Beautiful Nightmare

She was laid upon a bed of fine cloth in a room shut away from the others so that she would be in complete solitude from observant eyes and her presence might be kept a secret. The Lady of the Wood knelt over her and placed her delicate white hand upon the girl's cold, dirty brow, but nothing could be seen. Galadriel rose to her feet and though the others tried to see what she was thinking, they could not, for her eyes were still and her brow steady.

"Haldir," She said, and in an instant he was dutifully by her side. "You must remain with her until she wakes. She will be in need of your consolation, for she knows what I cannot see and it troubles her heart greatly. She grieves; she has lost something very dear, though that is all that I can see."

Haldir nodded his head slowly. But as the Lady swept past him and her maidens followed, he did not understand how she was unable to see into the strange girl's heart. "Lady," He turned quickly before Galadriel had gone and she turned and smiled upon him knowingly. "Why can you not see into this girl's heart?" Galadriel shook her head.

"The answer lies within her and she keeps it hidden well." The Lady said softly, "She may not be of this earth, but born of Man in another place and time. You, Haldir, I trust to guard her well and learn her secrets."

"What of my duties elsewhere, Lady?"

"Your brothers shall be honored to guard your post while you are engaged." Galadriel smiled warmly. Then, she left him alone in the healing chamber with the strange girl lying beneath silken sheets beside him. For a moment, he had to wonder if the Lady's plan was wise, but he knew that Rumil and Orophin were more than capable of keeping his post and that there had been no threat to the Wood in a long age. He took great pride in his duties and accomplishments, and perhaps he was foolish for doing so. Was that, perhaps, why Galadriel thought it necessary to appoint him watchman over the new girl?

Haldir caught himself looking upon the girl and he sighed heavily. Perhaps she would wake soon and tell him from whence she had come and her reason for losing herself in the Celebrant late at night in the depths of winter wearing nothing but her outlandish, impractical undergarments. She was at least covered by sheets, but Haldir knew she was very close to naked without them and he shook his head at the outrageousness of it all. Why had she come to the Celebrant alone in the middle of night and deep winter? The answers, he thought, might lie in the contents of a bag that had been found nearly a half mile from where she had been felled.

Haldir looked once more upon the girl and at the release of a sleeping sigh from her lips, he reached forth and opened the bag that had been laid at her side. Drawing himself closer on his knees, he peered curiously within, dipping his hand cautiously into the vast mouth of the bag until the tips of his fingers touched something hard and cold like metal, and it was small and thin. He lifted it into plain sight and saw that it was a strange little golden colored tile or brick of some sort with a small piece of black glass decorating the front of it, garnished with a circular inlay of ivory. Whatever the strange little treasure was, Haldir was sure that it showed her rank or status and by the finesse of the craftsmanship of the trinket, he guessed that she was wealthy in the least. Replacing the golden trinket came a glass bottle of perfume, and next several bracelets and items of jewelry wrought of glass beads and jewels. Haldir furrowed his brow slightly. Why had she been alone? He glanced back to the girl's face. Now that she was cleaned up and her wound tended to, he noticed a certain loveliness about her, though it was a feature uncommon among human women; a prettiness different than most. He sighed heavily and hunted through her bag in search of anything else that would give him some insight to who she was.

He pulled out several items of what appeared to be clothing, though they were scanty, if they were garments at all. There were bits of paper and pages folded up and strewn about the bottom of her bag, but he could not understand the strange writing upon anything she carried with her, and to add to the fire of his curiosity were a great many coins wrought of silver and bronze with identical strange writing to serve as their markings, with the faces of unknown men upon them. Haldir's heart sank just a bit. She was from nowhere to which he or his people had traveled, nor heard tales of. She was as much a stranger to those lands as a star that had fallen.

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Such a throbbing, horrible feeling I had never felt rip through the back of my head, but as I woke, it jolted me from sleep to alertness efficiently. I could not move, only lie still, my neck and back stiff as if I had been lying flat for a long time.

"God..." I groaned and slowly lifted my hand to my chest. My fingers touched the bandaged wound on my shoulder and the gentle force of my resting fingertips sent a shock of pain down my arm and through my torso.

Suddenly, I heard something move beside me and I started, adrenaline pulling my body up fully, propelling me backwards as I kicked the silky blankets from off of my feet. What was it? Who was it?! I frantically searched the room with my foggy, blurred eyes, but I couldn't see anyone.

"Aaye, 'quel andune..."

"Shit!" I gasped, and nearly leapt off of the low lying bed at the sound of the unfamiliar voice. Then pain replaced the pumping adrenaline in my veins and I screamed, collapsing toward the ground as my knees gave out and a terrible sickening feeling lurched out of my stomach into the depths of my throat.

Whoever ti was that had spoken I could not see, but as I fell through the thin air I was caught by his arms and lifted weightlessly back into the strange bed I had woken up in. When my head touched the pillow, I rubbed my eyes furiously with my hands, annoyed at how blurry my vision was and how I could see nothing besides shapes and shadows. I knew there was someone kneeling beside me, looking over me, but I could not see his face clearly.

"Who are you?" I hissed, batting his hand away when he reached out to touch me. I could picture the look on my face and I wanted it to be as hateful as I could pull off. Luckily, that was pretty hateful. My ears were hot, my skin flushed and broken out with anger as my blood pressure rose beneath my skin and pooled in pink splotches. "Who are you?!" I screamed, hitting the mattress beneath me as hot tears welled painfully in my already sore, blazing eyes. "What the hell am I doing here and who are you?! Where am I?! Where am I?!" and I could take no more. Hopeless and lost inside, tears naturally followed my outrage and my weakness poured forth from my eyes and betrayed the hatefulness on my face beneath the mask of boiling tears. It didn't help that when my rage had subsided, the pain from the arrow wound still on my shoulder returned and blazed through my body, casting me onto my back once more. "Ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" I couldn't grip my burning flesh or it hurt more, so I gripped the sheets beneath me and kicked my feet slowly as my body writhed in pain. Where the hell was my sedative or anesthetic?

"I need something!" I coughed, my lurching shoulders giving way to yet another wave of stinging pain, but the form sitting beside me did nothing to help. I saw it rise and float to my opposite side, trying to reach out and touch me. I batted its hand away spitefully and groaned as I laid my wounded shoulder back down. How could I forget and swing the arm that was messed up? "Just give me something! Don't touch me! Just put some morphine or something in my I.V.!"

I heard the figure speak, and his voice was soft and gentle, but it was as if he was making it so and cooing to a baby throwing a temper tantrum. "Dammit, I'm not a little kid! Give me some drugs for my arm! Ow!" Before I could react, firm hands had pressed me to the mattress I laid on, one on my good shoulder, and one on my rib cage, just below my breast and I could not rise. With a surprising strength those hands held me still but they were gentle enough not to cause me any added pain. I tried briefly to protest, but I realized that if he wanted to do something bad to me, then he would not be so gentle, and figured he would have done it already. "What're you doing?"

He said nothing. Instead, I saw the blurry shadow of his hand cover my eyes, and on his fingers was some kind of wet, cold liquid which he rubbed into the corners of my eyes. Of course, I was taken aback and tried to pull my head away, but he shush-ed me and muttered something quietly that I could only just hear, much less understand: "Dina, dina," He whispered. His breath smelled like earth, and his form like whatever smells might be carried on a warm, summer breeze--flowers, water, wood rot, fire smoke, wine, or honey. I opened my mouth to say something, but I can't remember what I was going to say to him, only that whenever I opened my mouth, I could almost taste his scent. "Dina..." He whispered once more and I released my breath in a long sigh, my form collapsing onto the mattress beneath his hands which still held me pinned down. "Amin hiraetha, aier." Something in his voice sounded apologetic.

"What?" I asked quietly. He heard me speak and lifted his hand from my eyes. The inner corners of my eyes were freezing cold, similar to the way mint made my mouth feel, but when I blinked them open I could see and there was no gooey haze hindering my sight. I saw a canopy of tree branches over my head, entwined with a supple material that looked to be no more than gauze or gossamer woven and stretched throughout the boughs, but it did not move or ripple with the slight breeze that tousled the fine hairs around my face. There were lanterns lit in the branches and golden leaves rustled like little painted dancers. I could see a twilight sky beyond the leaves just beginning to twinkle with the onset of a shroud of stars. The branches of the tree spider-webbing over my head were made of silver, and glistened with a perfect light that cast little light, but caused the boughs to glow. It was lovely, and I smiled, blinking once or twice to make sure I wasn't seeing things.

"Mellonamin," said that familiar voice nearby and it snatched me out of my silent reverie back into waking. "Creoso a'baramin."

I turned quickly to look at who it was speaking, who it was that had healed my eyesight, who it was that had caught me as I fell, who it was that smelled so good. He was sitting at my bedside, his shoulders straight and broad, sitting very tall, but he bore a kind, solemn face as he watched me wake and found my eyes with his. They were grey, but not like silver--stormy grey like a rainy sky and they were etched with golden fireflies. That awkward feeling of staring when I knew I wasn't supposed to be staring overcame me and I blushed for looking at him, and because he was looking at me unfalteringly; I could not look away from his eyes. I wanted to so that I could hide under my sheet and not ever come back out, but I only turned my chin and withdrew a little as if I was in the process of rolling over. I was sure I looked ridiculous, and suddenly the familiar feelings of inadequateness associated with teenage unconfidence sent my heart plummeting into my unsettled gut as a grizzly image of what I probably looked like played through my mind. Absentmindedly, I reached up and brushed a piece of dark hair behind my ear. But wait, I had a few freckles and imperfections on that side of my face... I turned my head away, but still watched the man out of the corner of my eye, sinking into the deep, soft pillows at my shoulders. Why was he still staring? Mind you, I liked looking at him, but I wasn't as pretty as he was and I felt insanely uncomfortable beneath his intense gaze.

"What are you looking at?" I whispered, blinking, but in an instant he had risen to his feet and was walking away slowly. "What..." He had moved across the room. My heart jumped even though I wasn't scared, but my skin tingled, too, and a little voice told me that something else wasn't right about that man, or about where I was. It was a sickening feeling that even now I cannot name, and I most certainly could not back then, but it told me to leave, to get out, screaming at me that I wasn't wanted or in place at all. The man moved like a dream, ghosting from place to place, busying himself with little tasks that seemed random to me. He was dressed in grey and silver, and his hair looked like moonlight beneath the strange colors of the foreign twilight sky above; he was tall and lithe, but his very presence was superior and made me feel like I was two inches tall wrapped up in a band-aid.

The man finally turned to me and caught me staring at him. It took me by some surprise that he was humming very deep in his throat, his downcast eyes watching something in his hand closely as he walked toward my bed and finally looked at me again. Again? Why? I was distressed and screaming in torment inside--not only from the pain of my shoulder wound.

"What's that?" I asked, my ragged voice catching his attention which was intently focused on whatever was in his cupped hands. Though it was becoming clear to me that he could understand everything I was saying about as clearly as I could understand him, it seemed he knew I was asking a question and followed my suggestive glance toward his hands.

"Uuma dela...este sinome. Lle anta yulna en alu?" His voice was like milk and honey, deep and musical and ringing all at once. It made my skin crawl and my stomach release those annoying little butterflies I tended to get too often.

He was asking a question. I floundered, opening my mouth and closing it as I realized I couldn't say anything that wouldn't make our situation of not understanding each other any more complicated. So, he gestured with a nod of his chin to his cupped hands and my eyes looked to see that his hands were dripping wet, so I knew there must be water or something to drink in his hands. Did he not own a glass of some sort? Was I supposed to--

The man approached me effortlessly and in a swift movement that did not stir the droplets of water hanging from his knuckles, he bent to one knee and offered me his hands. His face was sincere, but solemnness overcast his soft, grey eyes and again the sense that I was not where I was supposed to be crept back into the void in my stomach. Again I felt sick, but he lifted his hands toward me and said something softly that I could not understand, though when he said it, he looked away quickly as if he was agitated and back to me with a sharpness edging his countenance. His eyes were piercing and keen as a knife, rending my consciousness into confusion. He wanted me to drink from his hands. He seemed adamant that I should drink, and though he smelled so sweet and looked so fair, he was no more trustworthy to me than any other stranger-- so why should I drink anything he offered me, especially if it wasn't in a glass? I blinked--looking at him and trying to meet the intensity of his stare--and he offered me his hands once more, his chin raising indignantly and his elegant brow raised in scrutiny as I pulled my head back. "No..." I said quietly, watching his beautiful face.

The man sighed lightly, and after half a second of watching my defiant eyes, he lifted his hands to his own lips and took a drink of whatever he had in his palms. A drop trickled down his chin and it was only water. Suddenly I felt silly and looked away from him, to the branches over my head, pulling the silken sheets over my face, rolling onto my good side with nothing more than a wince and a small gasp of pain as my bad shoulder resettled. Well, he could think what he wanted. What was I supposed to do, drink whatever he offered me willingly? For all I knew, he could have been the one who shot me. He could have been... the one who assaulted me in Kansas City. Something told me the latter assumption was false, however, for that man was dark and he knew enough English to tell me something, though I could not remember what it was he said.

This other man was not dark or threatening in any way, just odd, giving me the chills and raising my blood pressure at the same time. Why did I feel so strange?

Then I remembered the one who had carried me through the trees, who had introduced himself by the name of Rumil... I had wondered where I heard that name before, but then I saw his pointy ears. My heart stopped. In a furry of silk and a gasp, I wrenched the sheets away and shot to my good shoulder, looking at the man who was still sitting near to me, his hands empty, arms folded across his broad chest. He was looking at me. I looked at him. Then, I clumsily tried to lift myself up but the pain in my shoulder was too great and I fell back, clutching my wound tenderly as I tried not to scream.

The man moved quickly and the sharpness on his face softened in an instant as he sat on the edge of my mattress and bent over me protectively, wrapping his forearms around my waist. Large hands supported my back and with the force of his torso pulled me up until I was sitting, piling the pillows behind me before he gingerly released me from his gentle hold. When he pulled away, his mouth was smiling just a little and he shook his head, mumbling something in his strange language that I knew was about me, or addressed to me, but, of course, I could not understand. Then as he pulled away from me, still muttering, I reached up and touched my fingers to the side of his face, swallowing the apprehensiveness swelling up to stop me. My palms were clammy.

His down turned face remained still, but grey eyes crowned with thick lashes looked up toward me and met my nervous stare. With trembling fingers I reached behind his ear and flicked away the silver hair; he did not stop me, he did not even move or release a breath. But when I saw that his ear was pointed and that I had not dreamed Rumil up, my own breath hitched in my throat and my heart stopped beating. I could feel a heaviness plummet into my belly and in an instant sickness rose into my throat, though I had nothing in my stomach to wretch up. But nonetheless, my belly convulsed and I gagged on each breath I gasped for until nothing came into my mouth for me to vomit--and I still doubled over, shoulders convulsing, choking on my own tongue.

I knew where I was. I knew where Rumil's name had come from. I suddenly could recognize the man beside me as not a man at all, but something fairer, finer, more perfect than human, and far more dangerous.

Was I dreaming?

Was I... dead?

What was happening?

My mind a whirlwind of confusion and terror, I reached out for someone to take my hand, for someone to steady me as my eyes rolled back and my vision became foggy from dizziness. I wretched once more, reeling backward and forward as my arms grabbed hold of the sheets beneath me and my stomach swam and churned sickeningly. I knew where I was.

And he took my hand tightly, covering it with both of his large, warm palms. And I looked at him, and he looked at me. His grey eyes struck my soul, and the screaming voice telling me to leave--to get out--was gone. There was only moonlight falling on his silver hair, dancing upon his pale skin, and the tenderness of his touch caressing my wrists with his long thumbs.