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Chapter 10

The window into the treatment room faded black with its internal shades cascading down. Clint scooted back in the bed to rest his back against the wall. He motioned to the chair Tony left abandoned. Rinon considered it for a moment with his lavender eyes, then lowered himself down.

"Kinme gohen em le eteni wa'alu." I'm sorry for the loss of your king, Clint told him.

Rinon inclined his head, and turned his body slightly to one side. It was an elven sign of acceptance.

"Me'fu e a'nae." I don't want to keep you.

"Aralahael takes my place, he is not alone." Rinon replied in Basic. "I know you must soon go, and I wished to speak alone before then."

Clint wondered if his room had been wired for sound. The only ones with any idea of his deciding to leave were Tony and Natasha. He remembered what Haladarrel warned him of Rinon's ability, though. Maybe it was time to probe for more. "How did you know that?"

Rinon didn't say.

"Is Fehreh here?"

"She does not know I've come."

Clint adjusted again, trying to keep a pillow stuffed in the small of his back where his bleeding kidney worked to form a clot. He wasn't sure what caused the majority of the damage. It could have been Loki throwing him around the bridge, or the plane crash where he woke up bleeding, even getting buried alive. The Gateway had been fitted with enough alien technology to make his recovery a swift one. Unfortunately, Haladarrel did not benefit from the same.

Rinon sat with his elbows on his knees, and his head cradled in his palms. His long white hair cascaded down the sides of his face with the occasional braid woven through. He displayed little of the behavior of an Elf in agitation or concern. In fact, he slumped right over like a man who had spent a twenty-four hour shift in an emergency hospital and just now had a chance to get off his feet.

"I am sorry for this loss." Rinon said, rubbing the buttercream colored eyebrows with his thumbs. "Aralahael was my steward, and more than capable to rule alone. I wish there was some way that I might have spared her the torture."

Clint waited. It was an old interrogation technique he'd picked up. Generally, the best way to get information was to not ask for it. Rinon never spoke so many words all at once willingly, without his wife taking over in the midst. Barton only had to be patient to understand why he'd come at all.

"I understand that Haladarrel has spoken of my gift to you. It is something few know of, and none of them live beyond our realm. He thought very highly of you."

"I wish there was something I could have done." Clint admitted, still feeling out the information.

"I know that, keenly. He-re befae e`l. Áva sorya. Wotek e quifli." Be consoled. And do not dread. I have grieved (his) death already.

Clint took a moment to filter through the Elvish and understand the hidden meaning behind the words. Just as Clint gave Rinon time to formulate a response, Rinon held a similar patience.

"You knew?" Clint suddenly came to.

The lavender pools closed for a moment, and when they fixed again on Clint, Rinon's body language altered. He drew in a breath, sat back and crossed his legs. This was a form of Rinon Clint had never met. "I know of no other who can see the things I see. I do not control them, and I know nothing of when they come. I have tried," he leaned forward, his hand extended as the memory crossed his mind. "How desperately I have tried in my past to change those tragedies I witness come. Understand, I was not always a Mountain Elf. I have seen fourteen hundred years. The beginning of my life was spent in Skydale."

This didn't make sense to Clint. Skydale Elves, or at least all those he knew of, had nothing to do with visions or predictions. They were wind talkers, able to command the air and water as if they were living forms. "Skydale? Your parents?"

"I never knew them."

Another bizarre revelation. Family meant everything to an Elf. So few had the ability to bear children at all, but having no kin of any kind was especially rare. What might have happened to an Elven mother and father to cause them to give up a child?

"Never?"

"I was found by Yhalel Oversea, an elder Elf and his ward, an Earthenden who was called Loore Highchild. They raised me in their lodge on the borders of our Northern Sea. Within the first few years of my life, I discovered the peculiarity of my gift, and they thought it better I not share such things. I grew to agree in time. The first death I witnessed was that of Yhalel. He was a Pedelni Elohen." An Elf of no compare (an expression used in tenderness and respect).

"What happened?"

"We lived in an old stone outlook of the sea. In my twentieth year, I saw the home crumble before my eyes. Yhalel was trapped within, and the great stones sank against him. He drowned in the sea. I was terribly disturbed by the idea, and ran for our home only to find it intact. I told Yhalel of my fears, and at first they were dispelled. In my twenty-seventh year, Yhalel lost his life in the manner I had witnessed."

"That must have been horrible for you." Clint whispered.

"I plagued myself in fears and a cloud of doubt. Loore attempted to ease these, but I was not the Elf then that you see now. We left Skydale for the sake of my grief, and settled in the mountains."

The Elf sitting across from him was no one that Clint knew. He was very familiar with Rinon the king, this new Elf he had never met. He spoke, at length. He commanded an armada, not just teams of men. The fear of Asgard invading his home was absent. This Rinon was a general.

It took Clint some time to decide why Haladarrel had trusted him with something that obviously the Elven regency kept so private. Rinon's revelation helped him better understand Haladarrel's confidence. Clint thought he'd had quite enough of riddles, predictions, and the layout of his future. Rinon, though, brought him pause. Clint had never heard the Sarhorn's words himself. In fact, he'd never even met the creature. He relied completely on the opinion of his friends, which he trusted, but there remained a lingering wonder over the truth. It was entirely likely that Rinon knew this too.

"Could you have stopped what happened to your mentor? You knew what was going to happen. You saw how. If you had tried, could you have stopped it from happening?" Clint asked.

A long silence grew between them while Rinon considered his answer carefully. The Elven songs continued, their tempo mixing with other passengers on the ship that drew close to the room. It added a ghostly quality to the conversation they shared.

"Loore and I spent three hundred years in the mountain country. In that time, I witnessed a great many things I could never explain. In our first years, we learned my gift together, and yes, I spent much of the time attempting to prevent the losses I witnessed. Especially after seeing Loore's coming death."

"You saw that too?"

A sad smile spread over Rinon's face. Unable to sit, he stood and clasped his hands behind his back. "I reached my hundred and third year. I saw that Loore would find his ie-koh; his soulmate, I believe you call it."

Clint nodded.

"She found us by chance in a smaller village on our lonely peak, and Loore swept himself up in the sight of her. I knew he would be happy. I'd seen that too. She was an Outer Glencove Elf, like Loore, before he followed Yhalel to Skydale. After courting her, he decided it was time to ask for her hand. I traveled with him to her clan to support the decision and give him a reference to her father. During that journey, I learned how they both should die."

"That must have been very hard." Clint said.

"It was. I understood by this point that the things I saw may happen at any time. I only have vague understanding of when they might occur, but elves do live for quite a while. I thought, perhaps, I could prevent what might befall them. I pledged myself to their servitude. I spent another hundred years in the mountains, at their call. Three times, the events I had witnessed in my mind's eye occurred. Each time, I had rescued them from their sure deaths. I thought, and truly believed, my presence had at last prevented the demise I knew they had coming. I even revealed these facts to Loore. He was much less certain than I. We quarreled over it. He feared for his life, for he knew what I could do, and more than that, he feared for his family. His ie-koh just had a child. Loore began to fear our mountain, and life itself. I am not sure what drove him away. Fear of death, or fear of me. He took his family early one morning when I had gone down into the towns, and never planned to return. When I learned of it, I followed him, naturally, and found they had been caught at the base of the valley in a storm."

Clint could tell by the tone that the couple had died. He felt horrible for Rinon. The only people in his young life who supported him were killed in terrible ways, and more so, Rinon had no way to prevent it. He was forced to watch tragedy after tragedy, and never found a way to stop it.

"Their child lived, by some miracle. I found him on the bank of the swollen river that drowned his parents, and I lifted him from the brambles. Loore named him Haladarrel. I named him Bywater. I knew Loore's family in Outer Glencove, and as I had no hand in the rearing of children, I brought him there."

"Hal? You're serious?" Clint exclaimed.

"That is a talent I have an abundance of." Rinon replied. "I'd spent my entire life among the two friends who raised me. Three hundred years of studying a way to stop the misfortunes I would see in those around me. I became bitter from it all. I vowed to remain silent as to my gifts to spare others the pain and fear it caused. Where some may have returned to a life of solitude, the mountains were too silent for me any longer. We are a naturally social race, despite the hermits you often come across."

Rinon referred to their mutual friend, Doodle. He was an ancestor of Haladarrel, and former king himself during the days when the Dark Elves were thrust out of Alfheimr. After his term, Doodle retreated to the ancient forest in Woodrenkell where he spent his days as a naturalist. He had endless catalogs of trees, flowers, insects, and more.

"How did you end up in Lakeheed?"

"Odin was in the midst of another war, the last we hoped, with Jotunheim. Alfheimr pledged Elves to his aid, as our friendship allowed. I volunteered then and went to war. I have never seen my own death. I know how I will lose my wife. I know what will fell Thor, Odin, and every Elf in my company. In my low moments, I considered that a death on the battlefields would be preferable to living with my gift. If I could not change the results, then my not living to see them would cause no difference either. I had a talent for our work in Jotunheim. I fought beside Reylano. He became a friend despite my best efforts to repel him. It was he who first pointed out my melancholy. I threw myself into our work there, determined to find a happiness I could not attain on my own. I came upon Odin rather suddenly in battle in an unfortunate time. He was set upon by Laufey and a few dozen Frost Giants. He was cut off from his men and blinded in one eye. I nearly died throwing myself in Odin's way to prevent a Frost Giant taking his life. He was forever grateful for it. They feared I would not survive my injuries and Odin brought me to Alfheimr personally. There my renown had grown despite myself."

"Odin trusted you. That doesn't come easy for him. I'm sure he told everyone he could find about what you did." Clint said.

"Very true. While I recovered, I was unable to leave the palace in Lakeheed for nearly a year. My history prevented me from sharing the depths of my unhappiness with anyone. I worked singularly in the queen's service, and I was admirable in that. Fehreh worked in the kitchen then. Finding her, who I had seen already would become my ie-koh, I was terribly saddened. I have felt the pain her loss will bring me, and I set out to prevent her ever getting close to me. I failed miserably in that task, as you might know."

Clint smiled. "She's really wonderful."

"I know it. I felt it unfair to keep from her all parts of myself. She does know what I can see. I never speak to her of the images themselves, but she does know when they come. When I became king, having her at my side was a blessing to all. I never wished to be in a position of such authority, but she helped me to excel in it. When that terrible business befell with the Southlings and your near murder on our lands, it affected me abundantly. I knew a great war was coming that would take many Elven lives. All at once, I thought that day had come at last. Had you lost your life in my land, our truce with Asgard . . ." Rinon's voice faded at the very thought of it.

"Odin would have blamed you despite his trust in you." Clint added for him. "The same way you never expected to get that much recognition for the things you've done, I never thought it myself. I'm just an archer from one of the weakest planets in the galaxy, and a self-taught carney boy at that. I never thought I'd be honored by Odin. Then, when the Enchantress came, and Odin and Thor both nearly died on the battlefield, I never thought I'd be the one inspiring Asgard back to the field to support them. We rise to the occasion when we need to. It's just our nature. Thor worried about how much Asgard sees me as a hero. Dying on Alfheimr would have been a declaration of war."

"One we would not have been prepared for." Rinon nodded. "I decided that Alfheimr should not quake at the thought of the war to come. We may have avoided it once, but I knew, wholly knew, that it was coming. We had to prepare for it. I had no idea then of the scope of what we must accomplish now."

"That's how you saved us today." Clint concluded. This is where the conversation headed. Rinon's ability to see what no other could, allowed him to prepare for a war long before anyone else had the warning from the Sarhorn. He only lacked a complete vision, the ability to know how all-encompassing this threat from Galactus was. He sent the Elves from Earthenden to assist in the Midgardian armada because they had already spent their time creating the Alfheimr one.

"Fehreh suspects I knew something of this, but she has ceased to prod any longer into the things I see. She knows the pain it causes me when I speak of such things." Rinon agreed.

"Why tell me this? Steve's the one heading things on Midgard's end. Odin is here for Asgard, and he's always been your ally. I'm, honestly, just one guy. I know a lot of people from a thousand different lands hang their hats on some of the things I've done in the past, but that's the truth." It was a question that weighed on Clint's heart since the first time he lifted Thor's immovable hammer. He literally fell into positions of glory everywhere he went. He knew that stunt on Vanaheim, running into a crumbling building and carrying out hundreds of Elves, would not go unnoticed either. Situations found him wherever he went.

Rinon paused at the end of Clint's bed. His fingers traced along the footrest as he considered his internal thoughts. His expression changed very little. It was like looking into the marble features of a Roman statue. His hair framed the sides of his face and the Elven raiment moved seamlessly along his body like a second skin. Clint wasn't sure how much time had passed between just the two of them. Given their duel abilities to be quiet and patient, it may take a full year before the conversation saw its final line being said.

"I came to that Midgardian hospital when I heard of your looming death last winter." The lavender pearls flicked upward to see how the news struck Barton. Surely Clint had been informed of the nearly one thousand souls who tended to his bedside. Clint had been diagnosed with cancer. It was aggressive, moved incredibly fast, and within months of his diagnosis, he suffered crippling pain and went suddenly blind. He landed in the hospital, flat on his back, and very near death from a stroke caused by a blood clot related to his cancer. That day, barely clinging to life, the Sarhorn arrived to spread the twenty predictions. It was M-Day. He saved Clint's life, healing him completely, but left more questions than answers when he departed.

"I don't remember much from that. I was sick for a few days after. Star-Lord caught me up when I felt well enough." Clint replied honestly.

"I pledged my assistance to finding these Sarhorns, my people have always called them Mal-ahk, so that they might be appealed to on your behalf just before the one came to see you directly. What seemed like minutes later, Peter Quill returned to us and explained all the warnings the Mal-ahk gave to him. I was not surprised, for I had seen it already."

"Because you already knew a war was coming?" Clint asked.

"Yes. And – " Rinon's fingers paled as they tightened on the footrest. He realized the tension in his hand and drew it behind his back again to hide the fact. He began to straighten, stiffen, and extend his neck with chin set and locked. His Elven mannerisms were winning out.

"Clint Barton, I have seen, forty-three years before now, a man such as yourself leap into an unforgiving sky and fall into a darkness that consumes him. I watched a world around him explode in shatters of light I never understood, and those colors expand into a sky before disappearing. That same sky was blacked out as if a storm encompassed its entire surface, snatching the very sand from its rocks. Then, when the man had gone into that chasm and the lights faded away, I watched that darkness fade too. I never understood the vision then, for that is often how it occurs, but the moment Peter Quill told us the details of what you are to do, I knew at once I had seen it. I have warred, and grieved bitterly over these things. Over whether I should keep the words back or speak them openly to you, for I know precisely the damage they have caused to my allies in the past. Not only with Loore and Yhalel, but others too numerous to count."

"It was me?" Clint asked, trying to keep the nervous anticipation from his voice. "You saw me jump. It's true, then?"

Rinon nodded very little. "I did not know you those years ago, and when I saw you at the banquet on Asgard, I paused before allowing our introduction."

"I remember that."

"I paused because I recognized you, from that vision. And in that moment, it revisited me a second time. The first time we met, I relived the thing that would be your death. I wished then to distance myself from you and what I saw would come. Then rather suddenly, you appeared on Alfheimr again through no fault of your own. It seemed no matter what I attempted, we were destined for this mad journey, and there is nothing – I know nothing – that can prevent its taking place."

Full circle, Clint thought. He, in a way, wasn't surprised. He had an inkling from the start Rinon might come back to that peculiar prediction that seemed to drive everyone's lives now, even his own. Especially his own. Maybe Haladarrel knew it, or Rinon confided that to him and that's why Haladarrel started this conversation between them. Rinon had to share his past, the linear effects of his life, for Clint to get the broad understanding of exactly what Rinon's visions meant to him. The Elf might not trust the words of a race he'd never met, but he understood keenly his own experience. Clint counted Rinon as one of the few friends he had in life. If the former king came to him with this, it was because Clint needed to hear it. Rinon wasn't wrong, either.

"Thank you. You might not understand how much, and maybe I didn't either at first, but it makes a big difference in my decisions now. Thank you." Clint said.

Rinon said nothing. Their conversation was one of marvelous interest. Many of Rinon's true characteristics, ones he had kept well hidden in his life, came through, creating a deeper alliance between them. Now that he had finished his speech, the momentary idiosyncrasies began to fall away. His alabaster wall rose again. Clint could see it in the old mannerisms that the Elf adopted to cope with his life. His hands returned to the front of him, he became as tall as a flagpole, and his shoulders pulled back. The vacant, indifference returned to the features of his face. He became, all at once, the old Rinon again. He became the Rinon who lived in the world, and yet shut himself out of it to guard his own sanity. The one who hardly spoke to prevent his accidentally saying something out of turn that might define a man's entire future. Fear, and a dose of mercy, kept him so very alone.

"What will you do now?" Clint asked.

Rinon's head raised, and considered the wall between them and the singing.

"You will take him back to Alfheimr?"

"Arahaelel will. Doodle must be told. It will be very difficult for him."

"And you will stay to look after us, should the Kree attempt a second attack?"

Rinon looked back at him and nodded.

"Thank you for doing that. We don't deserve this, your loyalty. There is nothing Midgard has ever done to reciprocate what Alfheimr has done for us today. So thank you, for all of us."

A ghost of a smile returned to the old king's face as he turned for the door. "It is not what you have done that grants our attention. It is what you will do. One day. I do not know when." He slipped away, as silently as a spirit, and joined his people again.

Leaning across the hall were Tony and Natasha. One of them had gone off and gotten a bite to eat. Seeing Rinon pass, they both stepped inside again and reclaimed their early abandoned positions around their friend. Natasha handed over something bar shaped, peanut butter smelling, and unwrapped. Tony set a glass of something dark on the end table. They didn't speak at first, allowing Clint the time he needed to absorb everything that occurred.

Tony took up his data and equations, using a little stylus to zoom in, turn things around, erase a few lines, and add the corrections. He was never happier these days than when he had something mathematically challenging to wrap his mind around. His sneakers stacked, one over the other, beside Clint's knees, and the chair leaned back on the two hind legs. Whether he knew it or not, Tony began to hum the repetitive tune of the Elven funeral song. The low, monotone chorus repeating even as others took over in different rhythms and verses.

Natasha played with the back of Clint's hand. She spun the ring on his finger, slipped it off, put it on her own, and felt the warmth of his body heat on the titanium. She liked the texture and feel of it. It was so new, without the wear pattern that would one day ease the inner polish away and fill in the clean edges of their names engraved together. She slipped it back on him and rested her head on his shoulder. Clint nearly laughed when he saw a few stray pieces of Christmas glitter still clinging to the strands. Heavy thoughts, though, and the very weight of the world kept him quiet.

Barton finished the food, taking it piece by piece and slowly chewing the protein bar down. He didn't remember when the last time he ate was.

Rinon had given him a considerable amount to think over. While he never openly doubted his friend's hearty belief in the Sarhorn, hearing the confirmation from Rinon affected him. Clint never understood how much until he tightened his hand around Natasha's and pressed his face against her hair.

"I love you." He whispered into the red, glittery locks.

Tony's attention sailed upward. He wasn't sure whether he heard Clint correctly. Natasha pulled away from him.

"Wow, was that the first L-word drop?" Tony asked.

"I'm not saying it back." Natasha stated, definitively.

"I'm not expecting you to."

Tony tucked his digital pad on his lap, the clear screen turned off. "What did Rinon say to you? You were in here for two hours."

"That long?" Clint asked.

"At least." Tony made a show of checking his wrist watch. "What happened in here?"

Clint considered coming clean. He didn't have any secrets, or at least not many, with the two people sitting with him. Tony's overall reaction to the future, though, gave him pause. As for Natasha, she preferred to never think of what might happen to them. Putting one more rock on that pile of hard stones in their life wouldn't do any good. Instead, he skirted the truth, something that got him into relentless trouble in the past.

"He told me about his history, how he met Haladarrel, and what drove him to making the armada."

"He said all that?! Like . . . he was actually talking that entire time? Did you record it?"

Clint snorted, winced, held his side, and adjusted himself on the bed. "I was as surprised as you."

"And that's all he said? For that long?"

The light flecks of turquoise being slowly overtaken by Clint's darkening blue eyes flickered at Tony. "Don't ask me any more than that."

What a revelation! What will Clint do now? What does this mean for their future? So many questions left unanswered!

(And Poor Rinon! what a past he's endured!)

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