Burning a light inside, take everything away
I'm back baby! With a new story that will whoop the pants off my old ones. A bit darker\. No such thing as the grey Havens in this story. It was sort of a scam. The elves went so deep into an ancient forrest that none could ever hope to find them.You'll see what I mean as the story goes on. This story does not have any kind of continuation from my old ones either. Time for something new.
Her soul screamed, so loudly, she was sure that others must be able to hear it. But they never did. She drew the blade across her flesh, watching the red line grow further and further down her wrist, and with it, crimson flowering across, to flow down her arm, across the bruises that lay beneath the white flesh. The hunger was getting larger each time, the need for her to draw more of her blood. The wound was parallel to a network of others, identical lines upon her wrist, and more on her other wrist. Never enough to kill, no, she didn't deserve that simple pleasure, but always enough to take the pressure away, as though she simply had too much inside of her, and she had to let some of it out. Someone knocked on the door to the bathroom of the tavern.
"Alimra! Get out here and dance!" came the growl of the tenant of the inn where she danced for money for the medical care her mother needed. She had danced here every night for the last six years of her life, had been beaten and grabbed by customers, abused and raped after the inn had closed for the night, and though for her mother it was justified, she felt her depression grow a little more each day. Her mother would wish to die should she know what she did to keep her well, for the pain killing herb she needed to ease her pain was expensive. She was not beautiful, but her white hair made her unusual. And rarities were novelties in her line of work. She clipped her metal brace over her wound and locked it in place, the gauze veils covering little of her body, but the metal filigree wrist cuffs covered the scars. She took a deep breathe, before going back in to the tavern, and dancing, avoiding the grabbing hands of the grimy men around her. From the back of the tavern, one watched her silently, from beneath a blackened hood.
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She was thin, too thin, with long hair the colour of ash, the white of a puff of cloud. And her eyes as she danced were haunted, violet shards of glass that, as they slid around the room, seemed to shred his soul with a glance at the pain in their depths. She was unique, and the men who clamored around her, pawing at her, loved it. She was not beautiful. But no creature should have to resort to her form of employment. If that's what it could be called. The stranger could not take looking at her one instant longer, and got up, leaving the tavern. He had intervened in situations like this before, and for a mission that required his identity to remain secret, it never did to draw attention to himself in such a way. Thought gone from these shores, as was all his kind, he moved through Middle Earth rapidly, and with the highest secretiveness on his way back to his home. He had led a long life, and now, after an eternity of being sought for one piece of wisdom or another, the eldar were tired of the vulgarity and lewdness of men. They had gone so deep in to the forests that none had ever seen nor heard from the eldar again, save for the occasional disregarded whisper of a maid in a tavern, who had seen a golden lord dressing on her way to bring him fresh towels, or a whisper of a glowing being in the waters of the Nimrodel. He had traveled for days on end, returning from what had been Mirkwood, to his home in Caer Loera with the last of his peoples ancient knowledge. And now, when he was so close to his destination, at a tavern on the outskirts of the forest, he felt his heart, which had been as stone for more centuries than he could count, feeling loyalty, pride, cold calculation and anger, but little else, begin to beat again.
$&$&
She watched the hooded stranger leave, and with nary a second thought passing her mind, continued to dance. Once an expression of joy that even then, weighed heavily upon her, dancing had now become vulgar and dirty to her, and she took no happiness in her turns anymore, and the darkness that came after the dancing had nothing to stay it. She used to love to read too. The tales from the many books she had at home used to fill her head with nonsense, but she welcomed it from the world outside. She prepared to leave for the night. After securing her cloak tightly around her shivering frame, she made her way to her home, in the oppressive darkness. Normally she found sanctuary in the dark, but not this night. She heard foot steps follow behind her, and she quickened her pace. She saw her home on the rise, and ran faster still, her flimsy sandals, so thin she could feel the cold of the ground beneath them, near snapping at the pressure. She threw the door open, slamming it closed behind her. Often she had been followed home. She went to her mothers rooms, desperate to see her and speak to her, something that soothed her after her trying nights. She went in, to find her mother gasping for breathe.
"Mamma, do not struggle. Just relax. I will get some of the herbs for you." She went to the pot on the sill, and was dismayed to find only a few fragments left. She would have to buy more, and she had little money. She heard a voice.
"No my daughter. Come here." She looked around, and approached the bed, her mothers eyes clear for the first time in years. "Mamma?"
"You must not worry yourself so. I will be gone soon. I want not this pain from you."
Alimra shook her head in dismay. Tears filled her eyes. "Mamma, no."
"My darling, you will find your way. It is time to leave me. Let me go Love. Search out your father. He will help you. He lived within the depths of Rivendell, but has since left for another home, the final resting place for the eldar, away from mens eyes. Few know of it. Even fewer have seen it. Find it. He will know you once you speak my name."
Alimra looked on in horror, as she saw her mothers eyes begin to empty of their light.
"Mamma, no! you cannot leave me! Who is he? Why is he not here? Why did he leave you? Why do you leave me? Mamma? Mamma!"
And as the last breathe left her mothers body, the door flew open, and she heard heavy footfall downstairs. Having no time to grieve, she threw herself to the floor, and over to the window, tears streaming down her face, instincts taking the place of any feeling or thought, there was only action and reaction. The steps came closer, as she dropped from the window, twisting her ankle on the harsh ground as she rolled with her fall. She looked up, and saw a dark figure silhouetted at the window. She ran, her sandals snapping off her feet, and her feet cut and grazed on the harsh surfaces. She ran on, oblivious to any pain but the one tearing at her mind, her heart dying with her mother.
She heard the footsteps grow ever closer, and she ran deeper in to the forest, hesitating but once. Branches were too high to offer her any sanctuary above the ground, and she thought she felt eyes watching her progress over the uneven ground. It was her hair that gave her away, leaving a white beacon to any who followed. She ran so deep in to the forest that she knew not which way she had come, nor which way she was going. When she felt she would collapse with exhaustion, she felt a hand grasp her shoulder roughly, and wrench her around, vile stench radiating to near choke her, and the hand that grasped her shoulder slid to pull her closer to the man that had followed her home from the tavern. She tried to push him away, but she felt any strength she had left fading, as she felt a small runnel of blood flow down her hand, her wound open and bleeding underneath the wrist cuff she still wore. His thick tongue shoved its way clumsily in to hers, until she wretched. His hands grabbed at one of her scantily covered breasts, before one left to untie his trousers.
She felt an eerie calm settle over her, as though acknowledging her fate, and she prayed for the end to be swift. She felt his full weight push her down, and then she felt no more.
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She awoke slowly, a light so bright that it threatened to burn her eyes forcing her to cover her eyes. Looking around in wonder, she thought that she must be dead, and she felt her body warily, to find that she no longer wore her dancing garment, but for the wrist cuffs, and a long white robe covered her. Her eyes slowly grew accustomed to the light, and she reached for the key around her neck to undo the cuffs, which had stuck to parts of her wrists with dried blood, when she saw the door open. She threw herself across the room, until she was huddled in the corner, her back as stiff as a rod, her chin high, her eyes hardened, not betraying any semblance of emotion. Parts of her hair had dried blood clinging to it, and it's whiteness looked grey and lifeless compared to the light filtering through the window. The door opened wider, to reveal a figure….