((I'm back! Haven't forgotten my thread, just been away on vacay and other busy stuffs! But here is the next installment, and very soon, but still not just yet, people will be able to join in!
))
Prologue: And For What? part 2
Captain Edan rolled over under the soft silky sheets that covered him in the soft, warm and plush bed on which he lay. He groaned quite audibly as he began to regain consciousness and the two Elves that were conversing in soft whispers by his bedside stopped talking and turned their attentions to the Man.
As Captain Edan slowly stirred himself back to consciousness he tried to sit himself up in the bed, but he seemed to still be lacking in strength.
"Gently my Captain!," came a vaguely familiar voice, as slender Elvish hands took hold of the Captain and helped ease him into a somewhat sitting position. Edan opened his eyes then and recognized the hunter, Anoth, at his side. At the foot of the bed stood Lord Elrond.
"Welcome back to us," greeted Elrond with a polite bow of his head. "Did I not say that a great rest awaited you here in Imladris upon your return?"
"H-how long have I... ?" queried the Captain with what little strength he could muster from within.
"An entire week and a day!" responded the hunter Anoth, still standing at Captain Edan's bedside, a hand still gently resting on the Captain's shoulder.
"It is a great miracle that Anoth was not so far away when your hunt for Thorog went awry. He found you and got you back to us here with no room to spare for you life, though as you can see, your life has been spared," spoke Lord Elrond softly with a knowing smile.
Edan took this all in and turned to the hunter, Anoth. "Why did you not let me die, like I asked of you?"
Anoth's cheeks flushed crimson and he cast his eyes downward a moment, "I could not let you die," he spoke softly at first, then raised his face to meet the Captain's good eye and spoke more intently, "A noble heart such as yours, my Captain, all brave and courageous souls such as yours, must not be allowed to perish from this world of ours, if it can be helped!"
Captain Edan met the hunter's gaze, his brow creased lightly as Anoth spoke to him. Edan held Anoth's gaze a moment longer, then his one good eye drifted slowly downward in thought. "I failed them," he spoke softly, hesitatingly, "My friends, my kin, my-" Edan stopped and caught himself mid-sentence. He took a deep breath and looked upwards at the ceiling. "I failed you all!" He spoke again, then turned back to Anoth and met his gaze once more, stolidly he finished with certainty, "I do not deserve to live."
Edan held Anoth's gaze untill the hunter blushed again and turned to Lord Elrond for help. Then he too turned to Elrond, though not for help.
"Perhaps you do not deserve to live, Captain Edan. But live you do, and a life worth living is a life capable of redemption. In time, you might find the worth in yours again, and that you deserve this second chance given you." Lord Elrond bowed deeply and graciously to the Captain then turned and began to leave the room. "Come Anoth, the Captain still needs more time to heal."
Anoth stood up but hesitated by the Captain's bedside. When Lord Elrond stopped and turned to him however, he quickly followed after, but before he exited the room, he turned back to the Captain and spoke quickly, "You must be hungry, having not had real food in a week! I will bring you some sustenance shortly."
~ ~ ~
When they'd left him alone, Edan flung the sheets of the bed off of him as if they burned his skin. Summoning all the strength he could muster from within, he rolled himself out of bed and tried to stand up.
As he stood upon his feet, a flash of fangs, a beat of wings and a great roar all thrust themselves upon him from his memory and he fell to his hands and knees upon the floor, panting and sweating. He gasped for breath as names poured out of his throat like so much vomit- "Mori! Joramir! Penne! Ellie! Saree!"
Dead, all of them dead! "Daron! Helsin! Grant! Mâria! ... O Mâria!" At this last he stopped gasping and started sobbing.
Tears poured from his good eye like blood from a mortal wound. How could they have failed so horribly? How could HE have failed so miserably? And be the only one left alive! Of all of them, he had the least right to live. Any one of them were so much better than he! But it was he who lived, and they who were dead.
Suddenly he stopped bleeding tears and vomiting names of the lost, and a sick determintion bade him claw his way onto the bed and right himself up. On his knees he wiped away the wetness from his good eye and scanned the room. Then he was crawling across the floor to his belongings that were on a table and chair there on the other side of the room.
He grabbed his halberd of war that leaned against the table and pulled on it, knocking his other belongings and scattering them across the floor. A necklace landed by his feet as he raised himself up with his halberd like a crutch and brought the blade to his throat.
Edan felt the soft tinkle of chain against his bare foot and looked down at the necklace, then felt along his throat. Someone had removed it from his neck when they brought him here. Shaking, he slid down the shaft of his halberd and picked the necklace up in his hand.
It was a simple necklace forged of ancient silver, adorned by a single simple polished beryl, not worth more than a few silver to the common man. To Edan though it was worth so much more. "Mâria," he whispered as he kissed the beryl adornment and slid the necklace over his head.
When he was done, he took a step back and propped the butt of his halberd against the wall, bringing the blade near his chest. He took a step back, prepared to throw himself upon his own weapon when a crash from the doorway snapped him out of his delusion.
Edan turned just in time to see Anoth practically tackling him and thrusting the halberd out of his hands.
"My Captain! What is the meaning of this?!" Anoth shouted at him.
"Get off me!" shouted back Edan at the hunter, "I do not deserve to live! I do not wish to live! Let me die!"
"NO!" returned Anoth as he struggled with the Captain's returning strength and half dragged, half fought him back to the bed.
"Yes! I need to die! Let me die!" screamed Edan as Anoth flung him back onto the bed. "I do not want to live! I want to be with my friends! My kin! My loved ones! Let me die!"
"NO!" shouted Anoth as he forced the Captain down in the bed, "I cannot let you die, you must not die! Why is it so important for you to die? You have another chance at life, take it!"
Edan looked up into Anoth's eyes and hissed, "Why is it so important for me to live?! All my friends, all my kin, my lover, they are all dead! And for what?! For nothing! So you tell me, why should I still live?!"
Anoth met the Captain's harsh stare with one of his own, but his eyes softened quickly as he gave the Captain a reason to live, "Because my Captain...
I need you! I need to understand you!" Anoth paused and swallowed a lump in his throat before going on.
"Before I met you that day that you and your kin passed through Imladris, I had only ever met a handful of Men before. But none of them ever struck me as you did that day as you bowed before the Lord Elrond and all of us there. So dignified and poised, so gleaming and bright, so valiant and heroic and austere! How could one Man, one single, mortal Man, hold so many virtuous qualities within himself? I thought. And I could not, can not understand it. I've never been so moved or touched by mortal Man before. And when I found you there, almost dead, begging to die... "
Anoth gasped and released the Captain who had stopped fighting him and watched him now, a strange look in his eye.
"When I found you there, my Captain, like that... I could not let you die. I knew then that it was meant for me to find you and save you. So I could do no less. I do not ask for your forgiveness for such an act against your dying will, but in sooth, I did it out of selfishness, so that I could come to understand you, and how one man, in so short a life as Man has, could become all that you are."
Edan's eye furrowed in thought as he held Anoth's gaze and listened to the Elf speak with such passion. He was just a Man, as mortal as any other, and now a failure at that. How could he be anything? Especially anything of worth that could move an Elf, such as this Anoth, so? "I am none of those anymore," he responded softly, "I am nothing now!"
Anoth's eyes creased as he frowned in response. "You are just broken, my Captain, and need more time to heal.. The body may be right by now, but the spirit will take much, much longer."
"I am not worth the trouble," said Edan softly as he looked away from Anoth and slid down in the bed.
"My Captain," spoke Anoth gently, a sad look upon his face, "if we can get you back to the Man I first met, ready to march into Doom itself without a worry or fear, then you would be worth any trouble to me!"
Edan had no words to reply to this. He met Anoth's caring gaze briefly, then turned away and pulled the sheets back over him. "I think... I just want to sleep right now." He said softly as he closed his eye and clutched the adornment of his necklace feverishly in his hand.
"As you wish," said Anoth with a deferential bow. He moved to the doorway and proceeded to pick up the fruits and cheeses that he'd dropped on his way in when he found the Captain about to kill himself. He dusted them off, tossed out a few spoiled ones, then silently slipped into a chair in the corner and watched over the Captain as he slept. "Your life IS worth living," he breathed softly for the Captain, "and together we shall redeem it so for you!"
((squee! very proud of this one! perhaps now you all are beginning to truly understand the depth of their relationship- Edan and Anoth, as you see its first root!
not entirely certain, but depending how the next post comes out, it may become open to all after that
if not, then for sure the one after that!))