haldir with the hesitation of one who has only begun to witness the dawning of understanding within him. "Moria was your home."
"No," said Erashnak, so soft he could hardly hear her, "Moria was where I, and my family, once lived. It was never my home, and it never shall be. I can't go back, not ever again. That way is barred to me now."
A moment passed, and then another, and then all time bled together to twist a second into an hour and a thousand years into a minute, time flowing and ebbing freely about them as they stood in silence, taking no notice of it at all. And then, just as time seemed to halt and double and slide to an endless sea of Right Now, Haldir smiled.
"I must say, you are the most beautiful orc I have ever met."
Erashnak, not quite sure of what had happened, took a moment to decide whether she should shrink away or laugh at what she knew was a lie. And so she did both.
The elf watched for a moment, a smile still lingering on his lips, until she fell silent once more. Something had changed, they both noticed at once. Something great and powerful had just changed in the vast fabric of life. Erashnak was an orc. Haldir was an elf. But for once in the great turning of the years, these words seemed to matter not a thing, nothing but a lingering memory of an old and crude way of life. This new place knew nothing of orcs or elves, and they smiled at it, wondering why it had seemed like such a big deal such a short time ago, and each knowing in their heart that, outside their newer, wiser world, those old torments still raged. But that was alright for the moment, too.
And so, for the first time in all the long years of this Middle- earth, an elf and an orc were walking side-by-side, a strange and sudden friendship beginning to bind two pieces of one puzzle together with a bond of unfathomable strength, so much stronger than the cruel blade that had driven the rift between them so long ago.
~*~
A/N: *ahem*too many small relatives influencing me*ahem* I love reviews, give me reviews, Then I'll be happy and write more too, For a great big chapter and a sequel - maybe two, Won't you say you will review...