InsaneJournal

Who: Sara & Nyara
What: Talking about their daughter and the difficulties of their marriage.
Where: Their rooms
When: Evening, 5/2
Warnings | Status: Log but continued in comments | mentions of death | in progress



Turgon looked at the model of the Hobbit home he’d built. He’d spent the last week with Merry, going over details, and had since then created the small home for a 3D idea of what it would look like. He was thrilled with it, delighted by the simplicity and charm the Hobbit wanted, mixed with personal touches and a distinctly.. elvish feel. All in all it was a queer thing to behold, but one marvelously suited to his and Merry’s purposes. Turgon smiled to himself then turned his eyes around to his wife. Elenwë was troubled, troubled because their daughter was worrying her. Their daughter was sad, angry and less inclined to forgive them for their issues than ever she had been. Turgon wasn’t sure what to do about Idril, other than let her be. No words would comfort her, change her mind, or offer any peace.

He tucked his dark hair behind his pointed ears, and sank down onto a chair, resting his chin his hands while he thought.

“I think,” he began, “that we should leave her be. We need not hide our troubles from her, but we do not need to include her. She’s grown now and has her own family to worry over without being worried of the affects our decisions have on her. Eru willing, nothing will change for her. Nothing has changed for her. She will remember it eventually.”

***

While Turgon was working on his model, Elenwë had been vaguely working on a painting. She couldn’t concentrate on it; she couldn’t get the feeling of worry and distant despair out of her mind. Before Itarillë had discovered their problems, it had been far easier. When it had just been between herself and Turukáno, she had started almost to feel comfortable with their situation; she had started to believe that she could figure things out eventually, and that with time, things would get better.


But now that Itarillë knew...well, it made things different. She worried not just for herself now, but for Itarillë. She did not like to see her bright-natured daughter upset; it made the sun seem a little less bright when Itarillë was scowling instead of smiling.

Sighing, she put down her paints, looking at her husband as he spoke.

“It still bothers me,” she said honestly. “It bothers me that she’s upset. It bothers me that she’s wasting her time worrying about us. I’ve tried to reassure her. I’ve told her again and again that we will be fine. But she doesn’t believe me. And I don’t want her to be angry with you. I know how dear she is to you.”

***

“She is, in some ways, a child,” he said placidly, looking at his wife. “Despite her age. And so I expect her emotion to rule her. She has never been afraid of telling what she feels. Perhaps she has a right to be angry. She has only known us being happy together and the idea that we could experience trouble is foreign to her. She’s afraid,” he ventured, rising to his feet to approach Elenwë and look at the painting she was working on. It lacked the normal spirit she put into it, and was tainted by her own distress. Turgon could see that clearly.

He touched Elenwë’s shoulder gently, squeezing it fondly to reassure her.

“There’s naught we can do to deter her concerns. So let her be; the more we tell her not to worry the more she will. Perhaps we must be silent and show her through our actions that we are alright and we will be as the days go by. Let her see for herself.”

Turgon stroked Elenwë’s blonde hair and leaned in close to kiss it, lingering there for a long moment while he tried to comfort her. “It will be okay, I promise you. She will be okay.” Though he liked Idril’s sadness as much as Elenwë did. There was something wrong in the world when their bright eyed daughter did not smile or laugh as freely as she always did.

***

Elenwë sighed, leaning a bit into his touch. She closed her eyes at his fingers in her hair, wishing beyond all hope that his words were true; that everything would be okay and that in time they would be happy, and able to relax into their love again, as they once had. She hated the way she felt. Unsure of how to act around him, unsure of what was alright. Not wanting to push him in any way, but so full of love for him that she felt she could burst with it. And now, the guilt that she had upset her daughter, even if it had not been intentional.

“She is strong,” she said finally. She was born that way, and I think Middle Earth made her even more so. And she has Tuor. And Eärendil, and all the happiness in the world ahead of her. And we are not like these humans, who give up on their love so easily.”

She looked away from him, and out the window. They would not give up, no. But it would be a long and difficult path before they were perfectly at peace with each other, and things might never - probably would never - be as they had been. Those years of bliss and happiness were lost forever, and she wanted to weep for them. But perhaps they could find a new happiness, if they sought long and hard enough.

She opened her mouth as if to speak, but closed it again. What could she say, truly? She loved him. And she wanted to weep, all at the same time. Dipping her brush in the black, she swiped it across the canvass, destroying the painting before standing quickly.

“I wish I’d never come here. When I fell on the Helcaraxë, I was supposed to go to Mandos. And then home. Not to this place, Turukáno.”

***

He stared, aghast that she’d destroyed her own work so easily, then followed after her with his eyes. Her words hurt him, deeply, though he knew why she spoke them. He wasn’t the same man she remembered and his changes forced her into a new life she wasn’t ready for. Perhaps Elenwë would never be ready for it but there was little to be done. If they’d been in Valinor then Irmo’s gardens would offer a place of solace for him to heal and her to come to know him, a place where peace was all they knew and strife unheard of.

But they were not. They were together despite all the odds and they were both hurting. He ducked his head, closing his eyes against his own pain. He was the one causing it. And it hurt to know that his family was suffering because of it. Guilt ate away at him and broke his heart a thousand times. Why could he not simply be what Elenwë and Idril needed?

“What do you need from me?” he asked, “how might I make this easier for you, Elenwë? I am trying, and I don’t know how to do it! I don’t know what to do.”

***

She stred out the window for a long moment, hugging herself. She didn’t know how to answer that question. What could he do? She didn’t want him to feel as if he had to change, because that wasn’t it exactly. It wasn’t that he was different that hurt. It was that...she felt she didn’t have a place in his new life. It felt that he had formed a new life for himself in which she fit only as a memory. Ever since she had known him, she had claimed a special part in his life, and now it was as if that place was too small for her to fit in. It was a place that could only fit his memories of her; not the woman herself.

“I know you’re trying,” she said softly, and it was true. She didn’t fault him. He’d done what he’d had to do to survive, and he was trying to make things right. But it was testing even her sense hope, and very few things could do that.

“There is nothing you can do,” she said softly. “And I wonder if there is anything either of us can do at all. I am supposed to be dead. Maybe it would be better if I still was. Or if we had met again only in the peace of Valinor.”

***

“Why would you say that?” he asked, his own tone soft but still as desperate as it could be. “Why would you say that? I never wanted you dead, I could never live with you dead and I cannot imagine you gone from this world. I have already lived that! And I never want to again. You being gone gives me no more peace than what I already have, which is nothing.” He paused, choking up. “I have lived without you for five centuries and I have hated every moment of it. You cannot assume or think or wonder if life would be better if you were gone! Because, aye! Perhaps it would be better for you, but not for me and not for our daughter.”

He deflated and covered his face with a hand to hide his tears as they built in his eyes and prepared to stream down his cheeks.

“Am I being selfish?” he asked at last, “Is it cruel of me to ask you to endure this? Do you want to go away from me? Would that be easier for you.”

***

“Why would I say that?” she turned to look at him, but her eyes had gentled some. “Because I feel that my presence here is hurting you. Because I feel that you would have been happier if I were not here, even if you say that you wouldn’t. Or at least...more comfortable. You could have had the life you knew. And I feel...”

She pinched the bridge of her nose, her own eyes burning with tears.

“I feel that you don’t want me anymore. I feel like...even being here is forcing you to face things you don’t want to face. I feel like I’m...I feel like I’m in your way; that there’s no place for me in your life anymore.”

The tears began to fall, and she let them.

“Is that what you want? Do you want me to go, Sara?”

***

“No!” he said, staring at her, “no! And it hurts that you would ever think it. Yes I have had to learn to live without you, and yes I did it remarkably well. But you are my best friend and the other half of everything I am, and could ever be. I don’t know what happiness is when you are gone from my life. Our daughter is dear to me, but even then.. “ he paused, feeling guilty for the confession he was about to spew.

“If I could do it again, Elenwë, I would save you from the Ice and let her go.” The tears broke and streamed from his eyes, forcing him to cover his face with both hands to hide them from her. He couldn’t face her in his shame, for what father would let their child go to their deaths? It was a difficult choice, but one Elenwë had made before Turgon had to. She’d chosen the right thing, but out of selfishness Turgon would have done otherwise.

“I love you,” he said, his voice pained, “and I don’t know how to make you believe me anymore.”

***

For a moment, she stared at him. She had never thought to hear those words come from his lips; she had thought when she sacrificed herself so that he would save Itarillë that he would understand and agree with her decision. And since she had arrived here, she had been almost certain that his love for Itarillë was far past anything he had felt for her.

“I would still do what I have done,” she said softly. “But I suppose it is easier to sacrifice yourself than to sacrifice one you love.”

She went to him, wrapping her arms around his waist whether he wanted her to or not. She needed comfort, and she needed to comfort him in equal measure. She pressed her face into his shirt for a long while, her hands balling up his shirt as if desperate not to be pushed away.

“I don’t doubt that,” she said softly, “I’ve never doubted you love me, Sara. How could I? Although...” She paused, shaking her head. “Sometimes in my dark moments I wonder if it is me you love now, or what you remember me to be. And I am not sure they are the same. I don’t know how to be that person you have created in your mind. I only know how to be myself. And I love you. But can we ever make things right?”

***

Turgon wrapped his arms around her, holding onto her tightly and with all the desperation he’d ever felt before, determined to never let her slip from his grasp again. He’d lost her once and he wouldn’t survive it a second time. Not if he could help it. He’d sooner die and never see Aman again if she should be ripped from his arms so cruelly. He sighed softly into her golden hair, breathing in the scent of her. Loving it. Remembering it. And cherishing it.

“They are the same,” he said, “it is only having you here that is... difficult. I remember you, but seeing you is so much more different than drawing upon memories. I do not want you to be any different than you are. I love you,” he framed her face with both of his hands, tipping her head up to look him in his eyes.

“We can only move forward. We both must stop looking back. I have you here with me, and for that I am grateful, it is what I have dreamed of for ten thousand nights. Stay with me,” he said quietly and touched his brow to her own. “I do not want to lose you, I want to enjoy what time we have together. I am trying so hard.”

***

Elenwë’s heart melted as he held her, and she couldn’t help but snuggle into his arms, feeling so at home there, as she always had. It was her place, and being held by him brought so much comfort, even now in the midst of this odd estrangement.

“I love you too,” she whispered. “So much. And...and maybe I am the one being selfish. I am trying not to be. I know how hard this must be for you, I do, but...I just want things to be like they were...it was only two weeks ago for me. And it was so perfect, Turukáno, it was so perfect. How we laughed! And talked! And smiled! And the whole world seemed brighter because we were in it, and in it together. And I knew what was okay. I knew how to comfort you, how to love you. We were so...one that I didn’t worry about making mistakes with you. And I miss that more than anything. And my heart aches...” She stopped for a moment, swallowing as tears clouded her eyes.

“But you’re right,” she said softly. “We can’t stop remembering what was and we have to start dreaming of what can be. And I know you’re trying hard. Maybe...maybe we’re both trying too hard, Sara?”

***

“But we have been through it once before,” he said, “where we didn’t know how to react or how to interact. It wasn’t always so easy. I remember that part of it too, at the beginning. When it was new and when we struggled to live together and to communicate. We grew together..” he sighed, “and we made ourselves into what we were when we parted. And we are still those people.. “ only different. Irreparably changed.

“It’s okay to make mistakes. I don’t expect you to be perfect all the time. And I know you don’t expect me to be either. I am sorry that I am making it so hard. I don’t know how to be who I am to you. You are right, I have had to live without you and I have become used to being alone. I don’t know how to accommodate you in my life, but I am trying. I am learning again. If we might be patient with each other for a while longer.”

“It is easier to say we have to learn than learning will actually be. But I know you and you know me. You know me, so why is it so difficult to be around me and to do things we used to do?”

***

“But it was different, at the beginning. I had not the memories of how things were, or the thousand years of bliss to remember. We were forming a new life from scratch, and everything was ahead of us then, Sara. It was all new. But yes...it was hard, and we made mistakes. And we are those people. And my heart has not been turned from you, nay, that is part of what makes this so difficult.”

She sighed, resting her head against his shoulder so that she didn’t have to make eye contact with him. Everything seemed a little more difficult to say when she had to face his lovely grey eyes.

“I will be patient, if that is what it takes. And if our daughter is angry, then I am sorry for it, but it is our life, not hers. We cannot force ourselves to act in a way that is not right for us just to make her happy. We will take our time, and be patient.”

She considered his question for a moment.

“I don’t know why it’s so hard. I think...maybe it’s because I’m afraid I’m going to lose you. Or...I’m afraid if I make a mistake you’ll just...disappear.”

***

"Aye," he said, "we will not change our ways to accommodate her. Let her be cross, I have faced worse from her over the centuries, and she will either come to accept it or go stubbornly through life until there is no where else for her to move." That made him smile. Ah, Idril, their daughter! How stubborn she was--a true Noldo--but with the freedom and complete happiness of the Vanyar. How beautiful she was, like her mother.

"You can make mistakes," he said, "it won't drive me away from you, Elenwë. I dislike the awkwardness that exists between us. I notice it, and so I know you must too. You are afraid of me, afraid that I might push you away. And aye, I am afraid of that too, but there is nothing you can do that will make me leave you. I am uncomfortable with intimacy, that you know.. but naught else. I am glad to have you here to comfort me and to offer you comfort in turn.

"What would I do without you."