Dagramir

He was somewhere else.

Through the mud and the twigs, Dagramir would crawl. A meandering black-clad frame worked its way quietly through the underbrush, clay and muck spattering across his leather gambeson as he slithered through the moss – arcs of rainfall lighting up the blackened world around him in a beautiful chorus.

A crackling fire would be the sound to awaken Dagramir from his latest bout of unconsciousness; a soothing, homely sound that would no doubt swell his chest with warmth had it not been accompanied by a banging pain across his forehead. Pinpricks of light appeared to haze across his blurring vision, the Gondorian’s eyes struggling to adjust to the sheer darkness that would encapsulate his form.

She sat there silently, her arms bent at the elbows as her fingers templed in front of her lips. It was perhaps unheard of to see the Raven donning anything but black leathers or velvets, yet her willowy frame was draped in a breezy, white linen shirt, unbuttoned almost entirely to reveal a slither of her shapeless chest and the slight details of the tattoo underlining her sternum.

*Trigger warnings for very minor details of suicide and miscarriage.*

The turning of the leaves was perhaps the most definitive proof that a sense of change now lingered in the air. The regal colours of orange and magenta were beginning to pattern the nearest oak trees like jewels inlaid within a crown.

A rather apt simile when the Raven, herself, was perched so close by.

‘Women play a fickle game, son. Always be wise to their ways.’

Is it so terrible to enjoy the pain?

It was uncomfortable to lie like this.

But at least, Ashaia supposed, her vantage point from laying upon this moth-eaten cot did not obscure the slow shift of the rippling river. Catching the light of a dying sun, the water upon the horizon was tinged a bloody red. The last of the magnificent rays, which the sun could expel before it bestowed it's final farewells to the earth, came in slices of an orange blaze between the gaps in her fingers, hand held up at eye-level to fragment the glare.

The deepest bowels of the night were still quiet in early May. No crickets sang under the starry, blue-black mantle yet. They would not awaken until later in the summer. A bullfrog, perhaps, might croak his serenade from a distant pond. But under the shaft of cool, pale moonlight that fell through the cottage window, everything was hushed. 

Stalks of grass and flowers alike would have bristled pleasantly to the guiding hand of the early morning breeze. The wind carving its way over the collection of dirt and stone that surrounded Nenuial; where picturesque landscapes had been butchered by the unstoppable ingenuity of man. The river which flowed below an undeterminable King’s feet seemed rather gentle this morn, to Dagramir’s keen eye. The Gondorian stood calm upon the edge of the withering bridge, feet spread evenly to the tune of his shoulders.