Mallossel furrows her brows and looks away from him. "I understand. But I would do what I did again if it meant you were safe."
Cardanith paused, a beat passing between them. His head drops, eyes narrowing in a rare moment of vulnerability. "I would not allow you, you know that? I've cursed the fact I was not taken instead of you."
Move swiftly like lightning, she tells herself. Strike hard and fast - show no mercy, especially not to him. Their blows and strikes, parries and blocks - it is more like watching a dance than it was a fierce spar between two who are evenly matched. She easily leads a fist of his astray, but her partner is like the sudden flicker of a flame, switching to another stance at a moment’s notice to keep her always on edge. Her swing misses him only by a hair’s width. She grins.
“The Swallow’s Stance?” She jests as she presses in on him. “You seem to be on the back foot, Autarch!” Her teasing only elicits a chuckle from her pale-haired mellon. Without another moment to recover and make fun at his expense, Cardanith suddenly lunges towards her and forces the offensive. She does not dare to hesitate or falter in her counters of his blows; she would not be shown mercy, so neither would she show it.
The eyes of her oldest friend could strike fear into the heart of anyone in the midst of battle; frigid did they become in focus, like ice. Cold and unforgiving. She is told often that her own cloud over like thunderstorms, but she knew which was all the more frightening. Yet she catches a moment of opportunity - a brief window, and she takes it. Swiftly. Strike hard, and strike fast. Mallossel offers him a grin as she swings upwards, taunting his block - then she coils back and lands a brutal hit to his ribs.
They both part then, panting, and she reaches up to flick away sweat that has built on her brow. “Perhaps you are slowing down!” She accuses, stepping away to collect a nearby cloth to wipe her face. Cardanith remains where he is, reaching to wipe his mouth as he calms his breathing.
“The yrch would disagree, I reckon,” he counters, and she quickly whips her head around to offer him a teasing glare.
“Come now, Autarch, all I hear are excuses.”
“You are the First Autarch. We could not afford to lose you.” Mallossel points out, keeping her gaze cast darkly towards the cliff face. A tenderness wells up in her chest, or that is to say continues to well up, for her utter relief at seeing him once more could not be defined by any tongue known to elf or man. “More than that… you are my oldest friend.”
Cardanith seems to struggle with his words for a moment, though he does eventually counter her thoughts. “And who would miss me, save for you? I have served as the First for millennia. I have let the Host almost fade away. More than that…” he trails off. He pauses in his words, again, not continuing the thought as he turns away from her to face the water. “Enough of that. You are here, now.”
“I had a dream last night,” she says to him as they work through the fields just outside of the walls of Gondolin, but still safely encased by the mountain peaks. “I dreamed of a white horse, with lightning sparking from its hooves as it ran, and the earth quaked with a noise like thunder when it struck the ground.”
Cardanith raises a curious eyebrow to her as she speaks; her brows are furrowed and focused as she plucks another apple out of the tree to add to her basket. She does not notice his glance, and he does not comment on her appearance; she was too lost in her thoughts of dreams and steed to notice the leaves getting caught in her hair.
“You have spoken before of wanting to learn to ride,” he offers before tossing an apple towards her. Mallossel turns only at the last second to get hit by the fruit directly in the face. She lets out an insulted gasp as the ripe-red apple drops to the ground. Mallossel glares up at her companion, holding a hand over her face, but he gives only a cheeky grin in return.
“With reflexes like that, you will never make the Host,” he continues to tease, as she bends down to collect the fruit off of the ground before it gets further dirtied. She decides she will get a chance to enact her revenge, and so for now, Mallossel continues to pluck fruits from branches high above.
“That was not all I dreamed about,” the elleth continues, as though she had not just been assaulted with an apple by her closest friend. “There was a rider, too! A warrior, with sword and shield a glow. They buckled not under the weight of their foes.” As she speaks, she does not notice Cardanith’s appraising gaze on her once more. No more words are shared between them for a time as they continue their task; the autumnal sun is warm on their skin, but the breeze is cool as it blows hair and silks alike.
Soon, however, she sees an opportunity for revenge. She plucks from the tree a large and heavy apple, the bough lowing with the weight of it and snapping back with force once it is free. Mallossel tosses it in her hand a few times, and this Cardanith notes. She does not give him a chance to speak before she throws it - though it seems her trajectory is far off, for it sails high over his head and knocks harshly into a branch of the tree he is standing beneath. The apple splits with the impact, yet he manages to avoid any juice and fruit falling on him.
“It was a nice attempt!” He jokes almost immediately, failing to account for the fact that the shaking of the limb knocks loose several weaker apples, some of which fall and pelt onto his head. Mallossel immediately begins to laugh at the sight, though she is quick to shriek (not so with fear) and grab her basket to flee when the elder Noldo poses as though to give chase through the orchard.
It is not long after this that Mallossel takes her leave; she wearies, and Cardanith is ever so quick to insist that she take rest in Tham Send once more. As she walks along the path back to the House of Lord Elrond, however, she thinks about the things that were said to her.
“I was stubborn,” Cardanith had said. “I placed my wish to bring back a time long past above the care for my closest." He sighed. "Aeglos was not worth losing you."
It was as though he believed that her decision to see him and their fellows safe was something that he had a say in. As though he had any choice in what rationale she made, in what moves she took in that instance. Yet despite her attempts to assuage his guilt and thus soothe her own, he resolutely believed that Mallossel had other choices. That he could have made other choices.
I had choices, she wanted to say to him. I chose you.
