Modern AU. When Aegnor can
no longer bear to hold his tongue, he gives in to the urge to seek
understanding. Quenya name used (Aegnor
= Aikanáro), and he is also referred to by his “human” name, Aaron. This is a continuation of “Machine”, “Morgue”
and “Letters”, also related to “Write” and “Decay” distantly. Basically just me fulfilling my inner
fantasies again. Takes place sometime in
the modern day.
Disclaimer: I don’t own the Silmarillion, but this Sarah is mine.
Pairings: past Aegnor x Andreth (only friendship otherwise)
Characters: Aegnor, Sarah (OFC), (mentions Andreth, Finrod,
Orodreth, Angrod, Galadriel, Finarfin and Eärwen)
Warning: non-canon complaint, rebirth theories about elves, some
mild religious context, mentions human sacrifice, suicidal thoughts, lots of
death
Song: Theme For Rohan
Words: 1,719
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immortal (adjective): exempt from
death; exempt from oblivion: imperishable; connected with or relating to
immortality; able or tending to divide infinitely
How did one go about explaining his
greatest of demons?
Humans, Aikanáro knew, would not oft
understand the perspective of one of his kind. Fear of death was a weakness many of
them shared, one that festered and raged in their hearts all their lives as
they scraped and clawed for each second of breath. They did not like to touch the dead
bodies of others or linger upon the departed spirits once housed inside, for it
made them uncomfortable.
Some of them feared death so much that
they wished to live forever, escaping its skeletal, crawling fingers. Some of them feared it with such
ferocity, so frenetically, that they would do anything to grasp that tenuous hope of forever
just out of their reach.
So many times he had seen this. Not only in the ancient world, before
the current human reckoning when the Kings of Númenor sacrificed their people’s
blood to gain long life that was not theirs to keep, but also in the modern
realm. Black magic,
necromancy and alchemy, nonsense designed to prey upon those feeble, gossamer
strands of black hope strung as the cobwebs of a poisonous arachnid, awaiting
the foolish and the weak of heart to fall within their trap. How many, he wondered, had devoted all
their time living to finding a way to escape the inevitable end?
How many of them would have scoffed upon
his idiocy if he had offered to trade places with them, give them the long life
of the Firstborn? No matter
the blackness of their hearts or the wickedness of their minds or the sickness that
infested their souls, he would have done it in a heartbeat—would have thrown
away his gift from the One and laid down eagerly to
the ravages of time and grayness, passing beyond the edges of the world with
tears of joy upon his smiling visage.
But it was impossible. Even the Lady Lúthien, in the end, was
but a fairy’s tale, a story whispered when romance burned heavy in the night
and star-struck eyes gleamed between couples with entwined hands. No power within the realm of Eä could
grant Aikanáro that which he most desired.
The gift of the Secondborn, the
Aftercomers. The gift of Men.
And here was this girl—this daughter of
mortal blood—asking him why he wept, why he believed he was damned and
cursed. Why he coveted most
the scent of death and the emptiness of oblivion.
What could he say to her that she might
understand?
“You will see her again one day,” Sarah
insisted whenever he breathed that deep sigh of despair and told her that he
wanted to die. “You will be together with her, happy forever.”
“But I won’t” was always his blasé reply.
“And how can you be so sure?” she would
always question. “Do you have no faith?”
Until, one day, he did not turn away in
silence and ignore her words as he should. Until, one day, the urge to tell all
froze his body in place, parted his lips in retort, because he wanted to make
her blind eyes see.
Until, one day, he broke the rules and
told her that which he had kept hidden for countless centuries of the world.
“I have died before.”
Her gaze was incredulous, narrowed with
the parental acquiescence of an adult listening to the nonsense babble of a
toddler. But in the depths
of her gaze as it turned upon him, she looked as though she believed he had
lost his mind. And very
well might he have to her knowledge, as deranged as she knew him to be. Why would she believe his words? Why would she not think him senile?
“Aaron, did you…?”
“I did not kill myself,” he told her
solemnly. “But I did die, and I came back. I came back to an endless maze of
halls that offered no healing and luscious gardens stretching as far as the eye
can see that offered no rest, to the faces of my friends and my family who did
not understand my grief or sorrow. But
not to her, for she is
like you, and I am not.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” she
said. “Aaron, are you okay?”
“You think I am addled.” His smile was
self-depreciating, filled with sardonic humor, bitter laughter caught in the
back of his throat. “It is fine. However,
you must understand, I am bound to this material world, to the circles
of this earth. To this
plane. For me, there is no
heaven or hell. There is
only rebirth.”
In her eyes, he could see faint
understanding, but it was clouded with disbelief. No longer did mortals believe in the
ancient folk of the trees, graceful and wise and long-lived, wreathed in
fairness beyond compare and yet delicate in spirit. Perhaps he should have stopped there,
turned back and told her to forget his words as one forgets the images curling
through fog in the early morning light. But
he wanted her to understand. Needed
her to understand.
“When your people die, they pass beyond
the edges of the world. And
to there I cannot follow. Do
you not see? To her I
may never go!”
Part of her was terrified of him, of his
face and his form as he towered over her, as golden light blossomed upon his
skin and unveiled the truth of his form. All she had ever known was a mirage, a
dark shadow, a veil that he cast over his body to hide the truth of his form as
it had been, undiminished and nourished in the light of the Two Trees in the
days of old.
But he was an ancient being, a fell
creature of the young world, lit with the light seeded by Yavanna’s nurturing
and Nienna’s tears of lament.
“Do you not see that I cannot die?” And the light spilled out of him as
water from between cupped palms, slipping back down into the bowls of the earth
and the fire of its blood. Until
the gold in his hair was no longer haloed as was Anar and his skin did not glow
from the inside out as flesh formed of pearls of Isil’s dew. Until his eyes were no longer alight
from within and returned from the whiteness of distant galaxies and newborn
stars to the mere blue dappled with the sky’s hues.
Nonetheless, she had seen. Wide were her eyes, their green ringed
with the deep tones of the earth, and trembling were her hands where they
remained outstretched between their bodies, hanging in the chasm opened by
their differences so innate and undeniable.
“Are you an angel?” she asked, sounding so
awed. And he withered in
shame, for he was nothing so grand or divine. Nothing upon which to look in
admiration. Nothing as
beautiful in spirit as he was in face and form.
Nothing.
“Nothing nearly so powerful or
awe-inspiring,” he whispered in return as he grasped her hands and lowered them
down, held them for a few passing moments before cutting their contact as
though burned. For what
right did he have to touch her thusly? “Merely immortal. Merely unable to die. And naught but a curse does it
remain—will it ever be.”
His throat worked about those words, about
their finality and their despair. Downcast
were his eyes, resting upon hands that would never wrinkle and spot with age,
never grow gaunt and veined and unsteady. Not like hers. Not like hers.
His hands that were grasped in her own,
her scarred imperfection against pale whiteness. And eyes were upon his face when did
he glance upwards in shock at her friendly touch.
“Aaron?”
“So much do your people desire to live
forever,” he whispered, clutching tightly at her warmth that reminded him of her. “So much do your people
lust after immortality that can never be grasped by mortal hands. But I… I would give anything to have
the gift that Men so fear, so spurn and hate. Anything.”
And the tears came, falling upon their
entwined fingers in slow droplets, staining their skin with silver. “Anything.”
Yet there was understanding in her gaze as
it met the fell fire of his own and held without fear and without awe. Gently did she squeeze his hand in her
palm, and acceptance lingered in her eyes even as they glistened with answering
compassion.
“It’s okay to cry, you know. Real men aren’t afraid to show their
emotions.”
It was soft teasing, the hint of her own
echoing empathy hidden just underneath, and his lips wavered tremulously upon a
tiny smile even as a sob bubbled up his throat and out in a choked, wet
gasp. For the first time,
he felt the cradle of comfort sliding against his soul, something that even
could his brothers and sister and mother and father not give him in his time of
greatest need.
And he leaned against her shoulder and
gave in to her tight hug. Gave
in and cried.
And Eru,
but it felt so good. So
warm.
So clean.
Like the purity of untouched, cool water
pouring down over the burning, festering open wound that cut straight through
his soul. And Aikanáro
could not remember a time when he had felt so safe as when the heat of her
tears dripped into his hair and down his temple, as the shudder of sobs hitched
the chest beneath his cheek, stained with his sorrow.
Foolish had it been to allow himself this
attachment, this fleeting dream of a friendship, this tiny taste of comfort,
but he could not bring himself to regret this balm. He could not bring himself to regret
the pain that would come with her inevitable departure from the edges of the world,
past the grip of his shaking fingers.
For the curse still lingered like a
slow-acting poison. And he
closed his eyes and turned away for the sake of the little time he had left.
Such was the fate of one who never
dies. But for now, he would
smile and live. Just for a
little while.
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