<A Dream, From When Faelalan Was Ill And Near Death.>
She was dreaming. She knew that much. She clearly remembered falling asleep in her bed with the covers tucked up around her chin. She had listened to the crackling of the banked fire. She remembered that she had slipped on some ice that day and fallen on a large branch; it had left a nasty bruise on her left leg. She remembered, even, that tomorrow would be Yuletide and she would have no one to celebrate it with.
But in her dream, it was not winter. The spring was budding into summer and the orchard was just beginning to produce its first fruits. She could smell the heady, spicy scents of the flowers the trees were putting forth; she could see their pale pink and white blossoms like thousands of stars clinging to green and leafy branches. There, too, was the enticing aroma of the honeysuckle that grew over the stone walls that enclosed her mother's orchard.
Fae could feel the warm sun on her face and the softness of the grass beneath her as her mother cradled her head in her lap and braided into the long and thick tresses of her red-gold hair flowers and leaves that had fallen nearby. Her eyes were closed; the world was a warm and comforting carmine behind her eyelids. She could hear her mother singing in Sindarin and Fae found herself singing along, too. She thought that it was a song about Beren and Luthien. She wasn't quite sure, though, for the song sounded far away and tremulous, as if the wind that rustled through the verdant manes of the trees was snatching the words as they left her mother's lips.
At last her hair was done; she sat up and turned to her mother with a wide and happy smile. She was young in this dream; perhaps twelve or so, still at home with her parents, still new to the world, still believing that there was no evil in it that could touch her. "Will I ever have a love like that?" She asked.
"Of course, dear heart," her mother responded. "We all have a love like that in the world; it is just a matter of finding them."
"I think mine will be Lindy," young Fae giggled, speaking of the blond boy who was the son of the constable. Indeed, most might think that the two would eventually marry, for they were bound at the hip as most were apt to say.
"Little one, you are too young to know," said her mother, laughing and laying a finger against the tip of her nose. "It may very well be another. What then?"
As she was about to reply, her mother's countenance began to change. Her eyes were the first to transmute;they grew lighter and lighter, until their color reminded Fae of stormy waters. The fair hair her mother bore shortened and darkened until it became as ebony. Her pale skin, too, became dark and swarthy and her features changed to that of a man she knew well.
"And what of me?" He asked. "Have not I held your heart captive since I first looked into your eyes?"
"But you are not here," she cried, now herself again, but retaining the long and cumbersome locks of her childhood. "And you do not love me."
"Do not I? You speak falsely," said the vision. "You are my sun and my moon. Why do you deny it? Can not you see that our hearts have been bound together since the very first hour of our meeting?"
"Lies! Begone from me, vile shadow! How dare you defile the memory of my beloved mother and that of my beloved friend!" Her voice rose into an uncharacteristic shriek. A storm broke over her eyes and water rained down her face, soaking the simple shift she was accustomed to wearing at home.
"So be it," replied the shade, stepping back to a ledge that seemed to suddenly appear as the scenery of her well loved home dissolved around her. Fae rose to her feet, her blue eyes widening in horror. Fearing that she might have made a mistake and seeing his intentions, she reached out to him but found herself ensnared by the heavy and elaborately braided tresses she wore.
"Please don't," she called to him, struggling now to free herself. "Please, do not be so rash!"
He took another step back and then another until his boots struck the edge of the shadowy precipice.
"Don't," she cried, now remembering that in some pocket she had a pair of her mother's scissors. At least she imagined it so, for even now Fae knew that she was dreaming, but was helpless to do more than imagine useful things to alleviate her situation. Reaching into the pocket she thought the instrument to be in, she withdrew the shears and shore off her constricting locks. They fell away and withered as vines do when cut from the root; she paid no mind, for she was at last free.
It was too late, though; by the time she reached where he stood, he had thrown himself over the side into the depthless shadows below. Her cry echoed after him as she watched him fall, despairing because she was unable to help him.
He disappeared at last into the darkness; she drew back her grasping hand and began to mourn him alone. In the midst of her tears, a gentle hand touched her arm and she looked up, her watery eyes falling upon a fair and brilliant light.
Here she woke, startled into consciousness by a noise, only half remembering the pleasant memory that had turned into a nightmare.
