Aemrandir stood on a branch, one of many forming the shadowy canopy that blotted out the sky, the thick, gnarled beam of wood not relenting to his weight in the slightest. He was a few metres above the ground, high enough to examine his surroundings and to avoid the reach of the night-time predators that prowled throughout the undergrowth. But his gaze was not searching around himself, nor was he worried of the dark, twisted creatures patrolling their gloomy territories. At least not for himself.
His eyes, brimming with wide-eyed childish innocence, were instead focusing on the two elves fighting off a pack of giant spiders, slashing left and slashing right, futilely. For more and more poured from seemingly everywhere at once. The tallest elf, the female, yelled despairingly, "Aemrandir, go! We will find you later, but it is not safe here!"
But Aemrandir did not leave. He simply perched upon his branch, head tilted to the side, as if wondering why the creatures were playing so rough. He watched, until he realised the spiders were not playing at all. And then he ran, as his parents fell beneath the onslaught of fang and stinger.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-
He gasped, sitting up fast enough for an audible click to be heard from his back. Cold sweat drenched his skin and his clothes and after a moment, he remembered where he was, his heaving chest refusing to still and his heart fighting its way from his chest. He wiped the sweat from his brow, hand shaking ever so slightly, and stood up.
Always, that dream. He had went so long without experiencing it, he had almost hoped he was finally free of it. A quiet, self-critical scoff escaped him as he stared into the dawn, as thin rosy tendrils of light and the shadowy darkness of the waning moon vied for possession of the sky. He was too old for hope. He had seen what little good hope could do on that fateful day.
And then his mind, still rousing from sleep, weakened and allowed a myriad of other memories to come before him, each one faster than the other, until his final and most feared recollection presented itself at the forefront of his mind and refused to let go.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-
She lay in his arms, shaking barely as the dagger he lacked the courage to remove from her stomach seemed to only wriggle its way deeper. Her skin was ashen, deathly pale and she reached for his tear-stained cheek, stroking it as gently and fondly as if--
-*-*-*-*-*-*-
No. He wrested rule over his thoughts and desperately thrust the memory where it had remained, where he had buried it long ago -- behind walls of the strongest steel and rock unyielding, at the very back of his mind where he had no business dwelling.
He leaned heavily against the trunk of the tree, his shoulder digging into a particularly thick and outcropping knot of wood with a satisfying sense of distracting discomfort. An almost silent sigh escaped his frowning lips. There was no good in looking back. Everything before was too painful. That last previous memory was the exact reason he had shoved the burden of his own two-hundred-year self-imposed exile upon his already weight-laden shoulders.
No. He would live in the present. After all, now when he walked the streets of Bree, the place he had eventually come across in his travels, and as he admired the buildings and the weather and sometimes the people, but never the women -- At least not in that particular way, as he refused himself the privilege of romance. -- he could easily forget about his troubles and smile and be merry as well as he could.
So as the sun eventually won the nightly battle of the heavens and as streaks of light burst through the leaves of his lofty perch, he decided that now would be a good time for a drink. And not water either.
