Breath of Midnight
Please read and let me know what you think.

Dreams and Nightmares

I see the sky
I feel the earth
I taste the air
I can breath.

I lie on blankets of grass while the stars watch over me. The moonlight washes away the years leaving me young, and strong, and free.

In my dreams, I was free. I could wander the wide world again, and breathe the fresh air of the woods. In my dreams, the world was as it should be, but when I was awake; not all was so well.

I had spent another long night on the cold dungeon floor. Every night five of us huddled with our heads near the wall to keep the rats away, and every morning we awoke to find that we had failed. This morning a particularly ugly one scurried across my face, and I was jerked out of another pleasant dream. I tried to go back to sleep and return to my interrupted dreams, but the dankness of the cell and the chill in the air prevented me from achieving my goal. The elf that had been sleeping next to me rolled onto his side and began to jokingly shake me.

"Feaestel, Feaestel! Are you asleep, or are you dead?"

"I'm dead"

Ask a foolish question get a foolish answer; this was going to be my new philosophy if Callo did not leave me alone today. I was in another foul mood and I hated it.

Callo stopped shaking me and slapped my back just a little two hard.

"Hmmm dead? Lucky you!"

How was Callo always so happy?

I grunted at him, "You're disgusting. Do you know that?" I then sat myself up against the mossy stone wall.

"Well you don't exactly glimmer like the morning dew yourself."

I smiled at him. We used to play this game often during better times.

"Your right, I radiate more than I glimmer."

"Always have to be the prince of wit don't you?"

I crossed my arms and tried to look as regal as possible.

"I do have my reputation to uphold."

My dark mood was beginning to lift.

Callo always had that effect. He seemed to always be at peace with everything. His deep, almost black eyes never betrayed fear, or doubt. We had all followed him, and we all still trusted him. After all, he was our leader.

I closed my eyes and thought back to just a few months ago. This was not how it was supposed to end.

Maybe this was the dream. Maybe I was back at home in my bed.

Oh, fair Rivendell!

Maybe today those pigs would leave us alone.

"Do you think they'll forget we're here, and go torment someone else today?" I asked. Callo did not respond.

The whole prison had gone still and the air was thick with tension.

I slowly inched closer to the crude iron bars that separated the cells in an attempt to see what was happening. Things had been quiet for several hours now, and I had begun to let myself hope they were done with us. I whispered a quick prayer,

"Please, no more questions. Don't let it be more questions."

I saw the elf in the cell across from me kneeling on the floor. He was holding his sides and wailing in agony, as if his heart were being torn apart.

I turned to see what he was so upset about, and on the other end of the dungeon, I saw two guards dragging someone. A maiden? It was the lady Alfirin!

"Mirimon's Daughter" Callo said to himself as small tear formed in his eye.

"Nooooo, please nooo!" Mirimon's voice became more desperate as the two guards forced her to her knees in front of her father's cell.

"Please, she hasn't done anything!" He pleaded.

One of the guards looked up. He had a hungry look about him, and his unshaved face was curled up into a wicked grin.

The other guard laughed, proudly showing off his lack of teeth, and grabbed hold of the girl's long gold hair.

The hungry looking guard oozed into Alfirin's ear,

"Pretty, oh so very lovely." Then he turned to Mirimon.

"Stop your yelping! We've come here to make a reckoning. Your little escape attempt yesterday cost my brother his life. So in return, were going to take something from you."

The toothless guard smiled even wider, and drool slid from his lips as he spoke.

"You need to lean how expensive it can be to escape."

The toothless guard began pulling the maiden's hair back, stretching and exposing her soft neck. With his other hand he drew and angry looking dagger from it's cold sheath.

The lady Alfirin never cried or faltered. She held the guard's gaze as he slowly drew a thin lie of blood along the width of her neck.

I could not watch this! It had to be stopped! But what could I do?

Stall!

Distract!

I crawled right up to the bars and shouted.

"Nadorhuanrim!"

I had just started something, and I had no idea how I was going to finish it. It was never a particularly good idea to draw attention to ones self while in prison; it always ended badly. However, to a degree, my distraction seemed to be accomplishing its intended goal.

The guards let go of the girl, and turned towards me.

I shouted at them again,

"Lle n'vanima ar' lle atara lanneina!"

This time I definitely had their attention. I thought I heard Callo tell me to silence myself,

But it was already too late.

I shouted again, this time in words I knew they would understand.

"In case it was not clear the first time… I said… you two are a pair of cowardly dogs. You're also ugly, and your mothers dress you funny."

On this last point I stood.

The hungry looking guard came so close to me I could smell the rank on his breath.

I just kept staring into his eyes.

"What do you think are you doing you filthy elf?"

(Good question.)

I felt my blood begin to boil and my usually contained rage spilt over.

"Cowards! She has noting to do with the death of your foolish brother! He pulled his sword out at the wrong time and fell on it. You're just as slow minded as your brother, and you're just too weak to pick on someone who can fight back."

The toothless guard grinned. "Are you volunteering elf?"

"You leave her alone, and I'll pay you what Mirimon owes you."

Hungry barked at Toothy "Take the she-elf back to her cell, I'm going to make a new sort of reckoning"

He then moved his hand to his side, reaching for a key.

"You've made yourself a deal."

As he opened the cell door, I knew I had made a deal with evil itself. Callo tried to stand between him and me but he was too weak, and Hungry flung him up against the wall. Callo slid down to the ground.

Hungry hit me with his right fist on the right side my face. I hit the ground hard and it took me a second to remember where I was. I then felt myself being dragged outside the cell. I tried to get my bearings; I tried to stand back up; but before I could… Wham!… I was hit again. I knew I could not fight back; it would only make things worse for me, and for everyone else. All I could do was hope they would tire of this new sport. After the first ten or so hits, I began to go numb. My head swam and my vision blurred. I thought I heard more guards coming. I thought I heard them laughing and cheering. I smelled burning coal, and I heard the sizzling sound of iron being heated.

"Let's take this poker and gouge out his eye!"

"An eye for an eye! My brother would have been proud!"

I felt myself being forced off the floor and on to my knees.

One of the guards stretched his fingers over my face; he then clawed them into the tops of my eye sockets, and pulled my head back. I couldn't see through the blood, but I felt the heat of the poker nearing my face.

Then everything stopped. The heat, the blows, the noise; everything stopped.

I thought to myself that I must be dead! Even though I knew, I hurt far too much to be so lucky.

Then I heard his voice.

"You foolish drunks! What do you think you are doing?"

It was the Slasher. We did not know his real name, so we called him Slasher because of what he loved to put on our backs with his whip.

"You fools put that elf back in that cell! We need them alive! Dead elves cannot talk, Can they? Why do you think we were ordered not to kill them!

Hungry apologized to his master.

"Yes Sir. Please forgive us Sir."

Toothy exclaimed,

"We weren't going to kill him, just take his eye out for a souvenir!"

"Look at him, he's half dead already! Slasher shouted.

"Oh never mind!" Slasher groaned.

"It doesn't matter any more."

He then reached into his cloak. Frustrated with the whole affair he pulled out an official looking envelope stamped with a blood red seal. The seal featured a claw with three menacing talons. He broke the seal and began to read to himself. When he had finished he looked up.

"Just as I had suspected, it was really only a matter of time."

He carefully placed the letter back into his robes.

"It has been declared by official decree that unless they provide us with the location and identity of their friends and allies by dawn tomorrow, all Elves in the custody of the Red army of Gondor are to be executed. Now Get out of my site!"

I felt myself thrown back onto the dirt floor of my cell, and I heard them all leave.

Callo came over to me and wiped the blood away from my face.

He looked as bad as I felt.

"Feaestel! You crazy kid, don't you ever pull a stunt like that again! Do you hear me? That's an order!"

"You can't call me a kid anymore; I'm over 500 years old"

"And I'm older, so if I say you're a kid, you're a kid."

I looked up at my friend, and for the first time I saw fear in his eyes.

"I don't think you'll have to worry about it after tomorrow."

Slasher had been trying to get information out of us for three months. Lashings after lashings; he knew just how far he could push us, but none of us had told him anything. What would we tell him? As far as we all knew, we were the only ones left. One last army; one last stand to stop the murderers who had killed our families. We did not know anything, and soon it would not matter anymore.

I prayed, as I did every night, that the Valar would protect and watch over us.

I let my then heavy eyelids close, and I felt the sweet release of unconsciousness sweep over me.

I began to dream.

To be continued…