In Dreams

Erestor caught Amarie as she fell lowering her slowly to the floor at the top of the stairs.

“My lady,” he knelt beside her and holding her shoulders gently shook her. “My lady.”

Amarie stared at him in a daze. When he told her to lay back and remain still while he sought help from the Healing Hall she shook her head.

“My lord, no, that will not be necessary.” She reached to grasp his hand. “Truly I am alright.”

“Elleths do not drop like that unless something is wrong.”

“My lord Erestor, have you ever experienced a shock that quite literally knocked you off your feet?”

He looked toward the picture of Elrond and his family then back to her puzzled as to why she reacted so.

Amarie caught his glance and momentarily dropped her head. She took a deep breath and looked into his worried face. “I am not sure I can explain it very well but I will try,” she sat up and appeared to collect her thoughts.

She began slowly, organising her words carefully, “At the time my grandparents departed for the western lands and I became responsible for the operation of Bar-Meneg-Mir-Lain I was able to choose how much time I applied my attention between the actual workshop operations on one hand and my own personal creative efforts on the other. As the decades have past I found that I was actually spending more time on directing the workshops and less time doing anything creative until it reached the point where I was doing absolutely nothing creative. That part of me seemed to just dry up and blow away.”

“Things became even worse when our village started coming under increased orc attacks. Since the Bar-Meneg-Mir-Lain elves were the only ones remaining with any warrior training or experience after the departure of so many others, the village came to depend on us to provide for their protection. The village leaders simply would not take any responsibility to change that. My people were becoming stretched too thin.”

She hesitated then said angrily. “Bar-Meneg-Mir-Lain has not produced anything new or original for the past two decades. We have survived on the repairing and cleaning orders and the occasional reproduction of old patterns. We were literally dying. I was dying.

She continued passionately. “I knew the only way we were going to survive was to make a drastic change, one that would let us return to our creative roots and go back to being weavers first and warriors second. That meant relocating so I searched, I decided, and here we are.”

She paused, “While logically I understood that things have changed now that we are here, emotionally I have been afraid to let myself trust that things have changed for me. It wasn’t until I saw my grandmother’s tapestries and my grandfather’s carvings just now that emotionally I could accept that fact. It was that shock that literally knocked me off my feet.”

Erestor studied her while considered her words. She returned his look steadily and waited for his decision calmly. He finally nodded accepting the truth in her words. At the same time he suspected that there was something else unspoken that she had not included but he was reluctant to push any further into something so obviously personal.

“Lord Erestor,” she hesitated her eyes pleading. “One more thing, I would ask that you not mention this to anyone. All of Bar-Meneg-Mir-Lain is eager to start back to work tomorrow and I have promised to be there. We have all worked so hard to overcome much in the past few months, and I do not want anything no matter how small to cloud that progress. Additionally Sadi is coming out of her shell and is genuinely happy for the first time in centuries. She would see this as something that would require her worrying over me.”

Erestor hesitated then nodded and smiled, “I will agree on one condition, you will see a healer within the next day or two just to insure your health. Most likely it has been a combination of several things that led to this and you will be given a tonic and recommendation to rest more, worry less and get busy creating.”

Laughing, she agreed, “I think I can live with that, especially the creating part.”

Deliberately ignoring the picture, she turned and tucking her hand in his arm they slowly walked down the stairs and Erestor escorted her back to the guest wing. At her door she turned to thank him for the wonderful tour.

“My lord, how can I ever thank you for this evening. To see such treasures is truly more than I ever could imagined.”

“You can begin by just calling me Erestor. As for the tour I must admit that was Lord Elrond’s idea. He wanted to be your guide, I was just lucky enough to be his chosen substitute for it.”

“I would be happy to do so but only if you call me Amarie.”

“Agreed,”

“Good night my….err…… good night Erestor.”

“Good night Amarie.”

Closing the door, she sagged back against it shaking. How was she ever going to deal with this? How was she ever going to face him? Glancing over, she was grateful to note that the light in Sadi’s bedroom was out and her door closed. She would not have to face her sharp eyes tonight and explain what was bothering her. From the time she was a small elleth she could never hide anything from Sadi successfully.

Crossing over to her room she quietly closed the door and collapsed into a nearby chair. Leaning her head back against the chair back she tried to make sense of everything whirling around in her chaotic mind. She had to before she faced him.