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Post by Rowenna on Sept 22, 2007 3:28:43 GMT -5
“Ahh,” came the groggy sound from the place at the base of her neck and her nose, and the fair-skinned fold over her eyes stretched but did not open. “No... I can’t see anything; therefore, by measure of causality, it must be night.”
Slowly, she opened her eyes--softy, downy skin, yielding eyes of an age not her own, an age that should not have been he own, the fire burned so young, so bright, so brief, snuffed in the embers of infinitesimal youth. The night was ended when she said it was ended; the morning was come as she parted the shades of her eyes and let in sun, rain, and cerulean blue.
“*Quel amrun.”
Her body was still, dormant and asleep in the grasses, and her head rolled to touch her cheek to the earth and green to see the one who knelt by her side.
“Here I’ve been all morning, waiting for you, and here I find you doddling under my nose. Are we going to live, or do you plan to travel wet?”
The words were touched with melancholy, with weight, with water, the fluid dying down the life, though leaving not all in darkness. The words were hers, her own, real and manifest and living, dry with a superior humor to her eyes and no place but her eyes. Enough... enough was alive for now.
*Good morning
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Post by Lerris on Sept 27, 2007 1:40:14 GMT -5
The elf smiled, “Good morning.” It felt odd being addressed in his native tongue then answering differently. He shook his head to himself as he began loading things into the horses’ saddlebags.
He moved slowly, letting Rowen wake by herself as he prepared the horse for the hard days ride ahead. Things finished quickly and Lerris was already swinging himself onto of the horse. “Time to go Rowen,” The elf said lending his hand down to help her onto the horse. “I don’t want to waste anymore time now that I know where I am heading…’
He didn’t say it out loud, but he was thinking it all night, it was all he had seen in his dreams. Home, finally after so long this elf would be home again. He couldn’t help but keep on smirking as he pushed the horse forward.
Time passes quickly while traveling on horseback, Lerris found it easy enough to focus on only the things in front of him. Although the feeling of Rowen gripping firmly, yet softly around his waist was distracting, he found himself at peace and set a steady pace towards home.
(Ugh Filler)
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Post by Rowenna on Sept 28, 2007 15:22:51 GMT -5
Rowen took her sweet time stretching out her limbs and Lerris loaded the horse, flexing the muscles of her shoulders, her arms and back, bracing her hands against one another. Along some moment, she didn’t know when, she was by the horse also, loading supplies onto the beast, following suit where Lerris lead. Her hands picked up pace, for she would not be useless, standing dumb as he took care to get them moving, though she could not disembark until he was finished. Her guide, the one who would take care of things, make them... all right. He boarded, her mind so caught up in the mechanism of action that she was taken off-guard.
“Time to go Rowen,” The elf said lending his hand down to help her onto the horse.
She took the offered arm, solid grip crossing over his wrist as he pulled herself behind him, a mix of his force and hers, being lifted, pulling one’s self, and her body embraced both saddle and steed. They left the camp behind, the campfire reduced to nothing, not smoke, not ember, not the lightest glow of what was once fire; as if it were always carbon, had always been carbon, would always be, never once the warming fire they had seen and created.
Rowen’s arms loosely cradled his waist as the muscles of the horse pushed against them in the unceasing melody of muscle and sinew. The morning sun on her face, eyes like almonds in the face of their purest of white, white lights, her mind was awake. Her arms wrapped around her companion more tightly, and her head leaned forward to nestle over his shoulder and beyond his ear.
“Sing to me,” her words sighed from her as though her body were still lapsed in lethargy, though her mind was already opened like a morning glory at sunrise. She held on soft and didn’t let go.
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Post by Lerris on Nov 28, 2007 1:59:46 GMT -5
Lerris cleared his throat, and for the first time he had something of his own to sing about, the wind itself seemed to quite down as the elf began in on a song of his own.
“Noss del’, forie atta gwaith arvalen hiraeth ar’ rin ar’ ranien manka fesl naaien Ataye ten’nossa. Im ile ar’ amen sa’a pinque teema noss satu ar, dara’manka noss oio utu ivatan’ no’ aru sani luume’ nauva satu sal’, ar’kud amars nauva pelekt. Mankoi aa’noss naust a’nid naust nar ar’ nar, nio tul rato faarea a’ leithie I daeloth. Ar’ daeloth sa I virus apan n’eo melea wanwa. Ar’ I wanwa sa I ia hyari tuulo’ qury il’ anty a’, n’saka iva umbar ar’ aa’na ar’ verin esse. Amen quern’mia dol, pedo amen mern a’, but rei ere’ quern cel… Hendi amu ra yana, re ‘I, “amen ant’ unner.” Amen pedo, “Mith indeed, dara nan' lle sal' il’quenat. Noss n’maksa ivatan’ manka lye n’maksa unner eile. A’ere' e' lye eska iva eressea, ilue eldamar natal da udan….”
The elf’s voice trailed off, no words coming to end his song, he stayed quiet for some time before he spoke again. “I haven’t found the end yet, perhaps when we find out how our story ends I shall have an end to my song. Then I will sing you every word for you, as many times as you wish.” The elf smiled, just to himself, and slid a hand from the reins and gave Rowen’s thigh an affectionate squeeze.
That may look short, but that song took me forever to get into Elvish.
Translation, word for word:
We are, just two people seeking solace and remembrance and wondering if miracles were meant for us. Between you and I is a thin line we stand by, but if we ever find ourselves on the other side then time will stand still, and whole worlds will collide. Why must we suffer now to not suffer later? If later, Never comes soon enough to soothe the hatred, and hatred Is the virus born out of love’s absence, and the absence is the void left from missing every chance to, challenge our fates and perhaps our very names. I shake my head, say I want to help her, but she only turns away. Eyes up to the sky, she sighs, I need nobody True indeed, but you still need everybody. Because We hardly know ourselves if we know nobody else, And only in our loneliness can home become a hell.
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Post by Rowenna on Dec 1, 2007 13:37:39 GMT -5
Rowen leaned her cheek into his cheek, letting the lilting tongue of elvish soothe her; the roll pressed gently against the drum of her ears, rippling through her head, and her eyes stared past, open and metal, the eyes of the holding onto words not sights, useless like boots left out by the doorstep when not in use. When he finished, her eyes filled like sliding in to empty boots, and her brow creased.
“That... is a very strange sort of song,” she voiced, a use through the instrument that was her body, her trachea, her lungs, not herself--somewhere deep and centered and warm within the machine. She pressed her lips against his cheek. “But I’ll see about helping you with that ending.”
Her eyes traced over sky, scattering in glass marbles against the expanse of the firmament blue. Silence.
“Are we there yet?”
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Post by Lerris on Dec 1, 2007 23:52:10 GMT -5
Lerris peered off into the distance, and a smile came to his face as a tree line came into his view. “We are very close, several more hours and we will reach the outskirts of home.” The word tasted foreign in his mouth, home it really had been some time since he had referred to this place as such.
The hours passed as they both rode in silence, Lerris’ gaze never leaving the trees, although he was sure until now that Rowen did not see them. He pushed the horse faster, as if the forest were going to run away from him if he did not hurry. Suddenly seeing the trees close up made Lerris slow the horse to a stop, he slid from horseback and took in a deep breath.
“You may continue to ride if you wish, I think I shall walk from here.” He pulled the horse forward, his feet knew this ground, this soil, he almost wanted to take his boots off and feel the earth beneath his toes. Embarrassment at what Rowen might say if he did kept those boots on, but the feeling was there nonetheless.
They reached the massive trees at dusk, the wind blew through them making the creaks and groans that this elf was familiar with. “We walk from here on in, my house…or what I suppose is left of it, is not to far deep.”
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Post by Rowenna on Dec 8, 2007 11:43:29 GMT -5
Byron hopped the forest.
The young nomad let the forest moist squish beneath his boot as his body explored the terrain, the air damp, the trees rich and towering, fading sunlight filling the flat of his back. The void filled with the flapping of wings; a gander taking off from a bough so high. Fair-skinned fingers lightly folded on the strap of the newly-purchased pack from Edoras, slung over his shoulders and his eyes opened to everything like he was dreaming. Everything new, everything bizarre and twisted and different, and the dreaming eyes accepted it all dispassionately. How many roads were his? How many pathways, avenues, streets were now open to him that were closed before? Eyes of black marble reflected like windows. Every path was his path, his, possession, possessive, his property, his own. Every path his path; every way his way. Every step meant one million forks branching out before him, beckoning with their fruits and folly. How many roads could be marked on a single terrain? Pale sunbeams lighted through the forest foliage. No number; no limit--therefore, infinity. Then, there was no pathway for him. Just the eternal plain.
He crossed the main road, following it with his tracing feet. Byron circled the medallion that hung so loosely around his neck. He’d never been so free since he’d left Gondor. Since the necessary trek to restock, suddenly, there was no order, no restraint, no being locked in the mechanism of direction. Anyplace, anywhere, somewhere, he needed to go, to get out, to see the world, and though he knew Mirkwood, he never knew it, and if he ever saw all the back alleys and woodlands, he never saw them for what they were. What they were, was as seen through water. What they were, was as seen in a dream.
Dusk painted everything soot; cold painted everything frozen, and though his skin was frost, he did not know it, could have kept on walking forever and on till his legs bored him and his body collapsed in the damp.
He stepped off the marked path--perchance, he would meet a traveler? And slit their guts for money, really fight, like he watched her do, like he was taught to perform, though never given the chance. Thieve an elf? The thought of an elf, and he burned. He didn’t know why even, but in his moment of lapse, his face flushed with blood and he drunkenly realized the soreness in his thighs.
Dusk grew, darker in dusk, and his weakness prevailed. A house over the way; planted firmly on his horizon. Providence, if he knew for sure he believed in providence.
The hand touched the wood, soaked in with rot of age and season, bristling against his skin. Stealth crawled on his back like a spider as he tipped the back of the worn house, brushing the wood with his fingers. There was no pumping heartbeat, no war-drums in his head; in calm resignation, he pressed the back door--open, to neither surprise nor suspicion. He dodged the frame and entered the place of no lighting; of animal paw prints, abandoned nests, and spiders’ sacks nestled safely in warmer corners. Byron turned all corners till he reached the bedroom, soiled covers lightly askew. He turned his back to the chamber, eyes coming on to all that was seen from his standing point. This is mine now, he thought to himself. For every break between travels, the link at which to return. And he smiled. And, finally, the blood rushed to his face, filling his veins like a flood, and he retired into his little nook, nestled in the blankets he double-checked for lice.
Rowen slid from the horse.
Her leg slipped around Lerris’ torso, and her arms embraced his chest from the back as a smile slit across her face, a fire flitting in her eyes. She smiled the fierce smile of being young and reckless, old and triumphant, and her white teeth gently nibbled at a white ear.
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Post by Lerris on Dec 13, 2007 3:41:13 GMT -5
He couldn’t help but smile, he was home, he was finally home after all this time. He was home with Rowen, and for the first time in what seemed like forever everything was going right. Although it was hard to concentrate on being home with what Rowen was doing to his ear, an even bigger grin split his face.
“You know I am liable to get lost with you, In fact, if you keep it up, I intend to.” Lerris almost caught himself by surprise at what he just said, but when he went to say something else to correct himself he could only laugh.
As the two grew closer to his house, the paths under Lerris’ feet became more and more familiar and the last of the suns light began to fade behind the trees as they became thicker. He spotted no others, those of his kin about, but he had no doubt that other eyes watched him besides the animals who took up residence here.
His house came into view and the elf smiled, “There it is, it may not look like much, but in its day, I would say it was the best home in the wood.”
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Post by Rowenna on Dec 28, 2007 2:10:07 GMT -5
“The best?” Rowen repeated, letting her eyes fall right, then left across the expanse of dusky wood. “And I can see you had much competition--a flourishing metropolis, amongst palaces to compare.” She kissed his cheek. “When you say the best, I know you mean it.”
Her arms presently cradled his neck, and as they neared the modest hutch, the weary shanty, the slightly foreboding cottage in the midst of the nighttime wood--she released him. She eased off his back but never lost connection as her foot touched the forest mulch, her hand carrying his. Her back leaned up against the flat by the door, the ill kept wood scratching against her back. Her eyes showed aloofness to his higher gaze.
“Your new pet?” Rowen’s fist gently nudged the stolen stallion that had been following them all along, and the beast snorted at the touch.
He heard voices.
Byron’s eyes shot open, awakened in the dark. Woken in blackness, shadows danced with moonbeams and moonbeams toyed with shadow in the shadow puppet play of branches, window frames, corners, walls, and furniture. His face was cold; his body, warm by blankets, sheets, and the natural churn of blood in his stomach, and his brain was alive in electricity. He knew not how long he slept, but it felt like long; long enough to jolt in a heightened awareness, the top of his game and mind.
There were voices. Dull, muffled, but close, the back of his neck, breathing--ghosts. He slinked from the covers like a squid, the bedding undisturbed by his motions, and he crouched behind the bed like a wildcat, eyes peering over the edge... the webs, the animals, the thin layer of dust... but it didn’t matter. It was owned, live in, and they were here. He backed to the window, and his fingers found the grainy edge. He pushed, and the fragile, broken glass slid Heavenward. He slipped out into the moonlight, painting fair skin white, painting blackness white, through the breakage in the tress. Out. He was free. Looking over his shoulder, he crouched low and closed the window... scooting over, feet lightly pawing the damp earth, he sidled to a larger window, from whence he could see the door.
The night bat. He watched; he waited.
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Post by Lerris on Jan 7, 2008 0:29:34 GMT -5
He shrugged off the comment about his home, you could travel in further and find many others…or at least he told himself this. He had not been back in…a very long, long time. Maybe everyone had moved on, gone elsewhere like they had always spoken about doing. Set sail for somewhere not so stricken with strife and wars, some place they could call their own home.
Lerris patted the horses’ neck, still watching his house in the darkness, “No, not a pet, I suppose we should let him go where he wants. I’ve no need for a horse anymore, and if I do indeed need one later…I hope you will be here to help me liberate one from it’s previous owner…again.”
He smirked, and gave the horse a gentle push away from them. “A wild horse now, go find your brothers.” The horse gave a snort and moved away, he watched as it disappeared into the shadow of the forest.
“Shall we go inside then? Maybe I can get a real fire going, in a real fireplace…that is if it is still there.” He pushed open the door, and gently pulled Rowen in behind him, everything looked old…older then it actually was, the youngest thing in the house seemed to be the two who stood in the entry.
The elf breathed a sigh,
“Welcome home….”
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Post by Rowenna on Jan 7, 2008 0:49:31 GMT -5
His black eyes flicked open against his skull. Byron, his eyes, they burned against him, I thought I escaped you, he wondered, and he... what is he doing here? Why... why...
She turned around him.
"Welcome home," Rowen smiled, circling around him like a battling stance with a cool, clear smile on her diamond face; her hands touched the meeting of his chest and his shoulders. Her head leaned forward.
No!
Glass shattered as his body crashed through the window, and he leapt feet-first and smashed the elf into the floor. His fist drilled into his face, one after another after another, adrenaline pumped through his veins and poisoned his brain, and before he knew what happened, the knuckles of his right and left were red.
How dare you kiss her!
He grit his teeth; his muscles shook as he gripped the shirt of the elf beneath his pinning crouch.
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Post by Lerris on Jan 7, 2008 0:59:30 GMT -5
There wasn’t much time to react, in fact, there was no time. He wanted to shield his face, but he couldn’t the man had his arms pinned to the ground beneath his knees. Blow after blow after blow stuck the elf as he gasped for air in what little time there was in between punches.
He started to see blue, then red, then darkness came, and yet he still felt the sting of each punch to his face. Numbness came next, and the brutality did not stop, but at least he could not feel it anymore.
He fought hard to stay awake, even if unconsciousness would have at least given him a time away from the pain in his cheeks, his nose, his eyes. Something told him to stay awake, something told him that whoever this man was, he was insane. He had to protect Rowen, he could go after her next, and although he knew that she wanted no such thing,
He fought to stay awake….
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Post by Rowenna on Jan 7, 2008 1:09:13 GMT -5
“Byron!” her voice emanated in a scream. Her whole upper body heaved as she pushed against him, shoving him off of her own. He scrambled, his feet tumbled against the soot-colored ground, and his shoulders shook, his breath shook, little spasms of spittle and air, like coming up from the freezing chill of ocean water, like coming up from hell’s sweltering fire.
“How could you!” he burst through the water-soaked lunges, and his arm swung forward over his weight, “wench!”
Rowen’s brain was all a’flurry, all shaking in a horrible excitement, and she fell by Lerris’ side, arms heaving him up, half protective and half roughly-handling, and her gray eyes never left Byron’s black like he might disappear the moment she looked away.
How, why, when, how? She didn’t know what to do, what to say; she honestly didn’t know what to do.
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Post by Lerris on Jan 7, 2008 1:25:03 GMT -5
The elf squinted through two black puffy eyes, he spat blood over the name as he spoke, “Byron…what are you…” He fumbled to find words, he couldn’t see the other in the room, but he felt Rowen’s grip on him, and knew that he, the one they had chased across this earth, was standing before them.
He wanted to say something, a million things, yet for some reason no words came from his lips. They had chased this boy across miles and miles, and here he was hiding out in Lerris’ house? Here he was lying in wait to beat him almost to death, surely he would of accomplished the job had Rowen not stopped him.
Had he hit her to? He could barely hear, if he had, he would kill him. Anger was the only thing he felt now through the numbness, and he wanted to shout, to curse him, but he spoke in only a whisper, it was a whole speech in his head, about why he had run, why he had just vanished, but he only whispered,
“I will kill you…if you hurt her again.”
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Post by Rowenna on Jan 19, 2008 2:14:22 GMT -5
Rowen's eyes held Byron's eyes like string; when her cherished spoke, the line was pulled, and Rowen's eyes were tugged down in like. He rasped his words, and her eyes fell for him the instant it took as her hands pressed against his back, curling his spine to a sitting position, and disk-like eyes met the boy once more, though her lips held close to Lerris' ear.
"N'gorgamin, amrun, ro n'tyara harwar amin,"* she said, and she felt the black eyes blaze on her, bore on her, sharpened, rigid with astonishment at her own... audacity, her own spirit, how could she, even then... but Rowen didn't see that when she saw him, saw that change of face, she saw her body, her Byron, angered... angered. She wavered. She opened her mouth to speak, and her fluency quaked, her tongue shook, her lips pressed out to pronounce, "I-I-we came all this way," the eyes half-shaded, the strained, the nervous, the pulled half-smile, the glint in her eye. "For you, Byron," the slightest nod of her head. "We came for you."
By then, he was standing. He bit down, he stepped down, sinking deeper into the floorboards, and he moved not at all.
"Do you think I left so you could come for me?"
"You weren't ready for it," was all she could say.
"Is that how I beat your lover?" he goaded with a grimace and stuck out his neck like a gander.
"He's not my-" the spark of ire, and it subsided instantly--the one second, the eyes were ablaze, the next, the shot-down sparrow slowly tracing earthward as it spiraled through the open sky.
"And she stops," Byron sardonically curled up his cheek, a palms up gesture of his hands like a storyteller presenting an ironical piece.
The falling sparrow eyes met what they were falling to--not the elf's eyes, but him in any case.
"Amin hiraetha, Lerris."**
"Yes, and I'm sorry too," Byron erected.
Rowen's head shot up, eyes wide, breath completely still.
"You don't give me any credit," he grimaced, and the rest stood firm and tall. There was no way to shake it, no way to describe. The feeling dripped on his tongue as he spoke his next words... he was the student. He was the friend. He was, he was supposed to be the trusted ally, through thick an thin, under her swanlike wing. And she kept secrets. And she indulged... it. "And to think what I felt for you--and here I find you, frolicking with the man whom you have tried to kill, what are you about, Rowen?"
"I didn't want this for you," Rowen started to shake her head, the edge of reason, but in reason just the same. "When Rohan happened--when I saw you-" A flash. His body, bloodied, black and pale, piled with the other bodies and burial stones. The smell. The smell stung her eyes even now. "I got... myself in trouble. Drunk, in a jailhouse, I didn't tell you, but I'm telling you now. It all catches up to you--the wanted posters, everything. I don't want to steal anymore. I'm a little late, but you... you could stop anytime you wanted to. Before anything happened."
"So is that what all this is about?" he said, unmoved. "The secrets, the hiding, your games? Those moral quandaries are yours, not mine."
"You're like a son to me."
"Son? I'm no son to you. You don't love like a mother should love; more like a pregnant dog over an inbred pup. But I'm grown now. I've got what I needed out of you, and now I'm gone."
*Fear not, sunrise, he will not harm me
**I'm sorry, Lerris.
I'm leaving room for Lerris to interact. I thought it would be odd to conclude everything without him. Oh, and I didn't find any elvish terms of endearment that I liked, so Lerris is now liken to the sun. Like Juliet. Only taller.
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