Air.
She needed more air, just enough to dull the burning in the lungs that Andromeda felt collapsing every time she demanded her legs to move better, her heart to pump harder, her body to keep on going despite the pain in her feet that made her insides twist and her face cringe, cold panic to sink its claws in the chest she was forcing to fall and rise so quickly and so harshly to make it hard for her to even breath, but if she wanted to, breathing was something she could disregard to gain more speed, if she needed it. And she needed it.
To run faster.
To be quicker.
To flee.
Because, more than breathing, more than soothing the burning in her chest, she needed speed, and space, and time, she needed more of the last one.
Breathing required seconds she could not afford, wasting time she could not allow herself to lose, not if she wanted to survive the hunt.
Because something was hunting her down, and it did not matter how fast she was, or how desperate she became, nothing was ever enough to distance herself from him, from the monster of the beach.
He was always too close.
She always too slow.
The light at the end of the tunnel always too far, too dim for her to bath in it, to keep the darkness at bay.
She could feel the world around her shifting like a black Rubik's cube someone was twisting and shaking to see what had been trapped between its dark edges, crushing between the hard surface what had been able to slip among the slits.
Something that should not have been there.
Something that did not belongthere.
A soundless scream left her lips when Andromeda felt something slipping through her curls, grasping a lock of hair so hard to make her head snap back like a twig someone was slamming against a wall to crush it, a hold from which she tried to break free with a violent shout no one was able to hear when she too began to pull her hair, ripping off some of her curls to resume her breakaway, searching for a shelter in which she could crawl to wait for everything to end.
For the darkness that kept on chasing her to let her be.
For the pain that clung on her form like a dress she could not take off, to let her go.
But it didn't seem to be an end to the fear she could feel, or the tears she could shed, or the horror she had to face, because it was a beast, what was chasing her, making her skin shudder whenever she felt his fingers of smoke brushing against her skin, lulling a panic that Andromeda wasn't able to curb.
Not that time.
Not against the disturbing realization that, until now, who had lulled her mind with kind words and promise of victory, of safety, had not been Kai.
It had never been Kai.
Who else, she did not know, nor Andromeda cared to find out, terrified of what he could make her do if she would have let herself fall prey of his lulling voice, his cold hands, his comforting shadow.
How could not she have seen it before?
Had she been so desperate of contact, any kind of contact, to make herself believe to have Kai with her after all the signs and the proofs that he was too lost to her to go back to her side?
Yes. She had been desperate.
Desperate to have someone close enough to whisper soothing words in her bleeding ears.
Desperate to have someone to call for help when someone was attempting to take her life and freedom.
Desperate to feel something else apart from the fear, pain and bitterness that had been the only things able to make her stand, in the end.
She had been desperate, she still was, but now, now her mind was no more clouded by the heartache that had been shunned like an annoying child when Thorin Oakenshield's cruelty had awakened in her an anger so scourging to burn everything in her path, making her seen between the ashes of her emotions what she had not been able to understand.
To have been fooled. To have been tricked.
To have to flee, now that there was no more reason to stay there, now that the monster she had met on the beach had come back to eat her.
Andromeda did not know how she could be so sure of that, but she could, somehow.
The chilliness in her bone.
The tingling on her skin.
The freezing panic in her heart.
She did not have to turn around to see how red his eyes still were.
She did not have to lower her head to see how the ground at her feet had turned in sticky, dark waters, the same waters in which she had drowned the first time, the waters that were trying again to bring her somewhere else, that time.
Somewhere darker.
Somewhere colder.
Somewhere where she could not escape a second time.
Ducking a spike that would have cut her throat and made her bleed to death, Andromeda felt a rush of relief coming over her when she noticed how the light had become brighter now, how warm the touch of some rays of light were on her freezing skin.
So close.
She was so close.
Another little effort. She didn't need more than that. Just a little more.
Her body was a shaking bundle of unspeakable pain and spine-chilling fear, but it could still move, it could still go a little faster, she could make it go a little faster, she could make it work a little harder, just a little, enough to let her reach the light she could feel grazing gently her trembling eyelids.
She could almost feel it seeping in her cold skin, the warm embrace of the sun, and her nostrils almost flared when the breeze blew in her face a gentle gust of fresh air that would have cleaned her lungs from the dust that was beginning to fill her throat.
Freedom was close, so close that she could feel the hope rushing back in her haunted eyes, making her believe that she could do it that time, that she could save herself, that time, but if there was something she had learned about that world, it was that everything came with a price, that the freedom she had given to Thràin had not been given freely, it had not been gifted to him, but that it had been borrowed, and Andromeda realized from who with a heartbreaking screaming that would have shattered her voice, if she had had one.
When something caught her ankle, making her lose her balance and falling face down in the dirt, all the air she had been able to store in her chest left her lungs when she hit the ground, a pained and voiceless whimper lo leave her lips as her eyes tried to focus on the light she had tried to reach but failed to grasp, in the end.
Light.
Had she really seen it, after all?
Had it really been there before?
Or had she been tricked again?
She didn't know.
She didn't know anything any more.
Tired.
She felt so tired now, and sleepy, and cold, a chilliness her body tried to fight off curling on itself to seek warmth, but there was nothing left, not even in the raging flames that slowly began to weaken when the ground turned as sticky as tar, trapping her like a little butterfly with broken wings unable to fly away.
When her body began to sink, to be swallowed by the dark waters that had finally reached her chin, her nose, Andromeda did not try to rise, to keep her breath, that time.
It was useless.
She would have died anyway. Anyhow. Just as she would have returned any time. Anywhere.
It didn't no matter if she fought or not. The outcome did not change. Her fate did not change.
Her existence kept on being still too dark and too hopeless to let her see the end of it.
She could not escape her curse.
Useless.
Everything was useless.
Let the monster swallow her whole.
Let him kill her.
Let her never wake up.
She didn't wish more than that, than oblivion.
That time, for her, there was no leave or take, no one to leave, nothing to take, there was just her, and Andromeda wanted only for everything to end.
She had fought, she had been strong, and brave, and kind, but it had not been enough.
She kept on losing, on falling, on breaking and fixing before breaking again, again, and again, and again, but now, now she didn't have anything to fix, too little had remained of her soul, and she, she didn't have anything else to lose, not any more.
Her family and her world had been lost long before.
Hope and dreams had left her along the way.
Life had turned its back to her too many times.
So what did it remain to her?
Nothing.
There was nothing left.
Nothing to lose.
Nothing worth fighting for.
Nothing any more.
Relief flowed in her veins, taking her heavy heart between gentle hands when her body began to float, when the tide swallowed her whole, bringing her body in an abyss where Andromeda was relieved to sink.
Maybe, no one would have tried to hurt her, there.
Maybe, she could have become one with the void, losing any chance of feeling again.
Maybe, she could have forgotten her name. Her story.
What still hurt, what would have always hurt.
Leaving her family.
Killing a good man.
Losing a friend.
Giving up her hope. Her dreams.
Remaining alone, in the end, because it would have always hurt too much, and Andromeda knew, deep down, that loneliness would have killed her, in the end.
It was better to forget the people she knew, who she had lost, who she would have kept on longing for.
They would have forgotten her too, at some point.
Kai, once realized how unworthy she had been of his gift, would have left alone.
Her family, once accepted her death and how useless was for them to keep on searching someone who had always been in her little world, would have given up, in the end.
It was better for everyone if she lost her memories, after all.
Her memories were too dangerous anyway.
Sauron would have tried to reach her mind once again to see more of the future she knew.
She would have watched many people die.
She would have remained the only one still standing, the only survivor, and she, she didn't want that.
She didn't want to survive. She just wanted to die.
For everything to end.
The monster could even eat her soul, anything, in exchange for oblivion.
Of silence.
She did not even need light down there. Darkness wasn't so scary, in the end, not when it hid what she didn't want to see, what she had lost and could not regain, not when it could help her to forget, to sleep and never wake up.
She was tired enough to sleep without help, she did not even need her mother's soothing voice to lull her mind, to make her feel safe, and loved. Whole.
But she could keep that, maybe. Just her lullaby. Just her mom's voice.
She didn't need any more than that.
She had never needed more than her.
A smile softened the hard line of her chapped lips when Calisto's gentle voice seeped into the darkness, reaching her tired mind with warm fingertips she imagined slipping through her hair, reaching a face her mother would have caressed with touches so gentle and so light as if she was scared to see her disappear, to be left by her too, but she would have always been with her, if not in body or in soul, at least with her thoughts.
Her love.
Because, as she had read once in a book, love could not perish, it could not vanish, it could survive time and space, it was the only thing that could not die, and her love for Calisto would have remained always the same, no matter how many times she would have died, no matter how many times she would have revived, how many years, century, she would have slept.
Andromeda would have loved her mother forever.
She was the only one she would have never let go, not even for oblivion.
She gave her life. She had made her strong.
They would have always been each other's true love.
- Andromeda.
A frown crumpled her features when Calisto's voice reached the fog that was numbing her senses, but the voice she wanted to ear, the voice she wanted to echo in her mind to lull her sleep should not have been so lost, so broken.
She wanted her mother to be sheltered in her dreams, to have what she had not been able to give her in life.
True happiness.
Peace of mind.
Serenity.
But the voice she felt shaking in the air like the whimpering of a tiny child scared of the darkness, the brittle whisper Andromeda followed with her ears was too pained for her to bear.
Because, if there was something she had never been able to stand, it was her mother's suffering.
Her pain.
Her cries.
And the Calisto of her dreams wasn't simply crying, she was howling for the pain, a hoarse cry so agonizing to make her eyelashes tremble and her pupils moving frantically behind her closed eyelids, but opening her eyes would have meant seeing the beast, a monster that was probably tricking her with the illusion of her mother's voice.
A monster who was toying with her heart to see how much she could have endured it, how long she would have lasted, a trial Andromeda lost just how she had lost any battle she had fought in that world.
Because, when she felt Calisto choking with her own tears, when she heard Calisto's sobbing resounding in the water, pounding in her ears, burning in her chest, not much time spend before her eyes, now open wide, searched for her voice in the darkness, for the deception she was too broken to disregard.
To ignore.
Because, if there was something she would have never ignored, if there was something Andromeda would have never rejected, it would have been her mother, even if it was an illusion, a trick of her mind, a mother she remembered beautiful and fiery, with gold in her hair, the sun in her eyes, and the world's beauty in her face, but the eyes she met with her own had dark clouds to shadow them.
Snow covered now her head, and the face that had sung of beauty seemed to scream a cry of pain that had hollowed her cheeks and emptied her smile.
Tears rolled down on her cheeks, dropping in the water with a loud pop when the sight became too much for her to bear, a torture she could not endure, not even if she knew, deep down, that it was just a cruel game.
A game she, however, didn't want to play, not like that, but when she closed her lids, when she covered her eyes with trembling hands to defend herself from what would have broken her, the agonizing scream Calisto freed broke something inside her, pieces Andromeda let fall in the water while her eyes searched for her mother another time.
Because she had called her.
Her name.
And she could not ignore her.
She could only answer and smile brokenly at her mother's illusion.
- Andromeda?
- Mom.
It seemed so real.
Calisto's quivering voice, the trembling of her lips, the rising hope in her broken gaze.
It was so real that, for a moment, Andromeda let herself believe in it, in the blade of light she saw towering at the back of her mother like an imposing door to another world, a world she knew to have lost along with her mother long ago.
Because it wasn't real. Nothing of that was real.
She was still floating in the void, a broken and lost item that no one would have fished out by the depth, not there, where it was too dark to see, to reach a hand, a hand that the illusion of Calisto, a version older than the one she remembered, tried to lean forward, almost as if she expected to reach her, to touch the broken body forsaken on the pond of dark water.
A touch Andromeda waited patiently, begging for it, even if it was not real, even if it was a trick, but no hand reached her, no fingers trailed through her hair, and when she saw the desperation shattering the light in her mother's eyes, when Calisto's hand rested on an invisible wall, when she shouted for someone to come, to run, something began to twitch in the water, something began to move, the hands Andromeda pressed down to raise on her elbow while familiar faces appeared in the gash of light where her whole family was now reunited.
Older than she remembered, with traces of grey in their hairs, and wrinkles in their face, but with a name upon their lips that they began to shout while their eyes became lucid, their throat tight.
It could not be.
The splashing of water followed the frantic move with which Andromeda sat on her knees, showing her wounded body and the broken state of her limbs, the signs on her throat, the bruises on her wrist, a sight for which Alecta began to cry while clinging to her rounded stomach while the man at her side, people she still failed to recognize, helped her to keep standing while watching her with confused and haunted eyes.
- My princess.
Seoras's broken voice reached her with the force of a slap, a blow Andromeda could no longer consider an illusion, a trick of her mind, because not even her imagination could have been so creative, so cruel.
She would have never imagined an older version of her family, not when thinking about the time she had not shared with them, the memories she had not been able to make with them would have hurt too much, not when thinking of their future would have made her remember that she did not have one.
She would have always remembered them as the last time she had seen them at the custom party.
Young. Happy. With all the life in front of them.
Not like that.
With eyes so pained and voices so broken and bodies so marked by an ache that had eaten them alive.
No. It wasn't an illusion. It wasn't a trick of her mind.
It was too painful to be an illusion, painful like only reality could be, a reality Andromeda still failed to understand, to rationalize, leaving her bare, brittle, confused, but not unable to let the voice of her soul calling the only person for whom she would have always ignored her own pain to keep the other whole.
- Mom?
Thorin Oakenshield did not know how long he kept on staring at the doors, frozen in what could only be described as dread, while the walls of his home began to shake so much that, for a moment, he feared that they would have come down to bury them alive under its pillar of stones.
Yet, even if quiver they did, they stood tall, strong and whole despite the cracks that were tearing it apart as the claws of a beast that kept on sinking them with the hope to bring the mountain down with them, but they had not reached the core, not still, not yet, just as the fear, despite freezing his lungs, had not reached his heart that kept on throbbing, on pumping blood in its veins, just enough to make him move, just enough to make him keep a hold around the hilt of the sword he suddenly pushed against the floor to keep standing, pressing its edge against the ground to give him enough strength to push himself up and follow the shadow who, despite them all, had returned to move, making him almost choking with the knot of despair that filled his throat, burning his tongue, in watching him go.
- Father!
If the harsh quivering of the ground did not bring the mountain down, Dis's cry of pain could have shattered the ceiling, crumpling the earth beneath, but the walls kept on standing while his sister kept on screaming for both of them, shedding tears he could not afford to free, not now, not when he needed his eyes to find his father's form in the darkness where he had just disappeared.
- Uncle!
Kili's terrified call became a disturbing echo when Thorin forced the door to shut behind his back, sealing the entry of the room with his sword, while his hand searched for the daggers between his robes.
The hiss of the blades crackled in the air like the low thundering of a small storm ready to burst when Thorin tried to tear the thick fog that blurred his view, searching in the mist the small shadow his eyes found a little further from where he was.
Thrain was limping forwards without caring for his desperate call, for the darkness of the walls that, little by little, was closing on his form like claws.
Claws the dwarf could feel clinging on his back to make him slow down, the more he advanced in the unknown, forcing his burning legs to push harder, his lungs to breathe faster, his eyes to keep on searching a back he refused to leave.
To let go.
- Andromeda!
His father's anguished scream made his eyes twitch and his lips curl in disdain, because his father should have called his name, he should have searched for him, for his son, his heir, and not for a stranger.
Yet, for every shout he gave screaming his father's name, Thrain answered with a scream of his own, calling a woman instead of his son, throwing his wounded form in of darkness that, in the end, managed to swallow him whole.
A groan left his lips when the air became so thick and heavy to crush his lungs, taking away a breath Thorin failed to find again when he let the darkness crush his form in its hold.
The blade's hisses returned to tear the air, but his limbs were too heavy for him to move around, his body was too weak to let him break free from the web of darkness that was yanking arms and legs with so much force to make his bones crack and his muscles scream in pain.
- Father!
A muffled scream.
Thorin could not do than that, than whispering brokenly for someone who had abandoned him another time, leaving him broken and desperate as he had been, how he still was, deep down.
A broken, lonely soul.
Thorin was no more than that, than a man who had failed in many, many things.
In protecting his family.
In defending his land.
In trying to not fall apart, to keep himself whole.
To be a ruler.
To be a king.
To be a good man.
But Thorin was a ruler without someone to rule over.
He was a king without a throne.
He was a man with wounds too deep and too fresh to make him less bitter, angry and cruel than what he had become.
He had been a good man, once.
Someone able to trust, someone able to believe in something good, someone ready to defend and not to judge.
He had been a kind man, but the losses had made his heart hard and cold as stones.
It had been too much for him to bear, it still was.
Too much to accept.
Too much to live with.
Too much to keep on going.
Because he was tired, he always was, and mad, and angry of trying and failing, of losing and never winning.
He was too tired to keep on going, to keep on fighting.
He was a coward, he had always been, terrified of what he could become, of what madness could make him do.
It was better, for him, to let go, for him to yield, that time.
Kings had to fall, someday, even kings without a throne.
They could still yield, he, could still yield, give up.
Fili would have been a good king, far more better than him. Kinder, stronger. Fairer as he never had been.
He would have kept on falling, just as he was falling now, a heavy piece of stone no one would have been strong enough to prevent on sinking down, too heavy for someone to sustain the weight of his faults, of his flaws.
Going under was something he could not prevent himself not to do, and he was almost relieved to finally let go of his burden, that, when something tried to pull him, when something yanked him towards the surface, an angry growl was what left his lips before his lungs burned down for the air that, suddenly, filled his chest.
- Are you alright?
When the voice pierced his skull, Thorin did not have the strength to find his voice, let alone the will to stand on his own, charging his saviour with all the burden of his weight, while his eyes tried to readjust to his surrounding.
Darkness still cloaked his forms like a veil that kept on fluttering like nervous hands ready to wrap around his throat, choking him and his scream of dread, but there was light, even if feeble and brittle as a dying breath, to illuminate the darkness, a halo of gold his eyes followed like a thirsty man would have followed the sound of flowing water.
But when he met them, when he met the eyes he had tried so hard to evade, to shun, so to spare himself the shame to see what he had become, it wasn't horror, what he found.
It wasn't scorn, or resentment, or loathing, but concern, the same concern that filled her voice when the woman he had been ready to throw away, to leave to her fate, let her body follow his own to the ground when standing became unbearable for the both of them, for the King Under the Mountain who was still too broken, too lost to be able to refound himself, and for the young woman who was clinging to herself the battered body of the dwarf, keeping, at the same time close to her side, the one Thorin Oakenshiled was trying to find.
Fretting like the nervous wings of a terrified bird, Andromeda's eyes tried to see what the abyss had done to him, how much damage it had inflicted to the dwarf, but despite the pallor of his face and the pain in his eyes, he was still whole, unlike her.
- You are going to be fine.
Andromeda did not know to who she was saying that, who, she was really trying to convince, but she had to believe to be able to do it, to survive, even that time, even to that madness. To that fate.
Her mother's voice was still pained like the howling of a dying wolf, but Andromeda refused to look at her, she refused to give her back to the dark where she could feel him moving, waiting for her to do it again. To reach for her mother.
And she had almost done that, she had tried to touch the hand Calisto was pressing brokenly to the invisible wall that divided the two reality, but Thrain's coming and his call had made her aware of what she was doing, of the darkness that was clinging to her limbs, to the monster who, through her, was trying to flee, to reach her world.
She had fallen on the ground in the rush to get away from it, from the world she could not reach, not with the knowledge that, with her, he would have gone too, just like the first time.
Andromeda had reached the limping form of the dwarf even before the darkness could try to eat him alive, closing his small form in her arms to keep him away from the monster who had drawn back in time before trying again to bring someone else down with him, the dwarf who now Andromeda was yanking behind her back, standing on shaking legs, her back turned to the blade of light from which she had to keep him away, whatever the cost.
- Andromeda!
The trembling of the fingers the woman was holding tight around his wrist was so strong and so deep to make the tremor reaching his bones, shaking him to the core, but it was hearing the entity's name echoing in the void with deep, agonizing shouts what made him turn.
Surprise flashed in his eyes when children of men with strange colours, strange clothes and faces returned his astonished look when they too turned to look at him, leaving the form of the fearless woman who was facing the dark for him too, avoiding the gaze Thorin Oakenshield recognized at once.
The same eyes.
The old woman who was looking at him with a trembling chin and a strained face was identical to the one who was shielding his body from the void, but in place of concern, what was filling her teary eyes was a pain so deep and so strong to make him feel as if the nails the woman was sinking in her palm to prevent herself to scream were trying to tear his face apart, and when she began to shout, when she began to scream, the dwarf knew that she was cursing him with words he could not understand but that could still hit. Hurt.
The lonely king could not understand anything of the words the children of men began to scream along with her once noticed his focused look on them, on the amber skyline he could see behind their back, of the sun that was shining on their skin, on the mountains's profile beyond his reach.
She comes from another world.
Dìs's voice returned to haunt his heart with words he had decided to disregard as a trick of her mind, something too unthinkable to be true, to believe, but beyond the light, beyond their forms, there was a sky to open above their head, a sandy ground to welcome their form, and a sea to drow their limbs.
Another world.
Thorin did not know how else to describe what he was watching through the blade of light in front of which the young woman stood with trembling legs and shaking shoulder, her head high and her eyes open but turned to the other side despite the calls, despite the screaming, challenging what was lurking in the dark to come forward, to face her, and when it did, when he moved, a sob of pain was what left Andromeda's lips when she saw him resurfacing from the dark with a tender smile.
- My love.
A tear rolled down her cheek while her chin began to tremble and her hands twitched with the need to cover her eyes and spare herself the pain, to turn and go back, to flee, to run away and crumpling in her mother's outstretched limbs, but Andromeda forced herself to stare at Kai's sharp features without blinking, without averting her gaze, while her fingers remained anchored to the wrist she held tightly when she saw him advance with a confident pace.
- Stay away.
The water quivered under the scream of her soul, a shattering sound that seemed to freeze the feet Kai returned to press on the floor, without moving a second time, keeping his distance from the crying woman he kept on looking at with now a sad smile and somber eyes.
- My love, what…
- You are not him – a rush of tears prevented her to continue, to keep going, to say what she didn't want to say, what Andromeda did not want to believe, but it had never been him choked her soul with a painful howl, scratching her eyes while the desperation returned to fill her throat, to break her voice – you are not him.
It was like watching a lion curling up his lower lip to display his teeth before its prey, like watching a shadow removing his hood to show the monster beneath, it was like watching her entire world crashing down with a loud thud when Kai's blue eyes turned red, when the monster showed itself, in the end.
- You are a very clever one, human.
A sob escaped her throat when it became too much for her to bear, when the reality crashed on her head with the thundering of a storm she could not survive, that time.
Her legs gave out even before she could try to force her knees to not bend, but when she fell, when she let herself crumble, Andromeda could only keep the hold on the dwarf's wrists to prevent the darkness to bring them apart, while she let herself break again.
Her chest seemed to burn from the cries she tried to muffle against her sealed lips, biting her mouth to draw out blood, her eyes so full of tears to make her blind.
The trembling of the floor made her aware that he had returned to walk, that the monster was still trying to reach her world, her heart, but even if her flames were still too brittle and small to be able to hurt him, they could still keep him away, far enough to not let him reach any of them, not the dwarfs she tried to keep with her, not the family that kept on calling her, on asking her to turn, to go back.
But she could not, she could not Andromeda cried brokenly to herself, breaking with every tear she shed, with every scream she freed from her chest.
- Dwarfs.
Thorin Oakenshield could not prevent his features to harden when he recognized the scorn in the hissed words, words the dwarf could understand now that the creature with bloody eyes was speaking to him in his tongue, focusing his cold gaze on his crouched form with so much distaste and revulsion to make him feel like a worm.
- Between all Eru's children, your kind is the one I loathe the most.
Thorin would have growled in being addressed with so much hatred, so much disgust, he would have cut his throat and made him bleed to death to his feet, if had had the strength, if he had had the will, but he was petrified, an atavic fear that made his body retract as an animal who stood in the face of a beast much more stronger and dangerous than him, because there was something wrong in that creature, something able to paralyzed the words in his tongue and the strength in his bones.
Darkness wasn't something he was scared of, something he wasn't able to fight, but the dark in those bloody eyes was different, it was hollow, it was…endless, and something told the dwarf that if he had fallen in them, if he had let himself become prey of that gaze, he would not have survived, that time, but it wasn't only of his eyes that he should have been careful, but of the poison of his words.
Because, when he heard him speak, when he heard his words echoing in the void, trembling on his skin, huddling around his heart, the darkness he had only watched from afar with dread became his own, crawling on his skins, clawing his bones, devouring until the last drop of life, of light, from his soul.
- The homeless king.
His eyes went wide even before he could try to disguise his reaction, to hide how much those words had stricken him, how much they had hurt, but the creature seemed to rejoice for the pain in his face and the trembling in his limbs, smiling for the gathering tears in his eyes.
- How does it feel to not be enough for your kind? To betray your home? To fail in everything you do?
Stiffening his back to stop the trembling, the wounded king tried to curb the pain, to seal it away where it could not hurt, where it could not open new cracks in his already broken shield, but there was a limit to the blows his shield could bear, hold back, an old shield made of ruined wood that, just like the first time, did not hold the weight of another, cruel blow that ended up with breaking him up to the bones.
- How does it feel to be the one who will bring an end to Durin's line?
When the words echoed in the void, reaching her ears and surpassing her sobs, so great was the surprise to hear what no one should have ever known, what him, should not ever know, that Andromeda failed to react quickly as she should have done.
Fear shook her bones when she felt the skin under her fingers turning cold as a tombstone, when she felt the dwarf slipping away from her hold, but it was with a grimace and a sob of pain that she forced her body to stand still, to prevent the dwarf to her side to crumble to the ground, to make itself an easy prey for the monster who was asking for his shattered soul after making him bleed to death.
- Madness is what you fear, what runs in your veins, and madness will be what will bring doom to you and your line.
When Andromeda turned with panicked eyes, she did not know what to expect, what she would have found, but when she met his eyes, when she let emptiness of his gaze filling her own, every nerve in her body turned cold, freezing on her tongue the words she could not hope to find, she could not deny, not when he was stating the truth, what the broken king in front of her eyes had always known, deep down in his chest.
To be the bringer of doom.
To be destined to lose his sanity and his family altogether, everything, in the end.
When the monster tried to reach for him, for the ashen face and hollow eyes, Thorin Oakenshield did not try to avert his touch, to spare his life, to survive, not when it was better, for him, to be gone.
A grimace of pain scraped his face of stones when Fili and Kili's trusting gaze made him want to sink the blades in his chest, preventing him to share with them an air he was not worth to breathe, not when he was worth nothing, nothing at all.
His hands curled in fists so tight to scratch his palm when the shame made him want to scar his face, to tear out his hair, to destroy himself, so to not damage what he held dear, what he could not protect, in the end.
Not him home.
Not his kin.
Not even his family.
Crying was a pathetic show of weakness a brave king should have never allowed himself to display, to share with the world, but he wasn't strong, or brave, he was only a king with a broken crown and a broken heart.
A broken oath.
Because he could protect nothing, he could save nothing, despite promising to save them all.
To bring them home.
Because, in the end, ashes were the only thing he could hope to collect in his hands while burying his face in the ruins of his kingdom made of silent stones and broken bones.
- Do not touch him.
When the angry hiss left her mind, whistling in the wind like the darting of an arrow, Andromeda did not let herself wavering when she felt the arm she had grasped with fury turning in something colder, sticker than tar, glueing her fingers to what she refused to let go, crushing her side against the lonely king to keep on touching him even without the hold on his wrist, engulfing him in the flame she felt crackling around her body, drying the tears on her cheeks when she let the rage cry in vengeance.
In spite.
Because now, now she could finally give a face and a name to the imposter, she knew him, she knew what he was, because such cruelty wasn't human, such darkness wasn't common, such power wasn't earthly, it was goldlike, and among the many deities she knew, among the many gods she could think of, she knew, which one he was, and how, in the end, Kai's true name would have sounded on her lips.
His rancorous words, the way he had addressed the lonely king, scorning his kind, one of the many he had admitted to loath, the malice that filled his eyes had been the oil she had used to grease the creaking gears in her head, refilling the shelf in her mind where she had stuffed what she had learned of that world, what she had learned after breaking every time.
Learning was the only thing she had always been good at, what she had done for all her life, and she had learned many things along the way, analysing everything she came in contact with, picking up the broken pieces she had found on her path, putting back in place herself and what she needed to know, to understand.
To realize.
Because people did not usually take notice of small things, silly matters, unimportant things, things that had been, except her.
Andromeda had collected everything along her journey, every word, every move, everything she could use to be ready the second time, everything that could make her understand against what she was fighting, who had decided to cross her path, how could she respond after taking its blows, coming to discern her ally from her foe.
Kai was the name she had learned to love, the man she had cherished as family, as one of her treasure, someone she had sworn to protect, to love for all her life, despite it all, because family meant that, for her.
Keeping the other whole after every crack, every wound, every scar, fixing what she had to fix, using even part of herself to patch them up and piece them together once again, because, in the end, she remained what she had always been.
A keeper of broken things.
- I know your name.
When the flames began to hiss, when she let herself burn, Andromeda kept on clutching the darkness despite the pain, searching what she knew she would have found, if she knew where to look, what the blinding light was trying to bring back to the surface, and when she heard the clinking, when she saw them glinting in the dark, she strengthened her hold on them with all the desperation she could collet from her chest.
- I know what you seek.
Dripping from her hand like spilt, rotten blood, the darkness began to retreat as her flames kept on advancing, running on the chains Andromeda pulled out from the water to let her flames burn them like the fuse of a bomb she wanted to make explode, so to discover what the chains were trying to hold, the monster she was not scared to meet.
To see.
- I know what you are.
The shouting on her back grew stronger as a growl borned in the dark made the world waver, a roar able to shake her bones and shattering her limbs, snapping the fingers she refused to remove from the chains, because, despite the fear and the pain, despite the growls and the hisses, she could hear something else, among the uproar, she could feel him moving underwater, she could feel him following her light, trying to break free, to resurface.
To reach her.
- I know who you hide.
The world seemed to crumble when everything began to shake. The sky. The ground. Everything in and outside the void, a trembling so strong to make them weep and cry for help, but the roaring had become almost deafening while the flames kept on burning, on lightening up the dark where Andromeda would have waited for him to find her, fighting who had always kept him hidden from her, who was preventing him to refound himself, to get free from the dark abyss where he had been lost.
- I do not fear you.
Terrible, burned hands chained to the void were the first thing the flames brought back to light, then a collar made of steel that Andromeda saw trembling under the growl that filled the monster's throat as he kept on hissing towards her, spitting words she could not understand, curses able to bend the strongest of the souls, but Andromeda, despite trembling, despite breaking, did not let herself crawl back, not now, not when she needed to keep on burning, to lead him towards the surface.
To let him find the way towards her.
- You can't have this.
If he had had no chains to hold his limbs, if he had had still his legs to make him move, Morgoth would have tried to cut her arm to recover what, once, had been his, what had burned his hands, what had adorned the crown turned in a collar to chain his voice.
But he had no hands to close around her neck to choke her to death as his servant had done before, he had no legs to let him reach her form and crush her under his feet, he was chained just as she was breaking once again, and maybe, for the last time.
Andromeda could hear every crackling of her bones, every yielding of the skin she could feel splitting and shattering as clay under the burning of her own flames, of the glowing her body could not be able to contain, breaking the mortal layer of her burning soul.
- You can't have me.
Her tears evaporated even before they could brush her cheeks or leave her lids, but Andromeda let herself burn, she let herself creak, and hiss, and break as many times as she needed to, feeling the cracks reaching her eyes, splitting her lips, crumpling her skin.
When the water reached her feet, when she felt the gentle caress on her calves, she did not try to get away, she let it embrace her knees, grabbing in her broken hands the wrists she squeezed hard when the world around them began to crumble under the horrible growl of the earth, the terrible roar in the wind, but she could hear another sound, just as terrible, just as strong, a familiar sound able to make a small smile bloom on her face as her glow let him reach her with his fingers of froth.
The rising of the tide.
Andromeda could feel it swelling on her back, shrinking and drawing with a terrible roar before crashing down on them, on the blade of light that disappeared along with its halo when the waves submerged her and the dwarfs she kept anchored to her side, becoming for them an anchor the flow could not bring down, not yet.
And she tried to stay whole as long as she could, to burn without air, to stand without ground, to resist, but her body had reached its limit.
Andromeda had finally reached her breaking point.
Hands tried to restrain her form, to not let her slip away, but there was no more air in her lungs, no more strength in her bones, nothing more to let burn.
It didn't hurt so much, breaking, or she had broken so many times to be unable to feel the pain, but when she broke, when Andromeda let herself go, when she let herself drown, she felt almost relieved, at peace, finally.
Because she had done it, she had won, for once, finding who she was supposed to find, protecting who she was supposed to protect, hearing for the last time the only voice she had tried to find among the clamour of the noises above which, finally, Kai returned to speak.
- You found me.
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