The cold winds of the Misty Mountains whip around the small camp with a howl and a hiss. Although the company is braced against the face of a cliff in an attempt to protect themselves from the howling chill, it does little to warm them once night falls and the stone they sleep upon turns frigid. Tucked away beneath an overhang, apart from the rest of the group, sit a pair of elves huddling together for what little warmth to be found. A black steed shivers behind them, flecks of white and snow bright against its dark pelt. Their breath comes out in frost on the air that is quick to fade like the smoke of the nearby fire.
“I do not break my promises,” says Arrvelas as he leans closer to her. One of his arms is wrapped around the shoulders of the elleth — both for warmth and for comfort, and for him to gain his bearings in the cold night. “I promised Ithilwë that I would come in his stead. Although I have also promised to protect you.” He pauses for a brief second, and Alphaear imagines that if she could see his brows beneath the cloth that covers his eyes, that they would be furrowed. “I suppose that those two promises are now conflicting, and pose a problem.” With his other hand, Arrvelas reaches out and fumbles for her cloak. Once he finds it, he draws it over her arm that was injured in the fight earlier that day.
“Have we not gone far enough?” She murmurs, keeping her tone low so others that rest nearby cannot hear the words that could potentially be perceived as mutinous. “We have risked life and limb. Master Dalbran’s father is, in my opinion, likely not with us any longer. You promised Ithilwë that you would go in his stead, not follow them into death. And if you die, where does that leave your cousin? Angry at his companions that you died on their venture? Guilty with himself that he sent you along? I beg of you, Arrvelas, let us go back!” Her voice lifts into what is almost a shout as she offers her plea. The mountain winds are still howling and loud, and thankfully drown out the noise so that none but her fellow can hear it.
As harsh as the winds does Arrvelas pull away from her, letting out a sigh before his lips draw into a tight line. “What would you have me do? Go back on my word? We are already here, and, I am not fain to abandon the task that was set upon me by my dear cousin. I am rude and irksome at times, yes, but not so rude as to abandon those to whom I have pledged my aid.” He shakes his head to further emphasize his point to her, and as his dark hair falls over his shoulder, it falls loose from its braid. Alphaear resists the twitch in her fingers that tempts her to fix it — now is not the time, and he is insufferable.
“But it is not that— I—” Alphaear cuts off her own words, again and again, pursing her lips in frustration. Almost as wicked as the snow and ice in the air are her own thoughts, and she leans away from him into the cold as she gives them a voice. “I do not care about them,” comes her low tone. “Not as I care for you.”
Although she had offered words in a quiet tepid tone, they are met with a harsher one, and fittingly so for the sentiment implied. Arrvelas turns argumentative, seeming to now not care if his rebuke disturbs any of the others posted around the camp, or even Galtharian and Envandame who keep watch over the cliff face. “But I do!” He replies. “You are a dear friend, Alphaear, but do you not think that those here deserve our help? We pledged it to them! We have come so far now! What would we make of ourselves if we were to turn back, only now that it has become dangerous?”
“I think that this is a fool’s errand that will get us all killed!” She snaps in reply. She turns away from him sharply, wincing as the motion aggravates her wound for although it is bandaged, the injury is still fresh. “I am your friend, yes, but I am also a tactician! War and stratagem; for thousands of years, that has been my job! This is a venture that will end in death—be it ours or theirs!” As she says this, she can see the lines of Arrvelas’s face deepen; even with the barrier around his eyes, there is a sudden age that overcomes him. He sighs, and his tone is no longer harsh, merely tired.
“So it may well be,” he murmurs, a shiver overcoming him now that they have parted, and are left only with the stone to warm them. “But I have made a promise, and it is one that I intend to keep. You can leave if you so choose to, but I shall stay. Alphaear, please understand that!”
Alphaear feels herself wince back a sudden melancholy; emotion brims at the edge of her eyes, but she refuses to let the tears fall even if he cannot see them. For a moment she is not an elleth trapped upon a mountainside begging for her dear friend to leave this danger with her. Instead, she is a young child gripping onto her father’s hand and pleading with him not to go off to war. Instead, she is a forgotten bride letting the one she once claimed to love sail away, for no compromise could ever be found between them on the matter of love and death. For a moment she is all of them at once, culminating at this point on the mountainside, and she grows desperate. “What am I to do,” she begins, softly, “if you are to die? Where would that leave…?” She trails off with a shuddering sigh, hoping he has not heard her or at least does not press the matter. “I am not leaving without you,” she sniffles, “so I guess we shall just have to die together.”
Several moments of silence linger between them. All that is to be heard now is the wind, screeching and hissing its madness across the night sky. Gently as always does Arrvelas move, and he reaches out until he feels her shoulder beneath her cloak. With little roughness does he attempt to draw her closer to him, an action that the other does not bother to resist. “I do not want to die,” he says, “and that is not my intention, Alphaear. But… you are here. And right now, it is just you and I, remember?” He gently calls to mind a promise that was once made over the silver gleam of a dagger. “And if I do not plan on dying, then you should not, either. We will be alright, my friend. I will not leave you — through death or other means.”
The elleth trembles beneath his touch. From cold or emotion, she knows not, but she moves closer into his embrace. Reaching up, she rests his hands on his cheeks. Then, she takes her thumbs and gently runs them beneath the curves of his eyes; on the edge of the cloth that hides scars and blindness from ages past. “Just you and I,” she murmurs in an echo, as her breath escapes into frost once more. Though Arrvelas would once tense up and lash out at anyone who dared to touch him like so, he remains gentle and still, and even tries for a small smile. She returns the gesture (though it is not as if he can see it) and draws him into an embrace that she will blame on the cold if anyone is to question it. Her friend does not seem to mind this at all, and even returns it; albeit gingerly, for now he is acutely aware of the tenderness which she moves due to her injury. “Not even death shall do us part, hm?”
“Not even death,” he agrees. “It would take more than the clutches of Mandos to keep me from fighting my way back to you. We are in this together.”
Alphaear presses her face into his shoulder, seeking warmth and a familiar scent as she takes in a deep breath. Referencing such a thing, she remembers a conversation she had once in a place not so unlike this — marked by chill and war, and uncertainty. She gently tightens her fingers around the fabric of his cloak, and looking just past him into the snow, she recalls the words she shared with another friend lost. “We will shake hands in the Halls of Mandos one day,” she says with a trembling voice, “and we will be the better.”
A pause. Where once those words were met with agreement and a grim chuckle, that is not what greets her this time. Instead, gentle fingers begin to draw through the strands of her hair that have grown brittle with the cold. “The Halls of Mandos? Why must we meet there? Why can we not do something else; can we not sail?” He poses with a clear hesitance to his cadence.
“Sail?” She echoes, her eyes going wide at the thought. So many times has she replayed the promise of the Halls of Mandos that she has not once considered any alternative. Alphaear’s gaze darts aimlessly over the snow and the cliff face that falls off into a landscape of night, no longer able to find in her memory the one to whom she’d promised death or better with so long ago. “You would sail? Us? With me?”
Arrvelas pulls back from her, a crease in the cloth over his eyes belying the crease in his brow. "Well...I had hoped so. Once we find ourselves tired of these lands. We would say good-bye to these lands, perhaps visiting our past homes. And then we would board a ship, just you and me. Is that…? Oh, forgive me…” As he begins to regret his words, the elleth does not let him pull away from her. Gently she tugs him back.
“No!” She protests, far too quick to hold on to him in their embrace. “No, no. I would like that. I would like that very much. Far much more than the alternative.”
“Much more than the alternative,” Arrvelas echoes in agreement. He leans back against the cold stone wall, settling in for the night with little hesitation. “We will be alright, my friend. I promise you that.”
Alphaear simply smiles. Offering no more words to the wind as the cacophony of the storm shrieks and wails against the mountainside where they and their company rest. Although it is no silent night, the sentiments shared between them made it a peaceful one all the same. The bitter cold of the rock attempts to pierce the warmth of their cloaks and furs, but they are content in their slumber for a short time. Arrvelas sleeps with ease, fearing nothing more that could come for them in the night now that they had chased off orcs, and wargs, and bad blood between the two. Sleep does not come so readily for the other, who holds the end of her cloak tightly over herself despite the comfort that is found in her companion. As flurrying as the snow are her own thoughts in her head, causing her mind to come to the same still whiteness as the landscape that awaits them beyond the rocky overhang where they rest.
Finding that there is little else she can do or think of to soothe herself to sleep, she falls back on a different promise that she had once made to Arrvelas some mere weeks ago. Is there anything wrong with lullabies? He had asked of her, and she had said, No - I only wish to save this one for a time when we truly need to be falling asleep. Alphaear reasons that this is as good of an occasion as any; even if he is already deep in slumber, perhaps words soft and light will slip through nonetheless.
Sing all ye joyful, now sing all together!
The wind’s in the tree-top, the wind's in the heather;
The stars are in blossom, the moon is in flower,
And bright are the windows of Night in her tower.
Lullaby is from ; The Hobbit, Chapter XIX: "The Last Stage"
