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Simulacra (NC-17) 
Written by Vanwa Hravani09 November 2011 | 30013 words | Work in Progress
XI
Gray.
Surrounded by gray.
The very air seemed both to press about him and to be empty, so that he was unsure whether he was surrounded by dense fog or had stepped into a void of nothingness. He was aware that the pain in his limbs had faded and been replaced by a dull ache, as if longing for something he couldn’t name, or as one feels at the beginning of a fever.
As he stood, he became aware of a sound neither close nor far, seemingly just beyond his sight in front of him. A hollow and echoing pulse. Like deep breathing or a heartbeat.
The surf.
It was the rhythmic breaking of gentle waves on the strand. He had never heard it before, yet he knew it as a babe knows its mother’s voice even in the deepest sleep. And with that realization, he knew too where he was, and it became clear. He stood upon the shore of the Western Sea, at the utmost edge of Middle Earth, gazing toward the White Shores of the Undying Lands.
And he knew too that he was left behind.
Off in the misty distance lay his only hope of eternity, of release. Yet no ship would bear him hence. The sorrow he carried was too heavy, his sins too hard. The way forward was not open to him. As he walked toward the waves, they seemed ever to be retreating, so that step by step, he came no closer to touching the foam.
Gazing across the water, Haldir thought he heard the remembered sound of his mother’s voice — and that of his father! — though he knew them to be in the Halls of Mandos and not on the White Shores. Too he heard the happy chatter of those on the last ship, just a vague shape in the mist.
Come back! he cried. Wait for me!
But his voice came out hoarse and quavering, immediately swallowed by the fog as if it had never been.
The silence of the windswept strand took hold again, broken only by the slow pulse of untouchable waves, curling and retreating into themselves, only to be thrown back against the sand again and again.
With a choked sob that he alone could hear, Haldir sank to the wet sand at the edge of a vast cold sea. He had nowhere else to go.
Elrond awoke in the small dark hours before dawn, aware that something needed tending. Sitting up on his elbow, he gazed at his patient, lying still in a bedroll beside him. No sound came from the battered elf, and he appeared to be deep in reverie.
Only as the tree boughs outside the tent shifted did the master healer see what had wakened him. In a brief moment of brighter moonlight, Elrond made out silvering streaks left on Haldir’s face by the tears sliding silently from beneath his closed purple eyelids. In the honesty of sleep, Haldir was crying.
Watching over him, Elrond’s sorrow wet his own cheeks. Please, he prayed silently, please let this not be like last time. But even as he put the thought into words and sent them toward his father, Elrond knew that Celebrian had not been nearly this far gone, and still he had been unable to bring her back. What hope did he have for Haldir, who had no mate, no children or parents to call out to him? No one save his brothers to live for? Could he live for himself?
The dream came with the kaihf, as it always did. Again Haldir found himself standing bereft and abandoned in the damp fog. He lived here now.
He turned away from the pulsing sea and began to walk the silent strand. The empty landscape held no distance, though he trudged for miles. For years. No assurance that anything existed in this land apart from dark water, endless sand and silent fog.
And him.
They broke camp in the morning to ride on toward Imladris. Once inside safe borders they would halt at a hunting cabin and rest there until Haldir was shaken from his darkness. Elrond wished to spare the once renowned warrior the additional humiliation of being seen by others in this state. No one needed to know how bad things had been. The cabin would be close enough to the main House that Elrond could be available to his advisors if needed, and his herbs and supplies could be fetched and prepared.
Haldir’s tinctures were coming less frequently now, though they had to be carefully timed so he could tolerate the arduous impacts of riding. Held in front of Elrohir, he could doze and wake in turns, and at the same time begin to get reacquainted with the sensations of touching another of his kind. His stupor was less profound and his companions caught occasional glimpses of awareness in the blankness of his eyes.
Riding together as they did, Elrohir soon learned the cycles of Haldir’s body, to tell when he lolled nonsensical, woke, or ached with craving. Through their closefitting leathers, he could feel the muscles in Haldir’s thighs and arms that began to jump and twitch as he need came on. Against his own chest he felt the shuddering sighs that racked the Galadrim as his thirst grew in intensity. His neck grew wet with cold sweat from Haldir’s ashen face, and from the bitter tears that leaked unendingly from beneath his lashes. More than once they mingled with his own.
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I am looking forward to reading more of this – I adore all of the undercurrents in their relationship.
— pinbot Wednesday 6 August 2008, 20:25 #