The sweet dream-smoke curls like ink in water as it snakes upward. She watches it silently with her blue almond eyes, tracking its languid progress.She holds her body alert, wary of my intentions. I lean forward, offer her her a glass of fine red wine. We sit quietly together, sipping the wine. What else can she do?
While I wait for the smoke to seep its way into her mind I let my senses take in the creature before me. Certainly in the graceful movement of her hands and face I can see what has enthralled lesser men over the centuries - and I already know the suggestive power of her song. Her pale skin has a radiance even in this dark place, as though lit from within, a charm... yet it stirs a disquietening unease in me, in the same manner that forming the words of the elf tongue tastes ashen in my mouth.
But to truly understand her I must bear the unpleasantness of speaking her tongue, and so, as the smoke thickens the air, I begin. I break the silence, speaking of the wine, holding the glass delicately between my strong dark fingers, tipping the glass the better to appreciate the colours. She replies courteously. Well and good. I offer no indication of harm, other than my own presence, and that of the power I feel rising in me as the smoke begins to infuse me. I see her blue eyes widen for moment... she senses it then, the herbs coming forward to gently envelop her. What can she do? ... nothing. There is nowhere to go, and no one to hear. Just you and I, my caged little bird... you and I and your dream...
... what is the mind of an elf? A burning curiousity in me as the room slips and slithers about me, caught in the deep beauty of her eyes. I see her staring back, into the grey blackness of my own ... to know a man's desire is to know his world...
..come, Celebhir, little bird... show me the depth of your desire ...
... I sense her fight the smoke ... such strength unexpected.... in part of my mind I congratulate myself for the potency of the mixture I have prepared... I feel it myself, a master though I am in this seductive art, the dangerous undertow pulling at my thoughts ... the desire to allow a total unravelling of oneself... to be released, perfectly ...
... a sudden shattering of glass pulls me back from the seductive edge... in her struggle her fingers curl too hard against the fragile glass of wine forgotton in her hand. The shards tumble slowly to the ground, flashing in the firelight, tumbling in a slow arcing dance with the last drops of wine and the blood from her fingers.
My gaze follows the shards... a blurring of sight on sight as she too watches them hit the woven rug, my sight now enhanced by hers and the properties of the smoke, I see each individual fragment strike the woollen strands and bounce gently in the air... tiny, fascinating movement ...
We watch together, the elf and I ... and I scent the lillies that perfume her skin, now becoming my skin, and the cinnamon musk of the dark man. The scent of the man... a gulf of loneliness opens... does he know where I am ... the merest thought... and he is there before me, Araenion, as clear as a summer sun. Grey eyed, dark haired, his proud face still showing the touch of Gondor - my heart reaches out in an instance .... the northern stars dance high behind him on my embroidered banner as the second man steps forward still shadowed - as though out of the northern stars themselves - the flecks of silver in his black hair like stars on their sable field, like a circlet for a prince... my heart soars at the beloved and longed-for sight...
The naked, unfiltered strength of her yearning strikes me as a blow to the chest... so hard I am ejected from her dream, the strands of it snapping violently... I hear my own sharp ragged intake of breath like the desperate gasping of a drowned man. I am forcably here, and she is sprung to her feet, lithe as a cat and dangerous as a she-bear, her eyes flashing ice-hard with the indignant realisation of the too-intimate intrusion.
I rise too, quickly gathering my dignity to myself, pulling my mind as well as I can back to me while the urgency of her longings course though my body. The mind of an elf ... I had heard their minds were 'other', that their senses were refined even beyond the highest of Men. Just so, that her passions - highest and lowest - should surge stronger than than those of Men. I cover my shaking hands before any weakness can be seen, bitter that I saw only the briefest glimpse before she sensed me, exultant that I saw as I saw. That even for a moment I took her dream.
I must retire; to think, to steady myself. Why Men, in her deepest desire? Who are they? - this gondorian whose face and name is now etched as clear as ice in my minds-eye and this shadowed northerner brooding in the stars. I sense the threat, my ears thrum with the howling sound of it. A true seeing and one which goes beyond my pleasure, one that needs be sent to the East.
