Title: A Reflection Series: Innocence Stripped Away Author: Orchyd Constyne Contact: orchydconstyne@gmail.com Website: http://www.hithanaur.net/ Update List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nairn_orchyd/ Fandom: LOTR Archive: LoM, OEAM, AFF.net, Melethryn Disclaimer: I do not own LotR or any characters, lands, or items from the Tolkien world. They belong to their respective copyright holders. Rating: PG Beta: Fimbrethiel Cast: Erestor/Glorfindel Summary: Upon their return from Mirkwood, Erestor contemplates his reflection. A/N: This does follow "Something Special, Something Sacred", "The Bridge We Cross", and "These Chains". --- "Lie to me, Convince me that I've been sick forever. And all of this, Will make sense when I get better. But I know the difference, Between myself and my reflection. I just can't help but to wonder, Which of us do you love? So I bleed, I bleed, And I breathe, I breathe no more..." Breathe No More -- Evanescence --- Imladris, Third Age 2085 We arrived home, the long journey between Mirkwood and Imladris one we made in strained silence. The playroom door remains closed, unopened by either of us as if doing so would spill out our fears into the light. Fear. Such a foreign word for me. I fear you. I fear him. I fear myself. Dark thoughts permeate my mind and threaten to suffocate me, and so the playroom remains closed, holding back a beast that neither of us are prepared to battle. But now, as you lay sleeping in our bed, I sit here before the mirror of my dressing table. I stare at myself, at the stranger I have become to my own eyes. Tall, yes, dark and pale, yes, but that is all I recognize. The pitch-black eyes contain a sadness, a madness, that I have never seen before. My bones seem to be more prominent under my almost-translucent flesh; I seem gaunt and severe, my lips thin and set in a frown I cannot rid myself of. My hair is as long as it as been, sweeping the floor as I sit here, but the luster is gone; it is a dull mass of unruly darkness and I reach for the silver-handled brush you gifted me upon my last begetting day. Every night I sit here and brush my hair while you sleep. I stare into the glass, into my reflection, and I search for answers that elude me. There is something wrong with me -- with us -- but the answers are just out of my reach. Our caresses are mechanical since returning from his realm, lovemaking almost a necessity instead of a joy. I drag the brush through my locks, my dull eyes still sightlessly focused on my face. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. There seems to be more life in the reflection than there is in the being of flesh and blood. Myths pour into my mind of souls becoming captured in the looking glass of a vain Elf-maid or of mirrors harboring the true self which can only be seen by a trained eye. But the more I watch myself, stare into the endless reflection, that I have come to the conclusion that my spirit must be within that glass. Captured long ago when I was young and impetuous, drunk with love and power over the slender blond. Power. Yes, I did have that over him. My love was power and I used it. He would do almost anything I asked, and I made certain I asked often. But the playroom was shut to him and he was never aware of the play I once engaged in before his light entered my life. That door would have remained forever shut by my love for him, but I moment of nostalgia cost me that love. It was that night, after harsh words had been spoken, that I had sat before this mirror and must have been when the mirror had capture and held my soul, safe within the shimmering depths of the silvered glass. Now, with my warrior by my side, my lack of fire, of self, has cost us so much. There is an anger and fury in the very depths of my being; it is a well of unstoppable rage that bubbles up and would drown me if I allowed it. It is a sickness, I believe, one not of the body or of the mind, but of the spirit where none can heal. My very hands have almost taken the life of my love, almost wrung the life from his broad, strong body. No sane Elf could do such an atrocity, and I no longer claim to be sane. Sanity fled into the mirror with my spirit, with my reserve and my peace of mind. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. The fire builds as I stare at those lifeless eyes, at the beast hidden in their cold depths. In a moment of blinding fury, my hand lashes out -- a quick strike and the mirror shatters. You stir in your dreamscape, but your body is worn from my attentions and you slip deeper into the illusions of green eyes and golden hair while your pale ghost of a spouse gazes at his splintered reflection across the vanity surface. There is no relief in breaking the mirror, no return of my spirit. In the little pieces of mirror littered over the surface are fragments of Erestor: this one cold, that one calculating, this one distant, that one has a twinge of passion in his eyes. Each is a facet of my soul, but they are still trapped, still hidden from me. Shattered pieces of glass, a splintered spirit; the shards are jagged and soon I am smearing blood over the shining pieces. They are too sharp for me to reassemble them, too small to truly matter, but big enough to shred my tender skin and let my blood run. Warmth on my cheeks. The dark eyes in the broken pieces glimmer, shimmer in pools of water, and then they overflow. Sometimes my lungs burn with a suppressed scream. It is a scream of mindless, undirected pain and anguish, but I swallow it, hide it, and for a moment I forget to breathe. I am as broken as the mirror; my body aches with my burden and my heart is heavy with an unnamable sadness. Again I try and reach into the well of my spirit, to draw forth something other than this pain, but there is nothing there. No joy without sorrow, no love without hate, no pleasure without pain. I want to wake you now, to lay my head in your lap as I sob with this loss, but I cannot. You would not understand; you could not help piece me back together, and I do not believe you would want to. You see the reflection. You see lust and desire, love and happiness, adoration and respect. I know what you see, for it is what they all see: a quiet councilor, intelligent and creative, friendly and full of sage wisdom, crafty solutions, and diplomatic words. But I know the difference, love. I know the difference between what truly lies beneath this flesh and what is reflected in the mirror. I want you to lie to me, Glorfindel. I want you to tell me that the last century has been a fevered delusion and these hands never throttled you. Tell me I have never degraded you, whipped you, drew your blood, or offered you to the Elvenking of a shadowed forest. Please, for the love of all we hold dear, tell me I will wake from this sickness and you will be by my side, innocently unaware of the playroom or my past. When I wake from my fever, this will all make sense and I will know the course of action I must take. But I know the truth, do I not? You wear an invisible collar I have placed around your neck, and you bear it with pride. You see only the reflection, and it is that reflection that you love. And I believe that is my fear -- to have proof that the being you pledged your everlasting love to is nothing more than a figment of your imagination. Will you discover the truth and flee from the beast that threatens to consume me, to consume us both, or will you stand your ground as the warrior you are and fight for us both? Do you love me, Glorfindel? Truly love me? Would you love me if I had that door sealed for eternity and never again raised my hand to you? Would you love me no matter the cost? Would you sacrifice the lie for the truth, destroy the reflection in favor of the being? Is it Erestor your Master you love or is it simply Erestor? Tears mingle with blood and broken glass. Truth mingles with lies. A reflection blurs with the reality. The End