Houses as ruins and Gardens as Weeds

Aragorn:

Wrenching for breath, air fills my lungs, heavy, like muddy water and unwanted. I fight to expel it, but they inflate regardless.

Darkness churns around me; the waves are rough like a chaotic sea. Sense tells me I am in Rivendell, and though it feels that I lost, the fight for life is over. But my blindness, the sheer weight of grief upon my chest is like river water; it shrieks through the nighttime bliss of the last homely house. It grates at the door and hisses in the voice of my captors, 'you are still there, it is black, you are nameless: you never left.'

If I try hard I remember myself; or at least that which should be myself. I will have been wrapped in the comfort of day's smiling light. Legolas will have sat at my side, glowing with pleasure at the gentle fading of blue from bruised hands and the soft expansion of healthy skin. My body is numb to my wishes; healing itself regardless of its hurts. My body has always been too strong for myself.

Night comes and deep grows the shadow that rests in my heart. So wide it feels that it should block the flow of blood. It forces upon me weird images: strange twisted faces that I may or may not have seen. They do not stare but elude my gaze and are harrowed with pain. Even the earth begins to rock from its solidity as though I might float from the edge; it hangs loosely between myself and they. I think no one shall ever reach across my void.

The count of my life has forsaken me, (for this I now consider to be my life and none other). Wakeful and desperate, each moment I have been, confined by the shadows of Mordor. To cry out is impossible, my sharp ribs forbid it.

They have tried to drug me. Even now I shudder in terror, and yet those that come are those that claim to save me. They bring healing tea; the smell is deep and tastes of nature, sweet like a spring forest. I cannot move so they bring it to my lips. My throat closes, fixed on the sensation that it shall be made to drink. My mind closes; I will not have numb sleep forced upon me again.

You cannot, you cannot, I dare not cry. I dare not, will not be saved for this. My sharp ribs forbid sound and so, I stay, wreathed and bound by silence. I have been drugged too many times; the reaction now comes as reflexive, I will not be forced to drink again. It seems the only reaction I have left; my one choice.

Elrond POV

This endless watch has been as seeing the sunrise and sunset in one motion. He came back and hope as spring blossom flowed within my body.

His limbs heal, for his body is strong as those of his forbears. His bones have come from Numenor. He will walk again; should he wish.

He does not wish.

It is his eyes that answer after all. You should have let me die, they long and plead. "Did you not see that I craved it?" My soul rises up at this denial of my right as a healer, a saviour, as a father, for I love my son dearly. I cannot say quite why except that I can see the truth of your plea. Your body, the wreck of it seemed as a ship, mighty to behold, but dashed against stubborn rocks and shattered; but a toy of Illuvatar. I saw your eyes that leapt in terror and your bones like ice, crushed and wet with blood and yet I demanded of you your life. What more could I have asked? But I will not regret it.

I choose another attack with reckless wisdom. You have chosen desperation and in my own I choose guilt.

'What then of Legolas?' I cry as a gull in longing. 'Did he not follow you to the shadow with the love of a brother? When you were lost to the world he searched and did not lose hope but saved it. Had you died, he would have faded; should you die he shall fade again.' I put it as a statement, regretting each word as I speak it. You bear so much grief and I would place more upon your wretched soul – my reason asks, how can this save you? I will not listen to reason for I will never give you to the shadow, though Elbereth herself should demand it of me.

Do you not see, I plead with myself? How did you become so blind to the light I offer, how did you become so numb? This despair you shrink into, it will destroy us all.

You stir, and I begin to believe you have read the very words of my mind. While your body weakens your reason has sharpened to a thin and piercing blade and you slit my thoughts, shredding them like empty paper.

'Mordor will destroy us all Ada, as you have foreseen.' I feel naked as though you have seen the very sinews that hold me together piece by piece.

Your flickering eyelids close once again, rejecting the pale morning with all her purity and the hope that comes with light. As night's shadows fade to naught, so I shrink from the room, leaving you to your dread.

Know that in letting me go, you save me

(Aragorn)

'Estel' he speaks, soft as the wind I cannot feel upon my skin and though my eyes and ears are closed against the world I cannot help but hear him. I dread the call of this name, which they refuse to deny but repeat until my ears are sore with the effort of forgetting. If he calls enough what shall I offer him but my numb acquiescence?

'Your Ada has spoken to me.' It is what I have dreaded for I had not wanted Legolas to partake also of my despair. My anger is bitter as the shadow that has formed around me. I do not want this feeling of anger for it burns my skin and marks me with the darkness of Mordor; it is empty anger and full of hopelessness.

There is a touch, gentle as summer morn against my brow. It does not feel as the touch of orcs or evil men, although they are all that my memory now holds. Legolas seems wise and sad, like a great Elf Lord from across the sea – one who has seen death and dawn. I have seen only death, it reeks in my mouth and wrenches shut my eyes. I now bind myself against his words; ready to shun his pleas for life. I have seen the future; cold and empty like the last dust of a long forgotten fire, twisting in empty air until all has been shifted away and is over.

He will beg of me to return, if not for my sake or my father's then for his own, he who caught me when I fell. It will not be, for I, or Mordor, have hardened myself against these words. I am weak and the shadow cradles me in its creeping embrace. I do not turn.

'Estel, if you wish to die. I release you.' I am released even as he speaks and I seem to float in empty air, devoid of my thoughts. 'I do not bind you to this world for myself, but instead bid you go where you might be quenched of this shadow.' His words are as surprising as the beauty of new dawn in this world condemned to darkness. They touch my skin and unravel my anger until I lie unbound and at his very mercy.

'Your heart is broken and if I alone could defeat Sauron, I think perhaps I cannot heal you of this hurt.'

'I ask but one thing.' He waits and his eyes are upon me. I do not see, but feel them brushing my skin, desperate to pierce this barrier of anaesthetized darkness I have built to shield myself. Should I turn I am certain he shall shatter me with one glance, clear eyes sharp and deadly in their touch. He wishes to ask something of me. He had taken me off my guard, opened me to attack and once again I am falling. The hands are there in the midst of my darkness, sending my further down with sharp fists. Don't break me again, I plead, I beg; silently.

'I ask that you will awake and live this day with me. Open your eyes and do not struggle but feel the breath of living air upon your face. Forget, forget myself if you like, and live as one without a memory. Then I give you leave. You may die and leave the world with the kiss of warmth upon your brow.'

It seems so easy, what he says, as if drowning I were to give up swimming, but enjoy the plunge. If I let go the darkness and my thoughts, become a mere spirit, floating with no limbs and no soul; yes, yes, surely, even I can feel the gentle breeze that calls to me, to claim me for a partner in its soft dance.

His voice is drifting farther from the body that once I claimed as my own and that the world had claimed as hope. The words, or sounds become fuzzy with distance and I have released my body from this mortal coil.

'Let go,' the whisper seems but a nudge between trees, so faint it shimmies now. 'For Mordor would taint you beyond the grave, Let go, leave free of Sauron's shadow and live beyond this time and see the spring in Mandos' halls. Go now, be free, and I shall not fade.'

He may still speak, I know not. He and thought disappear. But, if I were to peer from beyond myself, at the gate of the world, I would see that the dusk smiles upon me and her reach is wide.

I'll try, oh lord, to carry on

Dawn has struck like a great overture and the sky is full of colours; a multitude of harmonic chords blending and bending into one another until it is impossible to see where one ends and another begins. From the bed I gaze lovingly through the window. I have watched, maybe minutes, maybe hours, the change from blue deep as starlight to this patchwork horizon. It passed slowly as a dream and my vision barely noted the change as the tenuous ribbons of pink began to wind their way into the fabric of darkness. I am struck by the brilliance of this dawn as though seeing it through the eyes of another. This body, this pleasure, I believe, cannot be my own. Yet, it does not worry me, this sense of otherness.

Though my eyes ache with sleep, I neither actively deny it, nor dread the instance of falling. For once I am content to drift.

The birds sing, hidden beneath full branches. They sing for joy and my heart beats a little faster because of this. They concern themselves not with the toil of the day but sing, intoxicated by the delight of the early freedom of dawn. So they have sung each morning in this vale of Imladris, yet this morn, for the first time, I believe they will sing again tomorrow.

I am anxious to greet the dawn, old friend. How long is it since I have woken with the slippery embrace of dew upon my cheeks, my hands? I place them now at my sides, pressing them with crushing pain against the soft feathers of my mattress. For a moment it seems that this new strength was a deception, the pain threatens to overcome me, swallowing at my limbs to freeze them within this cage of fear. I press again, numbing myself against the shock of use. The wounds are old and deep and slow to heal.

I sit and though I have done so before, it seems as if for the first time. My father came each day, opening the windows for the mocking sun to enter, working her way slow across my helpless limbs. He would watch as I battled, unwilling and excruciatingly slow with this useless task. I felt like a child again, learning too late his first steps, helpless and afraid of the world; too ashamed of this fragile wreck of awkward bones I had become.

My legs send confused signals to my brain; in the same instant they scream both freedom and rest. Today I choose the former. I fear that they have no strength in them. When they found me, they say, my hip was crushed beyond recognition; perhaps it appeared a hand, or a foot. I wonder idly, what shapes my body can assume when it will.

My feet touch the floor. Soft, it slides beneath my feet and surprisingly it holds me. I am a child, I know, proud and defiant against the world that would force me down at every turn and conquer me. My feet are awkward and quiver with the shattering pain of freedom. My body lurches and I grab for the end of the bed. It seems embedded in time, safe and steady like stone. My feet are clinging to the ground in a denial of my weakness, the window stands but 10 yards away, why should my feet not claim and embrace this movement I wish on them?

I stumble, newborn in this dual agony of pain and desire. My hips halt my steps even as I reach out. It feels they may shred once more to fragments; so stiff they are, so unwilling to carry me.

Ahead there is but a yard that I must conquer between the sill and myself. So small and yet like the void of the sea it appears to my eyes, fresh from the kiss of death.

Closing them, I reach, willing the earth to stay beneath my feet.

It does.

Searching, my sore hands close tight around the edge of the sill, my skin consuming with delight the touch of such sweet air. The air is warm on my face; warm like the breath of the one I love. It surrounds me, as she would, embracing me as though from afar she reaches for me, suspending me outside my world of pain.

I grin wildly feeling oddly proud. A smile stretches tentative and barely used across my features. My face seems to creak with delight at this uncommon expression. It is the child in me I think, which for so many weeks, months perhaps, I have resented. I am ashamed, yet the achievement seems momentous and I admire my own prowess. I want to tell my Ada.

He can shred the thoughts of men and reach into their souls when he wishes. How long he has stood there I do not know. My ears, of late, less attuned to the intricacies of a peaceful world, have yet to revise these familiar sounds. It has been enough that they were not filled with shrieking stone or crushing torment.

In this moment I do not need his gift. Open delight proclaims itself broad and full across his features.

He speaks, voice awash with proud hope. 'Finally you have begun to heal.'

At last it is the truth.