Four Seasons

WARNING : Indication of gore. Not much violence tho.

It was a hot, hot night, those nights which leaves you sweating and turning in your bed and Fara found herself staring at the summer stars lecturing the Valar in her heart. The soft and steady breathing of Figwit who miraculously consented to sleeping with her for once didn't help her insomnia.

"NIENNA... Manwe forgive me....VALAR...."

Fara immediately lit the nearest candle and ran to Maglor's room. He was thrashing about wildly, the pillows thrown about (one ended up on his working table) and the covers were twisted around his writhing body. Valar, the 3rd time this month!

Forsaking her culture's anality when it comes to the opposite sex, Fara jumped on his bed and put up a good fight in attempting to pin him down so that she could calm him down. It was no easy feat, she has experienced failure in the form of ending up on the floor flat on her back before. A fist came out of nowhere and narrowly missed her face. She swore in Haradic. She finally managed to hold on to his hands, using her insubstancial form to pin his body down and tried to shush him to sanity somehow.

"Shh, mellon. It's alright, shhh..."

Maglor awoke to a foreign woman's face scrunched up in effort, i.e. looking exceptionally focused on something which is highly difficult and was baffled. The dream was very vivid and he was disoriented between the sight of a mortal pinning him down and the very realistic alter-reality that to him was real.

There were blood in his hands, not his own, but staining the ivory of his skin none the less. In vain, he looked about for water, anything to wash it off. There was a chipped pitcher on a table, so he took a few steps towards it, and realized that his soft boots were deep in water, enough to make slushing sounds as he waded carelessly, kicking hidden objects within it. Then he made the mistake of looking down, and noticed that within the scarlet liquid were dismembered ears, arms, thighs, calfs, hands, torso of elves...

And he screamed.

"Valar, Maglor. It's me!" she slapped him, hard. The wolves and Figwit followed suit with the howling. He pushed with all his might and something rolled to a loud thud to his right. The source of the loud thud swore again. It registered to him that it was a feminine voice. Panting from the dream, he sat up, clearly not remembering any wenching activity prior to his slumber, but the high elf in him demanded that he apologised to whomever it was that he obviously harmed unintentionally.

At the edge of the bed he saw a tiny hand, and the hand clawed the bedsheet until a head poked up. The head shook the hair off its front. It was Fara. A very angry Fara. He cringed, though was astonished as well.

"Fara?" he asked, gaping at her. She painfully pulled herself to a more dignified position of sitting cross-legged on the bed while glaring at him. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Mentally, Fara chastined herself for being angry, for whatever that haunts Maglor's dreams are obviously horrific events of the past which she will never have an iota of understanding. She reminded herself to be more patient with him.

"What on earth were you doing on the floor beside my bed?"

"Maglor, you have dreams," she said calmly, almost too calmly for someone who he had just thrown bodily off the bed.

Blood in his hands, blood at his feet, blood he helped spill. He nodded once. She tilted her head slightly to the right.

"Want to talk about it?" Scarlet liquid in his name, he could taste the metallic tang.

"Nay, I have forgotten." She seemed unconvinced.

"Are you sure?" He smiled assuredly.

"It is merely a dream," she wouldn't give in, and gestured towards the askew pillows and bedsheet, raising an eyebrow at him. "Very well, an unpleasant dream, but no matter. Please continue your rest, Fara. Forgive me for disrupting your sleep."

Sighing, Fara walked out to her room and closed the door a little too hard.

Belatedly, Maglor realized that he did not enquire on her well-being after his unintentional assault on her in misguided self defense. He reasoned that she was aware of his inability to control himself at the particular time, but a nagging feeling in his heart made him feel guilty.

He hated to admit it to himself, but he feared to sleep again. Maglor decided to pick up his askew pillows and rearrange the room, again. Still, he feels no inclination of slumber and decided to go out hunting. He changed into his hunting gear, grabbed his bow and quiver, and silently slid out into the night.

-------------- &Fara&

I woke up sore all over, and stretched, yielding not few cracks from my joints. Damn elf is strong, pretty boy or no. I dragged myself off the bed, not particularly feeling cheerful and headed to wash myself. That done, I headed to the kitchen to make breakfast as I have always, and Figwit as usual was mournfully pusing his food bowl my way. Absent mindedly I gave him his meal which he gulped down happily. I felt cranky, and old.

I wanted to hit something.

Bread and butter'll do, I mused. "Maglor, breakfast's ready," I knocked on his door. I waited awhile but there was no response, taking a hint I ate mine alone and buried myself in embroidry for a dress I never figured what to wear to. There was no sign of him until at noon, worried, I poked my head through the door, only to find him missing. I felt a moment's worth of panic and noticed that his room is tidy, that his hunting bow and quiver is missing, and I reasoned that he's out hunting and would return when he feels like it.

Damn elf, could've told me. A note would be nice.

I decided that horticulture would suit my mood and worked on my herb garden. Admittedly, it wasn't tending but more of me attacking the weeds more viciously than is needed, such was the foulness of my temper. The sky was of reddish hue when he returned, a few rabbits, a deer and even a peasant hanging off him. If not for my mood, I would've laughed at the sight. He looked bashful, and a little hesitant to address me.

"A star shines upon our meeting, Fara," he said finally.

"Hi, Maglor. Nice catch," He dug something from one of his pockets and handed to me a medium sized jar of white green paste.

"For your aches." It wasn't a straight out apology, but close to it.

"Thank you, " I took it from him with surprise, my mood a little lifted that he DID care. I removed my gardening gloves from my hands and unscrewed the jar, sniffing its contents. It smelt of strong mint and faintly of athelas. "Why, Maglor, where on Arda did you procure this?" It's a special blend made by only the most experienced healers.

"I, uh, took a longer walk than usual," my heart softened towards him that he made the effort to find ointments for my sake. So that's where he was all day.

"Do send your catch to the meat shed, before you buckle over from all that weight," I was jesting, he looked as if he was carrying next to nothing. "Skin a few of those rabbits, I'll make stew out of it with mushrooms," he brightened up, knowing that I was pleased and went about his chores, greatly relieved.

I shook my head in resignation of my odd friend and put away my gardening tools.

------

Figwit was happy that Maglor's home, if those yelps was of any indication. I was working on that embroidry still, the motifs now more defined. Almost on cue, the mutt sped to my feet jumping around like an imp, showing off what Maglor gave him. A new leather ball was pushed onto my lap, and he grinned at me.

"That's a lovely ball, Figwit," he rolled over and lay of his belly, begging a scratch. Without a thought I obliged.

It's been quiet for a whole week, or if there were nightmares suffered by Maglor, I know nothing of it. The air is uneasy between me & him. I decided that remaining silent is the only way to coax any information out of him, but he stubbornly persist on keeping his silence. I was determined as I was to know, but he is probably more determined not to. I closed my eyes in frustration.

Only time would tell.

I wondered whether my mortal life was enough.

------------- Maglor POV.

There they were, in the distant shore, waiting, waiting, waiting... Their faces, once fair, were now in mangled tatters, bits of rotten flesh hanging off unnaturally glowing bones. He wanted to turn away from the horrible sight, glad of the expanse of water between them. "Run, you may, son of Feanor, but cursed you remain," was the combined hoarse whispers of a thousand tormented souls. "You will join us soon enough."Then laughter, laughter, hysterrical laughter, echoed in his mind and vibrated to the deepest depths of his soul.

He woke up panting, droplets of sweat running down his chiseled form.

To his surprise, something soft and wet touched him and he nearly lashed against it. It was Figwit, whining unhappily from the apparent unease that his co-master suffered from. Those very eyes was asking him to be well in soul as well as his body, it was fear in devotion of love.

"Hush, Figwit, it was nothing," he rubbed the top of the canine's head, recovering his will. Ah, Fara. What would you say to me? My deeds are my own, as much as my memories and my troubled dreams. You know only of that I am cursed and foul, but nothing of the horrors I have committed. The phantoms are right, I deserve their fate.

"Valar," he prayed, "I am deserving of thy wrath and punishment, but spare Fara from my weakness for she is but a kind soul willing to take in an unworthy creature of Eru," he wished not to cause harm upon her. He recalled the conversation at the dinner table not too long ago, when he suggested that it would be better if he left and wander once again, with the intent of sparing Fara the danger he obviously presents. She gave him that look that succeeds to convey to him that her temper is flaring again, slammed down her spoon, and thrust her angry face in his.

"Look, Maglor. It may be best in your elven head that you can handle and make it alone in that Valar-forsaken journey that you persist in imagining that you deserve walking until the end of the circles of Arda. I am dissapointed that you feel that I am any lesser of a friend than any of the Eldar could be to not understand, despite how sometimes I feel cranky about it, on what you are going through. Even if you can argue that I do not understand, I cannot force you to tell me what you're going on, and I don't really know what goes on in you head, and so that limits my capability to help you. You're an obtuse ancient overpretty, overangsty adolescent on accepting the fact that I am willing to be here and help you in whatever way that I can. If being roughed up once in a while is the price, then so be it. However, if you wish to leave, GO AHEAD," and she stormed into her room. Figwit whined with his paws over his head under the table.

He wondered then, in his ancient elven wisdom, who was the child and who was the wise elder, and decided she was right.

Still, he will not tell her of his dreams.

"Maglor?" a sleepy voice informed him that yes, indeed he had in the course of his nightmare cried out without realizing it again, and yes, she is checking whether he is well again. Not wanting to explain, he pretended to just wake from the dream as she sat herself beside the bed, leaning worriedly over him.

"Stay," like a child said he, wrapping his arms needily around her body, absorbing much needed comfort from her presence.

"Yes."

----

Fara slept like a babe.