Chapter Text
His fingers strum the strings of the guitar she made him as he sings his favourite song, eyes clear of tears as they had been for years now.
“Tell me once again, I could have been anyone, anyone else, before you made the choice for me.”
He had lost count of the days since they had died, it was long enough for grief to fade to numb emptiness and the cabin she had made to begin to crumble.
“My feet knew the path, we walked in the dark, in the dark, I never gave a single thought to where it might lead.”
His head tilts back against the tree behind him as he tries to remember their faces.
“Oooooooh~ Oooooooh~”
Not the ones weathered with old age and pity, but from back when he was human, mortal, like them , when they were just kids who had only just tripped into this world.
“All those empty rooms, we could have been anywhere, anywhere else, instead, I made a bed with apathy.”
He had been excited at the fantasy-like changes to his appearance, she had been curious at the strange new script none of them could read written across his left wrist.
“My heart knew the weight, ten years worth of dust and neglect, we made our peace with weariness and let it be.”
They had made the cabin, settled down, having fun together like they always did, singing and dancing and making the forest they landed in home and learning to fight off the beasts that attacked.
“Oooooooh~ Oooooooh~”
Then they started to grow older, maturing and aging, but he… he didn’t.
“The moon will sing a song for me, I loved you like the sun.”
His new appearance wasn’t just aesthetic, which they had already known from his new agility, hearing and slight glow in the dark, but they hadn’t imagined this.
“Bore the shadows that you made with no light of my own.”
He had barely grown an inch by the time they were wrinkled and gray, unable to run around and laugh and dance as they all had before.
“I shine only with the light you gave me.”
He had buried them behind the cabin they had made, below the tree they used to climb.
“I shine only with the light you gave me.”
He has sung to them every day since.
&&&
There had been reports of a possible person in the forest to the North, too close to Ettenmoors for any to dare to venture too close to, or so they thought. But a recent change in the scouting route had the scouting party skimming the edge, and those brave enough to linger sometimes heard a distant melody carried to them on the wind. A beautiful but heartbreaking song, they’d say, they could not understand the words, but many were brought to tears anyway.
That’s why Glorfindel and Elrond are here now. The Ettenmoors are too dangerous to send just anybody, but if they did not act soon someone might get too curious and go to look themself. So they will discover the source of the song and return the truth to Imladris.
Soon they will know.