"Eldarion," the voice lapped gently at the corners of his mind, "wake up, princeling. You're dreaming." The shining mist parted around the lady Eowyn's good-natured face. Her smile lines deepened as she met his gaze with eyes the color of unbroken robin's eggs in the springtime. She was wearing her healer's uniform. The first few buttons had been undone to reveal the pale, freckled sculpture of her full breasts. She loosed her hair from its bun, and it cascaded over her shoulders in golden waves as she shook her head in a slow-motion dream of mortal beauty more precious in its ephemeral grace than an eternity of starlight, "you've been asleep for a long time," she said as she leaned forward until Eldarion could feel the heat of her breath on his face, "we've missed you very much." Eldarion felt his heart leap, and a rush of heat went to his groin as she leaned in close enough to press her lips into his.
They were fuzzy and smelled of chewed grass. He startled and opened his eyes to meet the mournful black gaze of a large equine. A confusing jumble of embarrassment and panic met him with the restoration of consciousness, and he pushed the head away, recoiling with disgust and locking the inappropriate dream in a deep and secret vault within his memories.
He sat up, suddenly more fully awake and lucid than he had ever been in his life. He was sitting on the ground in a clearing in a forest all around him purple poppies bobbed above his head. Gleaming motes of light glimmered in a bed of sweet-smelling white flowers like an ocean of fallen stars. Towering mallorn, loftier and more ancient than any in Middle Earth, stretched out crooked branches over a sky so densely packed with stars that the distant canopy cast shadows down onto the ground. He could hear water running somewhere close by. For a moment he closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of the forest.
Eldarion touched the embroidery on his pants in wonder. He was wearing the same clothes he had worn to the council that morning. He put one hand to his chest and inhaled deeply, feeling his racing heartbeat through his ribs. Anduril was pressing down the flowers a few feet away. The inscription on the blade shone pale in the starlight. Somewhere, a nightingale was singing in welcome. The air smelled of jasmine and ozone.
A snort brought his gaze around to regard the creature who stood behind him with its tail shooing fairies away from its rump. It was most like a horse if a horse could possess the spirit of a maia. It delicately avoided skewering him with its elegant horn as it tasted his hair.
Eldarion gently redirected the creature's snout, peered beneath its belly and determined that it was a she.
"Mae govannen," he tried, pulling back and petting the long face, marveling at the swirls of velvety fur and the elegantly coiffed forelock of creamy curls. She answered with a snort of hot air from her pink nostrils.
Eldarion stood, dusting bugs and moldering yellow mallorn leaves from his clothing and regarding the unicorn critically, for that was what she was. She had forget-me-nots in her mane.
"You're a horse for a princess." He informed her, thinking indignantly of the sturdy Rohirric thoroughbreds his father doted after.
She snorted and shook her head, no.
Eldarion picked up Anduril. It was solid and reassuring in his hand. He returned it into its scabbard with a satisfying hiss. "Maybe you are yourself a princess," he said with his arms folded. This earned him a prance and an enthusiastic bob of the head. Eldarion laughed, "Riele." He named her, momentarily forgetting his troubles as the creature stepped close enough to press herself against him, making him step back as he avoided her cloven hooves.
He looked around, letting one hand linger on her shoulder. The forest seemed vast and impossibly ancient as the trees went on in pillared halls in every direction. The darkness was older than light. His mouth was sticky and dry and tasted of horse breath. Cautiously, he parted the poppies and followed the sound of running water until he came to a narrow stream that ran between banks of lush grass. Abandoning his boots on the shore, he let himself down to the rocks and, cupping his hands he went to drink from the shallow margin of the stream where it flowed over polished stones of a thousand shining colors. He had almost brought it to his lips when he startled at the sudden awareness that he was being watched. The nymphs giggled and disappeared amongst the lilies with a soft plunk. He stopped, in case they were going to pop back up and demand some ridiculous price for their water, but nothing happened. He crouched again, his velvet pants soaking up moisture from the stones. When nobody tried to stop him, he drank greedily. The water tasted of an exquisite nothingness that seemed to wick a rejuvenating energy through his limbs.
He stood, running his wet hands through his hair. Riel had followed him down to the water and was drinking peacefully a few yards away.
"You could break your leg jumping down here like that!" He scolded her, and she showed him her teeth in an expression that reminded him of his baby sister sticking her tongue out.
"As you will," he said to himself, suddenly feeling fathoms over his head. His stomach had an empty ache as if he had not eaten for days. "I just have to…" he looked to Riele for guidance, but she just blinked at him with her long black lashes, "Find my father's soul and break him out of Mandos where he is being held by a mad Fëanorian necromancer who killed the god of death?" he shrugged with an unhinged laugh, "but fear not, I have a sword." He patted the sheath affectionately. Crickets chirped in the darkness. Riel tossed her head.
"What do I do?" he asked, and she stepped forward in the shallow water, "can," she went to wiggle her velvety lips against his neck, "may I ride you? Where's everyone else, I thought," he looked around at the dark forest, "I thought there would be elves or something." She snorted and stood very still. Eldarion grinned despite himself. He climbed back up the bank, scuffing his pants in the grass and put his shoes back on.
He experimentally put a hand on Riele's withers, adding a bit of weight until he was sure that she would permit him to sit astride her back. He mounted her elvish style as she ate the jasmine. She seemed patient and accommodating, although he did not think for a moment that he could have steered her into any action she did not agree to.
High above them, a nightingale twittered, hopping from branch to branch as it disappeared into the night.
"Follow that bird!" he ordered, giving her a squeeze of his thighs as he grabbed a thick curl of white mane. He felt Riele bunch her muscles and spring suddenly forward into a full gallop through the enchanted night. He laughed, clinging on for dear life as her feet made explosions of phosphorescence in the underbrush and they crashed away into the forest.
.
"Stop!" Allatar raised one bloodied hand in command and Elrohir felt a will mightier than his own hold him back as he knelt and reached out for his nephew over the naked blade of kings. "Do not touch him half-elf." Elrohir looked down at Eldarion's still body; his pale skin seemed almost to glow as if lit by moonlight from within and his face was as still and grave as the faces of the Argonath. It took every ounce of his will not to gather the boy in his arms, to grope for a pulse and listen for any sign of breathing as his hands dragged on the marble and his mouth fell open. The wizard's eyes gleamed in the darkness, "the child lies now in two worlds," he explained, "life and death hang in balance, disturb it, and the potentiality collapses. He may wake himself when his task is complete and will find that no harm has come to him."
"Is this your so-called medicine?" Elrohir asked.
"You and your kindred have been granted a gift, child." The wizard glanced at the guards who had entered and drawn their blades.
"Elrohir?" Legolas called as he and Gimli appeared behind them, "We saw you running from the…" he stopped in his tracks as he beheld the scene. He looked from Elrohir to the wizard to the empty child lying on the polished marble.
"Durin's beard," Gimli swore. His axe was in his hand but he felt as if a force held him back from leaping at the wizard.
"Please!" Allatar held out his other hand so that his robes made him look like a great dark bird stooping over his carrion in the dim lamplight.
"Explain yourself!" Legolas snarled, drawing his knives with a flash.
"I would not have your choice taken from you, Peredhel," Allatar insisted, ignoring the elf, "you have yet to decide your eternal fate. I can sense it in your heart." Elrohir appeared to be struggling with offense at the mental intrusion, but Allatar continued, "The gift of your house would become a weapon in the hands of our enemy. Do not give it to him. Do not throw away your soul so eagerly."
"You would lead him into danger without informing us?" Elrohir asked, baffled, "Do you not know who he is, what he means to us? What he means to Middle Earth?" He felt Legolas and Gimli step up behind him.
Allatar lowered his hands. "He is the first born son of a daughter of the Firstborn and a scion of mortal kings," Allatar pushed back Eldarion's hair from his bloodied brow, "he has the blood of his mother's people, but his soul is not bound to the Undying lands or the grace of the Ainur. Atarincë believes that he is like you. He is wrong. The boy is utterly unique in all of Arda."
"So you would use a child as a weapon. You send him alone into danger?" Elrohir said.
"Not alone, no. You should have beheld his wrath when I told him it was too dangerous. If I had not shown him the straight path to the gardens of the Dreamlord he would have riskeda more dangerous route to the heart of the breached fortress of Mandos, and then his death would not be so impermanent. He wanted a chance to save his father and all of Aman, and I gave it to him."
"He's a child." Elrohir hissed through his teeth.
Allatar looked at him quizzically, "You are all children." He said, "And indeed, it is for the best that he still remembers the enchantment of a blessed childhood amongst those who loved him, for the Dreamlord weaves his presence into the weft of the mind, and children know him better. Let us hope his grief has not diminished his imagination, for it will be his helm and shield, as his love for the king is his sword."
Elrohir shook his head in bewilderment.
"You once said that you detected no darkness in my fëa," the Wizard continued thoughtfully, "look upon me now and make your judgement. I would not lie to you." Allatar wrapped his trailing sleeves around his arms and folded his hands in his lap.
"Lord Peredhel?" one of the guards asked when he did not respond for several long seconds.
"How long?" Elrohir asked, ignoring the question, "How long will it take? I… I would not," he hung his head and lowered his voice, "I do not want to tell Arwen that she might lose them both." There would be no final reunion, just despair melting into forever without anyone to mark the passing of her spirit into the Music.
"I know not," Allatar shook his head, "but he is not alone. I have sent a dear friend to guard his life, and he is armed, and by the virtue of his father's sword, he may find allies in unexpected places."
"Then this is the only way?" Elrohir asked, "What would have happened if he did not go?"
Allatar paused for a moment, considering his answer, "There is a foolish idea, my boy," he said, "that Aman and Endor were sundered forever when Illuvatar bent the sea. But that is not the only story, for every dreamer wanders in the labyrinths of Irmo and Este, and Nienna counts every mortal tear as Varda counts the stars. Were Valinor to fall, this Earth would become like the hollow shell of an egg, bereft of hope and the joy of life. I said it before, and you believed me not, for you had watched your mother disappear into the Western mists and knew not if you would see her again ere the breaking of the world, but Aman is in the mind."
He reached out his cut hand and touched Elrohir on the temple. A brief vision hit him like a jolt of lightning.
Celebrian had her hair braided and coiled around her head. She was wearing the same Galadrim scout's uniform she had worn that fateful day in the mountains so many centuries ago. She sat beneath a mallorn tree, gazing with an aching longing into the distance where his father had disappeared in the chaos of war. She looked up as if something had called her attention, and for a moment, she met his gaze, and the look of anxiety melted into a smile.
Allatar pulled his hand away, and Elrohir recoiled from the shock as he stumbled backward. He shook his head, shooing away Legolas' concerned hand on his shoulder.
"Ai Eru," he gasped, "what has become of my father?"