“Are you certain of this?”
“Yes, I think so.” The people around them weave bright shadows in the morning, and beneath the gate-arch Sídhon’s brittle smile is nonetheless steady as ever. He looks certain even, and words die in Brenior’s throat watching him.
Alright then. He nods roughly, and finally steps back from Skip’s saddle.
Sídhon’s face stills before him, frozen ever in his expression of resolve. This Brenior knows well, as he does so many other scenes from memory. Perhaps he had cried a little more, originally, or Sídhon’s features were not so well-lit in that dawning sun, but it is the way it is now, burnished into and cherished in the mind and recollection of a single man, and in truth it is not so far off.
Brenior has never displayed any particular sign of Elvish heritage, as he knows some Dúnedain of older lines are known to, but this--- events, words, and pictures replicated near-perfectly in his mind’s eye--- this has always been his.
He is finished now with this one, he thinks, and lets it go. Sídhon’s farewell was brief, for he was not one to dwell overlong on words as Brenior is, and the other man did not stay to watch his dwindling form fade to the distance. He could not, for duties had called him up to the Second Circle.
He could chose to wake now, to go out to the courtyards. They would be deserted at this hour. He could go out and sit by the ragged hedge no one ever had time to tend, and could refuse the memories that might arise there. But he doesn’t, instead watching as the dream twists on.
He’s never been know for making the smartest of decisions.
Trees branch and twine overhead, and stars peek through them. He knows this place, or knew it anyway. A small homestead on the Pelennor, like so many others, home to a family of a horse, an old cow, a rambunctious dog, and three Dúnedain. He was young then, and tired, for the night had grown late, and so this memory is fainter, and less crisp as Sídhon’s last goodbye.
He is glad for that, as this too is not a happy memory.
The stars wheel on, both above his head and far away, beyond the land of troubled dreams, though those are far clearer than remembered skies. Day will not dawn for hours yet.
