"Fire"
by Beryll
(Eowyn POV)
In my dreams I see fire. It twists and turns like a blind hunter, licking here and there, touching with angry bright caresses. It hungers, ever hungers. It devours.
In my dreams I see death. I see faces touched by flame. I see skin and flesh melt from bone. I see mouths opened in silent screams, the sound sucked dry by the heat.
In my dreams I hear the roaring of the ever burning woods. I hear the crackle of branch and trunk splintering in never-ending suffering. I see leaves of flame.
In my dreams I watch my brother die. See him impaled on spear and sword and elf. Watch him beg and plead and cry. Watch him burn.
In my dreams I never cry. In my dreams my heart is frozen and heavy as a rock. In my dreams it drags me down to the smoldering ashes where I lie. Slowly, slowly the heat eating away layer after layer of me. Till I lie bare and unprotected under HER eyes.
In my dreams I wake up and nothing ever changes. The fires still burn, the air is still heavy with the smell of roasting flesh and screams of pain. And still I never cry.
-
All elves are cruel. Humans know this. Dwarves know this. Elves know this. Even the hot whispering wind speaks of it. Even the heated rocks and the groaning trees have realized at last.
It is not true.
My master is gentle and kind. My master looks at me with eyes full of sorrow. My master thanks me when I wash his wounds. My master thanks me when I soothe his brittle lips with water pure and clean. My master thanks me when I sit by his feet speaking in hushed tones of the plains. Of grooming horses, of tanning leather, of speaking prayers at the cooking fires, of bathing in the cold mountain streams.
My master cries for me, when I try to sing for him and my tired voice chokes on the ashes in the air.
My master once was beautiful. His hair flowing silver in the wind, his hands slender and strong, his eyes sparkling with mystery and mirth.
I wash the flaking skin off the never healing wounds, I caress his hair, burned and seared, I wipe the tears of pain away.
My master loves me.
My master fears for me, because he believes I love him too.
But I do not love him. I do not love at all. There is no feeling in my heart. It is bleached by fire and light, white and empty.
I feel neither love for those I have lost, for the kinsmen I have watched as they died - one by one - their life squeezed out of their ravaged bodies by graceful elven fingers. Neither feel I hatred for those who have changed me into this empty thing.
My mother once told me, when nightmares scared me, to treasure that feeling above all for it is fear that proves to us that we still have something to be afraid for, that we still find value in life. I have lost my fear.
My master has not. He still fears. He still cries. He still loves and hates.
He is caught in a web of conflicting emotion, for the one who inflicts his torment is the one he loves as well.
My masters says he fears for me but in truth he only fears for himself. Fears that I will be used to hurt him more. I know he is right. Still no fear stirs in my heart.
My master says, I should fear him. He says there is a seed of darkness in every elves heart. Believing that I love him, he tries to convince me otherwise.
My master says, he knows humans. Knows how easily they fall for the beauty and honeyed words of an elf. How they cling to hope, no matter how futile. How they try to see good where there is none at all.
My master does not know humans at all. He believes he sees defiance in my empty smile. He believes he feels hope hidden in the flatness of my gaze.
My master does not know that in every human, there is a place, deep in his soul, where they withdraw after despair. That they remain there, hidden and numb, till the day they die.
I should feel sorry for my master. But I don't feel at all.
-
Nothing ever changes. The golden woods forever burn. The light of the Lady shining everywhere. There is no hiding from the flames. They lick at garment and skin, burning, burning, inflicting endless pain but never devouring.
-
Then there is change.
She is beautiful. Her hair flows like ebony silk, her skin is milky white, her eyes reflect shadow.
She is different. The flames shy away from her. She walks the smoldering ashes but no sparks touch her feet. She is something forgotten. She is cold.
She must hold a special place in HER barren heart. I should pity her, to be put in a spotlight in that thorny place. But I feel not.
She comes to visit my master. She stands before him frozen in place, pale as a ghost. I watch her watch my master. I watch my master cringe from her gaze. He calls her daughter's daughter. Were he not bound, he would reach out to touch her cold.
She smiles.
Then her attention leaves my master to settle on me. Her dark eyes devour me with cold as fire has devoured my heart. I should fear her. But I feel not.
Thought twists the shadows in her eyes. Recognition lights in them. Of what I can not say. I see greed, I see malice.
I know my time with my master is at an end when she walks away. I know she wants me. I know she will have me. I care not.
From that hidden place beyond despair I listen to myself say goodbye. I listen to my master cry for me. I listen to his pity. He only pities himself. He will be alone again. I care not.
Then I wait.
-
He is human. In this place of fire and gaunt elven beauty he is bulky and harsh and real. For a moment he startles me. For a brief moment it is me looking out of my own eyes. It is me and not the thing that has taken my place, the thing that moves my body and talks and bows and obeys. The thing that is not me.
His eyes are gray. As the sky is after a storm has spent its fury, before night falls. A sky that is empty and exhausted.
I look at his eyes, how they reflect myself. A flat, motionless surface. He dwells in that place beyond hope as well. He is as dead as I am.
I withdraw.
My new mistress knows this. It must have been her who put him there. She finds no satisfaction in what she has wrought. She prods him and pokes him. He cares not.
He obeys.
His hands are rough on my skin, his grip in my hair painful. Violating my empty shell, forcing himself inside my emptiness, filling me with his own. Tearing my body.
Never touching me.
"Hurt her!" our mistress commands. "Make her scream!"
She wants him to hurt. She wants him to scream. She wants him to fight back.
But he obeys.
So do I.
I scream.
There is no anguish in my voice that I can recognize. It is as flat and empty as all of me.
There is no hurt in his gaze either as he works monotonously to complete his task.
When he is done our mistress walks away. Her craving not satisfied.
She will try again.
We care not.
-
Cool air touches my skin. Dusk falling soothes my eyes.
There is no fire. The golden woods still burn - forever burn - behind us.
In my heart there is no hope.
In my heart there is no fear.
I wait.
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