in the ranks of death you will find him by arafinweanappreciation  

Turgon gazed out the open window in his study. It was a lovely spring day, the type artists liked to capture. Sunbeams, soft and honey-golden, angled lazily into the courtyard beyond. Flowers of every color bloomed in great, splendorous swaths, bobbing gently in the warm, green-scented breeze. The fountains bubbled and flowed with crystal-clear water, their splashing just barely audible from this height. From this angle, he could see the city below, as well, flowing gracefully down the hill in concentric circles, making his heart ache for Tirion. For home. It was idyllic. That was the word.

He was never overly fond of these scenes, but his daughter’s voice teasing Glorfindel in the background certainly improved it. Both of them had much earlier barged into his study, demanding that he put down his pen for a moment and take a walk with them. His denial had not discouraged them from settling in near the empty fireplace and conversing loudly about how beautiful the weather was.

He knew that he should return to his work soon, but he had little wish to do so. Beyond the distractions of his family and the gardens outside, he had been having trouble focusing lately. He frowned as the thought crossed his mind, not for the first time. This troubled him. It was not like him. He had long prided himself on his self-control, and was not easily distracted. But there was something, just on the edge of his consciousness, that continued to pull his attention away. Something that made him restless and paranoid, that put him on edge. He had often found himself tensing when there was nothing to warrant it. Constantly looking over his shoulder, seeing looming figures out of the corner of his eye. Screams and howls, not audible to anyone else, echoed in the back of his mind, causing him to jump and his heart to hammer in his ribs. There was something harassing him-- something haunting him. Something dark.

He would fear that he was going mad, if he did not know any better

He had had no dreams, however, and Idril did not report any either, despite being much more gifted in the realm of foresight than he. A gift from her mother's lineage. He did his best to dismiss it as mere exhaustion, or worry for Maeglin, who was ever growing more withdrawn. There was no use in pacing the halls and startling at shadows.

In fact, speaking of halls, he should—

Pain.

Sudden and overwhelming and burning.

He felt himself fall to his knees, clutching his abdomen, lungs heaving, but there was a strange detachment to it. He heard Idril cry out and knew that she and Glorfindel rushed over, taking him by the shoulders, asking him what was wrong, but he could render no answer.

It felt as if his flesh was being torn from his very bones. Bruised. Shredded A blazing soreness overtook his fingers and jaw. He could feel his blood rushing in his veins, almost as if it were gushing from some gaping, unseen wound. He could swear he felt it dripping from his hands, his mouth. He tasted iron. But his hands were clean.

Another wave overtook him, and he collapsed on his side. His vision swam. Glorfindel ran to the door. Called for a healer. Idril clutched his arm and called for him.

The world was spinning. He was dissolving from the inside, slowly but surely. This pain would undo him. He would be no more. It grew more and more intense. Wound after wound opening in his chest. He could not have moved if he had wanted to. Shards of broken bones pressed against the inside of his skin. His breaths rasped and rattled, every one an effort, his lungs filled with blood.

He was dying. As sure as the sun illuminated his gardens.

And then it lifted.

Even more suddenly than it had arrived, it was gone without a trace. He relaxed his limbs, sprawling on the floor, and gulped down deep breaths of cool air. In its place, the pain left only a suffocating blanket of despair. Tears formed behind his eyes. The burning was replaced with desolate cold. As if he had been plunged into icy water.

Idril grasped one of his hands, fumbling a little in her desperation. She was on her knees beside him now, eyes filled with fear.

He did not sit up. He could, now, but did not wish to. Instead, he allowed the tears to fall from his eyes, down his face.

Instead, he laid there on the unforgiving stone floor of his home, and he cried.

Finrod bolted upright in his bed, cold sweat dripping down his face.

Amarië stirred beside him, jostled by his sudden movement. He watched as she burrowed deeper beneath the blankets and her breathing evened out once more. It was the dead of night, and Tilion, his vessel full and bright, hovered at his zenith. His light passed through the windows, pooling on whatever surface it could reach, giving the whole world a cool, silvery-gray cast, dulling every color.

Finrod took a deep breath, and then another, drinking in the cool night air. He wished he could join Amarië in returning to sleep, but he knew he would not be able, even if he tried. He was half-sure that the end of his vision would never leave him, burned into the back of his eyelids so that he would see it afresh with every blink. He was not sure he would ever be able to sleep again. His stomach churned as the memory of it flashed before his waking eyes. He did not want to see it, but he could not bring himself to banish it, either. There were some things that deserved witnesses, no matter how grim or unjust. There were some things it did not do to try to turn away from.

He was tempted to wake Amarië and tell her all, but decided against it. This was not her burden to bear. He would tell her tomorrow, when she was awake. Gently, so as not to disturb her further, he pushed off his covers, snatched his robe from its hook, and set out for the gardens.

The gravel paths crunched under his feet. He had been in such haste that had not thought to put on shoes, but he hardly felt the pain. In any case, this was not the first time he had wandered barefoot here, though he had been much younger last time. It had been the noontide of Valinor, then, under the light Laurelin. Galadriel and Turgon and Aredhel had been with him. He and Turgon had walked behind, leisurely, talking of books and architecture and art while their little sisters raced ahead, laughing and screeching and causing at least one poor undergardener to trip over them. They had all been so much younger, then. They had all been alive, then.

Finrod twirled a loose strand of hair between his fingers, staring up at the stars. They shone, cold and lifeless, in the void sky, where he once would have taken comfort in the old guides of his people. He was not sure what he wanted to do, or, indeed, what he should do, but at the moment, he was mostly praying. Praying that what he had seen was not true. That he was mistaken, and it was naught but a nightmare.

He knew better. He had learned to separate fiction and foresight long ago, and even the strangeness of his restored form had not managed to obscure that difference. This was not foresight, exactly. But it was no mere dream, either.

But he would still pray.

He was muttering under his breath when the lantern blinded him. “Ingoldo?”

Finrod took a moment to blink away the light, allowing his eyes to adjust until he could make out a gray cloak and familiar eyes. Aunt Anairë. “Me or my father?” he asked, his stomach dropping even as the words left his mouth. Just his luck that they would happen on each other now, when he was unprepared and undecided.

She shrugged, lowering the lantern a little and grinning wryly. “I used that name for a reason."

Finrod gave a half-hearted laugh. With any hope, she would attribute it to the tired joke and not the way his pulse was ringing in his ears.

“What are you doing out here at this hour?” she asked, almost conversationally. She didn't know. She could not have known.

“I could ask the same of you,” he countered, attempting to keep his tone light-hearted.

She raised an eyebrow. “I’m a midwife.”

“Good point.”

“It had better be." She chuckled, then her face fell. "But really, is there something wrong?” Her expression was filled with gentle concern, and it hurt. He'd spent almost as much time in her home as he had in his own parents'. She knew him almost as well as his own mother. He knew her almost as well as he knew his own mother. He knew there was little he could hide from her. The truth would come, sooner or later.

He chose later.

“I…don’t know.”

Manipulator. Deceiver. Liar. Snake. His mouth went dry as she fixed him with a piercing gaze, the same he had seen many times, and that Turgon had inherited.

“Nightmares?” she asked quietly. Her expression was solemn, now. She was well aware of what those might mean from his family.

Finrod nodded, biting his lip against the words that might fall out if he was not cautious. A little voice in the back of his mind whispered still that it might be nothing. But he knew better than that.

“What was it about?”

Stone and blood and fire and ruin and betrayal. “It wasn’t entirely clear,” he replied instead. That much was truth. He knew little of what he had seen; only understood what was being felt.

She nodded, slowly, with him still pinned under her stare. “Well," she said, deliberately, drawing out each syllable, "Let us hope that it is nothing.”

He nodded, mute. His silver tongue meant little when he could not bring himself to use it. She was not convinced. Nor should she be.

“Good night, Findárato.”

“Good night.”

She walked past him, casting him one last glance, giving him one last chance, before she stepped out of his sight. He watched in silence.

He knew better. The frigid, suffocating landslide of despair had been what woke him, in the end. But he was still learning the art of informing parents that their children were dead.

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