Beautiful Nightmare

She gagged and shuddered, her frail body doubled over her knees as sweat beaded upon her brow. Disgusting sounds of sickness bubbled in her throat, but Haldir remained at her side, his face tight with concern as he caressed her searching hand and held her supported with his other arm beneath her breast. The girl coughed and gagged, her breath erratic and harsh. Her face was such a contortion of anguish and terror that even the Marchwarden's perfect collection faltered and he worried that perhaps he should take her before Galadriel once more. Black hair matted in the moisture crowning her sickly brow and cheeks. Her face was the ghostly color of death.

"Be still, be still..." All he could think to do was calm her, though it seemed at first that his words did nothing to soothe her anxiety. "...be still and rest, little one." Haldir's fair brow furrowed in worry and he tried to lay her down once more, though she fought him to stay upright. He sighed and released her hand, touching her trembling back lightly with his fingers. As she leaned over his forearm and wretched nothing more than sickly noises from her mouth, Haldir watched her carefully and traced a slow, gentle circle with the span of his entire hand across her back. "Be still..." He heard his own voice, and it was melodic--cooing as if the girl were a toddler-- and she coughed one last time, swallowing her staggering breath as she turned her head slowly to look at him. Her fearful eyes blinked and tears welled up within them, glistening like diamonds on an emerald sea. She mouthed two words, but he did not know what it was that she said. Her lips were dry and her voice resounded throughout the talan as nothing more than a few raspy breaths and gurgling noises.

"Shhh...." Surely she could understand that.

The girl sighed, breath leaking through her lips in trembling waves. She breathed in slowly, her breast heaving against his forearm. She coughed, covering her mouth with her right hand and made to lean back against her pillows, and Haldir's hand-still upon her back-guided her there so that she did not feel pain as her body tried to twist over atop her wounded shoulder. She did wince, but she made no noise from her lips. Haldir was sure that her throat was raw, so when he laid her down completely, he rose quickly and went to a silver basin set atop a shelf, and the basin was filled with clear, cool water from the Nimrodel, sure to quell the thirst of any and calm the pains of those who set their feet within its crystal waters. Dipping his hands into the water, he collected it and brought it to the girl, kneeling beside her bed, holding out his hands for her to drink.

The girl did not refuse as she had done so before--she accepted the drink willingly and eagerly, drops of water spilling over the dry corners of her mouth as she parted her lips to sip from his palms. As she drank, her eyes closed in peace. But as Haldir watched her face, he saw tears fall from her eyes in lonely drops over her pale white cheeks, staining her skin. When she had done with the water she lay back carefully and turned her face away from him, hiding her face beneath her arm, but he could see her lips part in soundless words, and tears etched their way down her cheeks and chin. She took a breath and it was ragged with sobbing.

Haldir did not know what he should do. He wanted no more than any other guard to be the watcher of this strange, human girl, but his heart broke in two at the pitiful sound of her weeping. She was broken, ripped apart in more places than any battle could harm a man, nor blade cut his flesh, and she did not have to say that she was.
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Someone touched me. It hurt—a dull, irritating pain pulsing in my left shoulder.

Oh yeah—

I opened my eyes, though they were foggy with dried tears mudded up in the corners and my old mascara melting off of my eye lashes. Wiping my face with the back of my sleeve, I sighed deeply, relaxing at the feel of my lungs fully expanding and releasing pent up stress in my body. I still knew very much where I was—or perhaps it would be better to say that I had an extremely intelligent estimation—but I had dreamed while I slept, and though for the life of me I cannot remember what I dreamed of, even to this day, it helped me come to terms with what had happened. Well, it brought me face to face with what had happened and told me to get a grip; whether or not I actually had that grip was yet to be questioned.

As rationalizations popped in and out of my aching, buzzing head, I felt someone touch me lightly again and I looked to see that it was that strange man still sitting beside me. It did not look like he moved at all since I had fallen asleep, though I had no idea how long I had been asleep. Fifteen minutes, an hour, a day? I looked at the man sitting next to me, and absorbed the way he looked, the way he was looking at me, and with my eyes I tried to memorize the expression on his face. It was an odd expression, and though it would be forever imprinted onto my brain, I did not know what emotion it was supposed to convey. He looked at me with a steady set chin and his head was tilted slightly, his eyes delving into mine with an almost awkward intensity to which I did not know how to react. His grey eyes were hooded slightly as if he were thinking deeply, but when I moved my head the slightest bit, his eyes followed me.

“H-hello.” I managed to whisper.

The man—or elf, as I realized he was—snapped out of his trance and blinked, running his long, pale fingers through the silver hair over his pointed ear. He glanced away, then looked at me once more, reaching out his hand slowly.

He moved timidly, it seemed, acting like I was a small animal he didn’t want to scare away. His fingertips touched my cheek, and they were warm. I looked away from his deep gaze nervously, immediately remembering everything that was wrong with my face that he was surely going to notice being as close as he was. I glanced up toward him again. He was perfect. He looked like any elf I had ever imagined, if not more beautiful. But he was strange, with a strange look on his face that I couldn’t read.

His fingers touched my shoulder—the hurt one.

I hissed and started back a little, but he shook his head slowly and held his finger to his lips as if to tell me to be quiet.

Be quiet? He wasn’t getting HIS arrow wound touched and poked…

“What’re you doing?” I began to ask, but he moved closer to me, leaning over my body and reaching out his other hand as well to touch my wounded shoulder. I flinched, but he held me still by placing a hand on my forearm. So I tried to relax against the pillow beneath my shoulders, looking up at him as blankly as I could. He was intent on what he was doing, and soon he had my shoulder bare once more. I didn’t want to look at it if it looked half as bad as it felt. I’d seen too many gruesome war movies, and I knew the image wouldn’t be pretty.

The elf pulled away momentarily to retrieve something by his knees off the floor. When he passed over my reclined form, I caught another whiff of his earthy, sweet smell and I couldn’t help but smile a little. Combined with his ethereal beauty, his scent drew me to him like a magnet. He removed himself fully, fiddling with something on the floor as he knelt at my bedside. I didn’t know what he was getting into, but I watched him—not wanting to find out what he was doing so much as to simply stare at his beauty. Amid the pain I felt physically and the turmoil still raging war in my head, I found myself wanting to smile as I watched the moonlight play on his silver hair and fair skin. It was like waves of heat dancing on the asphalt streets on a hot summer day, only this was faint, silver light that emanated from within him. His lips curved upward at the corners just slightly, and his brow and jaw were calmer than they had been before, as if he was at ease. There were no lines on his face to speak of, nor any recognizable aging or wear; he was perfect in every way. I had never seen anything like him, and the very sight of his beauty sent butterflies cascading in massive swarms throughout my body, spreading warmth and shivers over my neck and face. I knew I was blushing. I could feel the heat in my cheeks and ears. He did not look up as I watched him, but I did not remove my eyes from him.

He lifted something in his hand and offered it to me, looking at me casually as he lifted something that looked like bread to his lips and took a small bite. He smiled and said something, but I didn’t understand him, and was beginning to automatically block out everything he said to avoid further confusion on my part, but he didn’t seem to care and once more offered me the something in his hand. I looked, rising gingerly onto my good arm to see over his fingers.

My heart jumped and I nearly squealed.

Food!

I lay back down and took the bread from his palm, quickly breaking the large, flat loaf in half so I could take easier bites. I had not even thought about how hungry I had been until I saw the blessed substance resting beyond his warm, pale fingers. I don’t think I allowed the bread to touch my tongue as I swallowed each bite eagerly, devouring the entire first half in a matter of seconds. Still, my stomach felt starkly empty.

The elf reached out his hand and laughed, hindering my hand from feeding my mouth any more of the bread. He said something again. I stared at him blankly, my mouth resting half open as I tried to focus on him in my immense hunger. He motioned toward his bread and lifted it to his lips as if he was going to take a bite, but he was only pretending. He pretended to chew and swallow, then rubbed his belly in a comically exaggerated manner, holding up one finger as he held the bread still in his hand. He emphasized one finger, again, and pretended to bite the bread and swallow the bite, holding up only one finger.

Only one bite? What the hell was that supposed to mean? I shook my head blatantly. “No!” I said. I was hungry, and I’d be damned if I was going to let him tell me how to eat the food HE gave me in the first place. Did he think I passed out in that frozen tundra after eating too much at some party? No! I had no idea how long it had been since I’d eaten last. I was starving!

“Er!” The elf chuckled, holding up one finger again. “Er…”

I held up one finger, laying the bread on my stomach. “Er…” I repeated what he said. The elf smiled widely and nodded his head quickly. It occurred to me that he was more excited to see that I understood something he told me than whether or not I was agreeing with him. “Er… One.” I emphasized the focus on my one raised finger. “One…Er. Do you get it?”

“Won..” He said the word with an odd accent, different from any accent I’d ever heard… then again, no in Kansas City spoke Elvish and had a healthy social life. He spoke like a combination of two people, one from England—or somewhere like that—and one from Sweden, or Finland ( I recognized this because my mom had been married to a Swedish man in the past).

“Er.” I held up one finger on my good hand and summoned enough strength to raise my forearm on my other arm and move it slightly, holding up my left forefinger. “One.” I continued, and brought my fingers together, touching them to form a triangle in the negative space between them. “Er, one. Er, One.” I would raise each finger that went along with whichever word I was pronouncing, then touched them together again. “Er, one… they’re the same thing. One means er.”

I knew the elf couldn’t possibly understand the rest of what I had said, but I knew for a fact that he understood what I was trying to point out, and nodded slowly, holding up his forefinger and smiling faintly. “One…” he repeated in the strange accent. He bit the bread, swallowing the bite. “One.”

“I can’t eat just one bite.” I retorted lightly, letting my voice whine a little. “One. No.” I took my head definitely and before he could protest, I shoved the rest of the bread into my mouth, covering the food sticking out from between my lips with my hand. Not quite the imagery I wanted to present the elf with, but I was hungry, and I needed food. He chuckled and offered me his piece of whatever elvish bread I had been stuffing my face with. “Laa.” He said faintly, and shook his head, rising to his feet, but he cast a glance my way and through the noise of my jaws devouring the Elvish bread I thought I heard him repeat it when he looked at me, as if he wanted me to catch on to something. His brow raised slightly in question and he paused for half a moment before he turned to walk to the other end of the tree-house thingy we were in. Swallowing a painfully large bite of now soggy, thoroughly chewed bread, I cleared my throat and said cautiously: “Laa.”

The elf stopped. He waited, but with the blink of an eye had turned to face me, standing only a few feet from me. He looked at me with those grey, misty eyes and dark lashes, and I almost regretted whatever it was that I had said to him in his language. What if it was something… suggestive? That made no sense, since he would have no reason to say anything like that to me in the first place. Whatever I had said caused him to look at me in the same intense, piercing way as when our eyes first met.
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Haldir chuckled as he watched the pitiful girl force as much lembas bread into her mouth as she was physically able; her wide eyes closed in relishing of the sustenance he was now sure she had long been deprived of. He couldn’t tell her that the bread would swell in her stomach and leave her without hunger for weeks, with as much as she had already eaten. He watched her for a moment. He noticed that she grew conscious of his presence and his eyes upon her and covered her mouth with her small hands. He noticed she wore a ring on either of her third fingers on each hand, one bearing a red stone, and one a green. They were both on silver bands, and one was shaped like a star, and the other was a heart crowned with silver, and carried between two silver hands. Her fingers were small and child-like, her wrists and arms slender and gaining color. She had a very pretty face—even as she gorged herself on the lembas bread—and her black tresses were quite appealing, even in their wild, matted state.

Perhaps it was the illusion of mystery the girl emanated, but, whatever the reason, Haldir was pleased to look at her; he watched her for a moment longer, and then rose to his feet slowly, shaking his head. He smiled only a little—enough to realize he was doing so—as he imagined wrapping her little hand in his own again, and how his heat brought color back into her pale fingers and painted it across her white cheeks…even though she had been violently sick.

Haldir shook his head and glanced over at her once more before he turned to leave the talan. “No…” He murmured ( in his own tongue ). Then he turned away fully and sighed, removing the sweet thoughts he thought about the girl. Her vulnerability and physical weakness, no matter how attractive, did not deserve to be made all the worse for his interference.

He had only gone a few steps when he heard the girl swallow and speak to him softly, cautiously. “Laa.” She said, repeating his native language back to him. She had been observing him? Haldir stopped and hesitated before turning on his heel, catching the girl by surprise, it seemed, as if she did not expect that he would have heard her.

She looked long upon him, her wide eyes made bright by glistening moisture as they delved into his own, as deep as her mortal soul would allow her to pry. Her eyes were green as the spring, rimmed with dark paint that had been smeared and not cleaned from her skin, but thick, long lashes as well, which touched her cheeks when she blinked. She lay with her hair like a halo of midnight around her tormented face, looking upon him with a sweet, sad smile on the corners of her flushed lips as her chest rose and fell with slow breaths, the fingers of her right hand fidgeting with the soft sheets beneath her as she kept her eyes upon him.

Haldir lowered his eyes.

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He looked away. Did I freak him out? I didn’t mean to stare… I looked away as well, tearing my gaze away from his immense beauty…

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Haldir sighed and smiled faintly, looking up to the girl once more as he placed his hand over his heart and bowed his head, saying: “Haldir.”

“Haldir?” She repeated slowly. Her brow furrowed slightly, and she thought for a moment. Then, suddenly, her eyes brightened and she smiled widely. Her smile stole the breath from Haldir, it was so wide and warm, and her eyes twinkled because of its warmth. She pointed her finger his way and repeated. “Haldir!” He grinned and nodded quickly, removing his hand from his chest and gesturing toward her.

“Sarah.” She replied, laying her hand on her breast.

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He approached me. The elf who now I knew was named Haldir, walked toward me and knelt beside me, keeping his eyes locked with mine as he did so, until I felt awkward and had to force myself to blink or look away for fear of exploding into blushes and giggles.

But he reached out and touched my face lightly with his warm fingers. I couldn’t help it… I blushed and looked at him again, my breath stolen from me for a third time as my eyes were captured by his and held prisoner to his gaze.

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Haldir couldn’t think of anything he should do when she learned his name, and he learned hers, for they could not talk to one another—neither of them knew what the other was saying.

Where had she come from? What had she been doing lost and alone? Should he attempt, however fruitless the result would be, to tell her that it was he who shot her?

There were only the same questions swiftly moving through his head which he knew were his duty to find the answers to, but he could not ask her, for he did not know how to speak to her effectively. She lay on her bed and looked upon him as he pondered what he should say, returning her gaze all the while. She was an interesting subject to look upon, for every line on her face, every patch of red that was rising beneath her pale skin, every brown freckle, and every blemish was something new each time his eyes moved across her face and shoulders. They did not impair her strange loveliness, more so, they contributed to it greatly and to the otherworldliness which called out to be recognized above any other feature upon her. Her eyes were different than the eyes of women; though they looked no different at first glance, they bore a bizarre quality within their emerald depths that spoke of a knowledge of things yet to be discovered, of tragedy and happiness resounding not from everyday life, but from something else.

Haldir sighed heavily, releasing a long breath he did not know he had been keeping, and crossed his arms across his chest, smiling faintly, the girl’s eyes still gazing at him with her curious, wide stare.

Nothing could be learned until there was sufficient time to teach and be taught. The elf, of course, was in no need of sleep—at all—but he knew the girl, Sarah, would most likely be in dire need of rest that was induced by a bit of calm, and gave her as much rest as she was capable of receiving in her state. Perhaps in the morning he could wake her and bring her into the city to calm her a little and expose her to his good folk. But tonight he knew she must rest. As her eyes began to droop watching him—her lashes batted staggeringly to keep her gaze focused—Haldir realized that sleep would, indeed be a wise choice for her.

“Sleep,” Haldir said quietly, tilting his head as her chin began to droop. She shook her head and her matted hair bustled around her face. She said something quickly, but it was nigh inaudible, even to the elf’s keen ears. “You must sleep tonight.”

Sarah giggled lightly and laid her head down, looking upon him still. She hadn’t understood what he said, but he tried to lull her into a more restful position. Then he smiled and hummed deep in his throat, as he had done when first she had awoken.

“Lor—Loralya?” Sarah repeated lowly. Her eyes were heavy, and her face peaceful.

“Sleep…” (This, in his tongue, is Loralya) Haldir whispered and let a simple song break through his lips. He laughed lightly as he hummed, and folded his hands and laid his head upon them, mocking sleep. The girl laughed—a light, airy sound that made Haldir smile in return as his laughter faded away. “Sleep… “

“Loralya…” Sarah murmured, closing her eyes at last. “Sleep…” She whispered in her own tongue as she drifted into slumber and her chin sank, and she sighed in content.

Sleep. The sound was drawn and rather irksome, but Haldir repeated it to himself and thought it was the translation from Elvish into her own tongue of the word for sleep. He repeated it over and over, letting it fall from his lips quietly so that she could not hear, and then he fell silent and watched her fall deeper and deeper into sleep. It was soothing to watch her, and for a moment, Haldir was glad that he was, temporarily, released from his duties as a soldier.