Fic: "Loving in death - 2 ¤Glorfidel/Erestor, ¤PG-13 ¤Romance. Angst. Poetic?
Title: Loving in death - part 2.
Author: Nemesi.
Genre: Romance.
Couple: Erestor/Glorfindel.
Rating: PG
Word count: 1532.
Disclaimer: Lord of the Rings, its characters, places and themes do not belong to me, no matter how much I may wish. All the characters here portrayed are creations of J.R.R. Tolkien.
Warning: Un-betaed.
Summary: For him, Death was nothing but the prelude to Love.
Author’s Notes: It’s official, folks: though I might, if the Muses are willing, finish this someday (I mean, I finished Smoke and Mirrors today, so there’s STILL hope), this story IS NOW UP FOR ADOPTION. Whoever will tackle the “challenge” and post his of her own ending to the tale, shall get a badge of sorts: a personalized image to put on their LJ/forums/posts/mails, etc.
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2.
It is during a dim and soundless day in the thousandth autumn of the Third Age, when the fire in the braziers is pitifully low, and the butterflies of flame are pale and small, that Glorfindel wakes up - if sleep do know the dead - from a most disturbing vision of himself, facing alone a wraith-king of dark and oppressing force.
To rid himself of the feel of doom brought to him by the dream, Glorfindel begins to wander alone, shying away from all other souls. At length, just as the subtly glowing walls grow bleak and cold in the imitation of night, he finds himself within the place of his and Erestor’s first meeting: the cool Chamber of Seeing Mirrors.
Although, as I said, the rest of the fortress has grown dim and cold, this room is brilliantly a-glow. Images flow and change upon the mirrors, to the rhythm of a low, melancholy hum, the distant echo of a mourning choir. Light flashes and pours from the mirrors, it is caught and reflected million and million times again in each fragment of glass, each minute snow-crystal sprouting from the fountain; it falls, like liquid cataracts, to the black marble mirror of the floor, and there lays in listless pools.
The air is full of different perfumes, coming, as the light and humming do, from the looking glasses all around. Scent of roses, scent of rain; scent of soil, and scent of pain.
Erestor is there, as Glorfindel knew he would be, but one glance alone at his beloved is enough for a deeper gloom to invade his spirit. I say ‘gloom’, but what to name the extremely complicated blend of emotions running like a spike through his chest? There is Love - there always is, and it always comes first - and Awe, and Surprise, also; and then comes Longing, and Fear, and a sort of Painful Awareness, the kind of fizz that runs through the body before lightning strikes.
The clothing of his beloved differs from what he usually wears - and that alone is cause to worry. How can a soul change a part of its own self? How can she, or he, own, if truth be told, something akin a wardrobe from which to choose their garments?
A kind of mourning robe is now upon Erestor’s form, that trains and pools around his feet. The sheer realness of it, of that bloody red and livid blue, tinges his exquisite face with the pallor of death. And then the glimmer of gold, gold everywhere, the gold of Sun instead that the Silver of moon he so loves, gold on his person, gold on his robes, the neck and sleeves, and gold on his forehead, the gold of an otherworldly circlet, a crown, exquisitely embroidered to look both hefty and extremely delicate.
Confused, Glorfindel opens his arms, and Erestor glides to him smoothly, moulds himself against his lover’s chest, tucks his head beneath Glorfindel’s chin and wraps his arms about his waist.
“I knew you would seek refuge here, my love.”
Glorfindel laughs, but his voice sounds feeble, and rough with foreboding.
“Tell me, dear one, how can you know so well the contents of my heart?” Glorfindel sighs. “You know of what happened?”
“You had a dream,” Erestor answers, looking up to meet his eyes. Glorfindel runs his hand through Erestor’s hair and delicately cups his cheek.
“The dead do not dream.”
“But they can have visions, if so the Valar wish,” Erestor corrects him gently. “We are - every single one of us - born for a purpose. A destiny, if you will, wrought within the Song; wrought in brilliant Silver and Blood. And to see it in sleep, is a privilege the Valar grant only to the truly blessed.”
Glorfindel’s chest tightens at the words, and as a cloud of irrational fear comes upon his mind, he clasps Erestor fiercely to his chest, as though believing someone is about to rip them apart.
“I have you, and such is the one blessing I need. Why would I dream of fight and war, of things and places far in both time and space, if I am here, and always will be?”
“Because you will not always be here. Fight and war lie ahead of you, as does a new chance at life.”
“Reborn!” Glorindel bemoans. “Why do you call me blessed, if my destiny is to leave you? Cursed is what I am! Cursed!”
“A power has been bestowed upon you, the power of help. But to have such power, and yet do nothing, is it not the real curse? It is my fondest wish to always remain by your side. Yet, above all, I yearn to see you bring new hope to Arda. Won’t you do that? Bring new hope to all living?”
“As you bring new hope to the death,” Glorfindel answers feebly. And you must know: Erestor is, in more sense than one, the only real Light of the Halls. He comforts the dead, aids them and listens to the incidents of their passage through the dark Mist and Shadow. His are the tender hands cradling the sobbing heads of the departed children, his is the soft voice comforting the felled heroes, the light step guiding the ghostly maidens to their long-lost loves.
Glorfindel’s eyes move gentle and kind upon Erestor’s velvet clad form; but it pales under his gaze, quivering like the lily weathering a storm.
“Glorfindel,” Erestor begins, glancing at Glorfindel’s low neckline, at the pale, pale skin at the base of his throat, where a pulse would have been detectable, had Glorfindel been alive. He sinks his head upon Glorfindel’s shoulder, nestled against that nonexistent beat of life. “I have lied long to you, whom I love above anything else. The guilt of silence troubled and haunted my mind, but so did the fear of voicing what I kept sealed within. Now the time for silence is gone, and whatever the price, I have a confession to make.”
One ghostly hand reaches out and lifts Erestor’s face by gently placing pressure on his chin. His eyes are yellow, Glorfindel realizes belatedly, yellow like the newly bloomed celandine, the flower that denoted his House, when it still stood.
“My sweet,” Glorfindel says, as he strokes Erestor’s slim arms. “There is nothing you could say that would affect my love for you. Do not fear me; never.”
“I do not fear you, my love; I fear a life without you. For, what would have been of me, had I not met you? My Light, my Hope, my Joy! I love you as I will love no other in my long life, and to have you gone from my side would be the end of me.”
“Lose me? Erestor, we are joined in Death, the everlasting doom. There is nothing in this world, that could ever come between us!” Though his words are spoken with a throaty sort of amusement, his eyes speak of the same fear Erestor is feeling. “And to die without me? My foolish love, how can there be a death, beyond death?”
Something overwhelmingly sad wafts by Erestor’s eyes. “Indeed. There is no further death for the dead. But what of those who, still alive, dwell among the dead?”
Glorfindel draws back, startled, his eyes searching Erestor’s for an explanation. “Alive…?”
The ebony head is lowered, just for a moment, as Erestor pulls away from him. Then wide, overly bright eyes meet his own, as swirls of glass and snow fall upon them both.
“You know, surely, that this fortress is closed to all but two kinds?”
Glorfindel can only stare, and shake his head, as though trying to rid his mind of its own thoughts.
“Only dead Elves can walk these Halls…” he begins, and then trails off, licking his lips as a truth he can not accept comes to him at last. “And…”
“And,” Erestor finishes for him, not unkindly, “those who belong to the Valar, as well.”
“A Vala?”
Shy and strange is the look Erestor gives him, but the hand he cups around Glorfindel’s cheek is warm and tender.
“How you echo my words, as though repeating them twice would make them less true! Yes, my most beloved Glorfindel, I am a Erestor the Vala, Son of Namo and Guide of the Halls, and I am alive.”
Awareness blooms inside Glorfindel then, and he bows his head in a kind of understanding that is closely related to sorrow. He can see now, and with sudden clarity, the reason Erestor’s sweet mouth has ever been denied to him. Were a living one to accept a kiss from the dead, their soul would be taken from them, and the empty vessel of their body would whiter and die, rotting like a flower rots in the desert sun.
To think he had often come close to claim those lips! To think he had often come close to eradicate from the world his sole reason of existence!
“You are a living Vala,” Glorfindel whispers, his voice wrenched from him by agony and anguish. “And I an Elf about to be reborn. Our ways have to part here.”