Erchirion (erchirion) wrote in untold_logs, @ 2008-04-07 22:43:00 |
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Current mood: | worried |
Entry tags: | amrothos, erchirion |
"We're a strangely matched pair if there ever was."
Who: Amrothos and Erchirion
Where: Between Amroth and Tirith I think? Kari?
When: Well we did this before the plague started but I didn’t get it posted so…
What: Camping! Pain! Laudanum! Angst!
Amrothos stared up at the ominous dark clouds overhead. Was it going to rain, or wasn't it? He felt like he'd been rained upon, and his whole arm, from the shoulder down to the place just below his elbow where his arm ended abruptly, ached like fire. But worse than that, he felt as if the ghost-fingers of his missing hand were clenched tightly and in too much pain to be told. He sighed thinly as he tossed fallen branches on the heap that was going to be a fire. "I hate the weather," he muttered.
"You and me both." Erchirion agreed, shifting his weight around as he tried first to sit, than to stand to ease the sharp protests his knee was giving him. He didn't want to get wet out here either, the leather and steel contraption surrounding his leg wouldn't be very comfortable when wet though he didn't fancy trying to take it off and move at all out here. Easier to keep going, so he'd told himself until now. But with Amrothos having said it. He'd done well so far without resorting to much laudanum, just enough to get to sleep at night when he really couldn't take it so there was probably plenty for him to take the edge off as well as help his brother. Maybe. If he could convince Amrothos that it would be better if he took some... "I know what you are probably going to say." he started, "But I've um....packed for this possibility."
Amrothos looked up from trying to dust off a stone for his brother to sit on. "...is that..." He thought about it. "I mean do you think it will help?" The next words came out quietly. "I'm so miserable. I'm almost willing to try it, I think, maybe this time it will be different, now that the wound is shut."
"I know it helps me." Erchirion answered, a little unsure if he wanted to risk drugging Amrothos but...he knew what laudanum did to him and it was never exactly bad. Things got a bit fuzzy certainly and he felt as if he were drowning if he happened to take too much of it but other than that...True he'd sat with Amrothos the last time through a few...episodes but the wound being closed probably WOULD help wouldn't it? Besides Amrothos was obviously in misery. "I'll measure out something small for you. " he promised. "Easy does it at first you know."
"Right," Amrothos agreed, sighing as he sat down. "After you start the fire?" He suggested. "I'd do it, but some things aren't quite the same with one hand. Like fire-starting." He watched his brother carefully. In retrospect, they might not have been the best people to send on a journey like this. Not with their pain. But what else could they do?
"We're a strangely matched pair if there ever was." Erchirion declared, bending carefully to set to work on that fire. "Your arm and my leg...Together we almost make up a person wouldn't you say?" He hoped it wouldn't rain before the fire really got started, but luckily at least, that was on his side today, and finally he stood up again, wincing a little but managing just fine as he rooted in the saddle bag that contained his drug of choice and the materials for him to prepare a dose.
Amrothos watched his brother prepare the dose, absently fiddling with the small piece of bread he had carried from his bag to serve as a possible dinner. But now... well, if he was taking laudanum, he remembered throwing up bile the last time he'd tried to take it, and didn't know that he wanted to risk it this time.
Erchirion glanced at Amrothos as he heated the laudanum in a spoon, then stirred it into a wooden mug of water he'd poured out, being careful to dilute the drug more than usual. After all, he could always give his brother more later, rather than make him sick all at once. "I've put more water in than usual if you want to try eating." he announced.
"Thank you," Amrothos said, "but I'm not hungry, I don't think." He kept an eye towards the clouds, which hung dark and ominous, and still offered no rain. Well enough for the moment. "Will you take any yourself?" He wondered at his brother, taking the mug. He had taken enough of these doses to know the best way -- take a deep breath and swallow it all before you could smell the strange cloying sweetness of the spices mingled with the stringent alcohol. He swallowed it all and made a face, settling back as best he could against the trunk of a tree. "Well," he mused with artificial cheer, tossing the piece of bread at his brother, "let's hope we are not beset by bandits!"
"Or that our horses can protect us." Erchirion watched his brother swallow and lean back before he undid the top few buckles on his brace at least and set to preparing his own laudanum for the night. "I won't take too much." he promised, and he meant that. "So I can keep an eye on things, you know," he added, swallowing his own dose without really noticing the taste anymore. "By tomorrow if it all holds out everything should be all right." he half promised and wondered if he was telling himself or Amrothos.
"Fades in a few hours, I know," Amrothos muttered. He still felt he was brooding too much. "If they get past the horses maybe we can give them all your pony money." But not the present money for Aeriel, no, of course not!
Erchirion would have eyedarted at Amrothos but it was dark enough he didn't think his brother was going to notice it anyway, so he didn't actually bother with that. "Or maybe it will be lady bandits." he teased, "And we can buy them off in other ways."
"Maybe they'll carry me off," Amrothos mused, "and I won't have to get married!" Yeah, sure. Uh-huh. He felt as though he could feel the laudanum and water sitting in his stomach, even though he knew rationally it was too early for it to have an effect on him. The drug wouldn't kick in at least half an hour, wasn't that what the healers said? "And you'll finally lose your virginity, but keep the pony money."
"To their bandit paradise." Erchirion agreed, "Where we will be worshipped as kings. I think I could do with that." he said dreamily, almost imagining the scene. Too bad it didn't have a real chance of coming true.
"Hmmm," Amrothos said, leaning further and further back against the tree, "kings. We can declare their bandit land a sovereign state apart from any governances. No more city taxes to distant lords from other lands..." As he spoke on, musing on an independent province, his voice began to change. It was as if he was painting a picture of some kind, without knowing quite what he was drawing. The fire seemed very bright, and to be flickering constantly, as if eating darkness and spitting it back out. The wind in the trees moved the branches back and forth as if they were dancing, and the dark clouds overhead were like corsair ships, sitting in the harbor, waiting for some sign... he became aware dimly that he was rambling, that he seemed to have been talking for ages (it had been less than half a minute), and stopped abruptly midsentance, something about being men free to decide for themselves who they wanted to follow.
"mmm." Erchirion agreed, starting to feel pleasant numbness sinking in now. THAT was better, he thought, following his brother's voice, rather than trying to add anything of his own. It was vaguely difficult to keep his mind rooted to one moment after all, and... "Amro?" he asked, when Amrothos stopped talking, jerking his head in his brother's direction. "You all right?"
"Can you imagine it?" He asked, his pupils tiny like pinpricks beneath the shadow of the tree. "She said... she said the sky above her home was more blue than the deepest paint. Bluer than our banner. Bluer than the sea on a sun-struck day. And there, in her village, she said everyone had been born equal. Free. Born under a blue sky. No taxes, Chiri. No lords. She said... she said they picked their leaders. Can you imagine it?"
"That sounds amazing." Erchirion picked up the thread, knowing who Amrothos was talking about right away. This was some of the most information he'd ever gotten about Aerial’s mother in one sitting, so he shook himself a little so he could stay awake to hear it. "Think what we could do with that at home." he added. Maybe it was this that had sent her away then...the lack of it in Dol Amroth compared with what she'd come from.
"She said even women could become leaders," Amrothos whispered, though the words carried in the dark. The darkness seemed enormous in front of him, like something out of his dreams when he had wanted to be dead. "Once I asked if she was a leader, at home. She laughed at me..." He had heard of the exultant joys that came with the opium dens, the gleeful soaring beauty of the haze of white smoke, but all he felt was a stone in his stomach, and the terrifying darkness that hovered around the edge of their fire. "She's gone now, gone, I lost her, I'll never see her again... gone, and what am I to do?"
"She might have left." Erchirion agreed sympathetically, "But she left you Aeriel and she's a part of her, of both of you." he said, hoping this could help a little, though he wasn't sure how much of an effect he really could be having now. "So care for her the best you can and that ought to be a good way to start going about it. Not that you have not already."
The darkness was getting bigger and bigger; the fire seemed very small, too small to fight off the night, and Amrothos left the shelter of the tree, crawling into the immediate circle of light, so close to the fire Erchirion had lit that he almost burned himself before he recognized the heat. He had forgotten about his aching arm, forgotten everything but the darkness and the terror. "The worst part," he whispered thinly, as if the words were somehow made of paper and he was trying not to tear them, "the worst part is it's all my fault, Erchirion. It's my fault. I caused it."
All right. Time to start crawling forward himself and try to keep Amrothos at a safe distance from everything. Erchirion could tell by that whisper he'd made a horrible mistake too, but he'd thought that maybe this time...not that this was the moment for second guessing himself. Instead he simply inched forward, then wrapped his arms around his brother. "You didn't cause a thing, Amro." he said firmly. "This didn't happen because of you."
"It did too," Amrothos protested fiercely, "it did, it did." He repeated the words, almost elegaically, as if reciting some piece of poetry, "it was my fault, I should have insisted. Should have insisted... but I didn't, I didn't, and now, now she's gone, and my daughter has no mother. What have I done, Erchirion?" He was shaking, and began to weep. He saw it, saw the moment, in the swirling, malevolent darkness that hung all around them and outside of the circle of light.
"Amro no." Erchirion told him, wishing he could slap his brother out of this but he knew it didn't really work that way. "The way I see it," he tightened his hold on Amrothos as best he could. "Is that you've been both to her. And that her mother chose you instead to care for her. That has to mean something, yes?"
"She never came back," Amrothos' good hand was clawing at Erchirion's shirt, as if trying to grab hold and not quite managing it, "she never came back, did she plan on leaving forever? She left all her things. She walked out the door and never came back. Did she mean to leave me? I want to find her. Even if it's just a body. I want to find something." The words were becoming more and more frantic. Even Erchirion seemed far away. Everything seemed far away. He could feel no pain, not even his own weeping eyes.
"I know." Erchirion moved his hands around to rub small circles on his brother's back. "I know you do. I can't quite understand all of it but...I'd want that too and I want it for you. There's other ways that we can still keep looking..." It seemed like the words were getting nowhere now and Erchirion gradually let that sentence go, settling for snuggling Amrothos against him instead, patting his hair, doing whatever he thought could soothe his brother. "We'll fix it. Elphir and you and I...we're too good not to."
Amrothos was crying too heavily to even see, though that could have been the drug, too, and while he tried to talk through the tears, the words were garbled and unsensible. They were mostly about his wife, trying to explain what had happened, but none of them had made sense, and at last he collapsed against his brother's shoulder, exhausted and unable to keep awake against the powerful force of the drug. But the dreams... the dreams were still a terror to be reckoned with.
"Amro sssh." Erchirion urged him, not even thinking about letting go. "It will be better, I swear. Let me take care of things for a while, won't you?" That was his job after all, now wasn't it?
The words dimly filtered through the strange, blindingly bright world Amrothos found himself in now. The sun was an enormous ship, sailed across a sky so bright he almost could see it, by a woman with hair like fire. Erchirion's words appeared like dusts of cloud across the sky in the wake of the great fire-ship.
Outside of himself, Amrothos lay limp against his brother, save for little twitches now and again.
Erchirion settled for mentally kicking himself again and resigning himself to whatever was to come. He should have realized Amrothos's last time wasn't just because he'd been weaker then, he should have tried to be more careful. If Amrothos came out of this with any damage, even though he knew he probably wouldn't...Erchirion didn't like to think about this even though he thought he should remember it for the future. So he wouldn't do it again at least. With any luck everything would be fine but even so...it was going to be a long night, he had no doubt.
The woman in her glorious ship was too much, and too hot, and Amrothos felt the grass beneath his feet catching on fire. He tried to outrun the fire, but before he could run very far, he saw an enormous cage made of wood, and the people on the inside watching the fire behind him in terror. "Get out!" He screamed at them, but there seemed to be no door at all for them to escape from.
In the darkness, Amrothos began to twitch violently, his limbs jerking and his feet scrabbling at the ground, as if he was trying to run.
Erchirion pulled Amrothos against him even tighter so he couldn't thrash around enough to hurt himself too badly. It was particularly difficult when Amrothos jarred his knee, not because he was feeling any particular pain there at the moment thanks to his own...indulgence, but the sudden weakness was surprising all the same. Tomorrow it may make things difficult but he deserved that maybe, he reasoned, tightening his arm hold on his brother.
The fire would catch him if he stopped, but Amrothos saw no choice. The great oppressive weight and heat of the sun bearing down upon him, he raced for the wooden enclosure, and saw the face of his wife amidst the terror. There was no door. There was no way in or out, and he pulled at the bars desperately with his hands, knowing there was no use in it. He cried her name in his sleep, sudden terror and the reappearance of his right hand lending him sudden strength to rip one of the wooden bars away. The whole world was in flame, soon it would burn to the cage, and the way out was about to be closed. In the unbearableness of death, she pushed her way to him, embracing him through the bars, holding him tight. "I won't leave you," he muttered fiercely. "I won't leave you to die alone."
Amrothos began to struggle even more against his brother, shouting something unintelligible, when suddenly he shifted, putting both arms around his brother in a crushing, awkward embrace, whispering the sleep-spoken words "I won't leave you."
"I know." Erchirion said simply, then repeated the words again, to see if they'd seem to do something. "You're here now after all."
Rain, sudden and cold, poured down upon Amrothos in his nightmare, and he jerked awake as a bitter wind blew against his hot skin. "Oh," he cried, in despair and defeat, unsure of what was going on, "what have I done?"
"Nothing." Erchirion answered, unsure of where Amrothos was right now. "Nothing that we can't improve."
"The sun was going to burn the world..." Amrothos muttered, deliriously, as he let go of his brother and tried to lie down in the grass. "Burn the whole world, Erchirion... I know it was a dream but it doesn't feel like a dream, they never feel like dreams..." Dimly he could remember the explosion that cost him his arm.
Erchirion half wished it would start raining right about now. It would be miserable yes, but it might break Amrothos out of the dream a little more if that were possible? "We're safe here now that's true." he said, "But sometimes dreams DO seem so real you don't know what to do with them do you?"
"I'm sorry," Amrothos said, curling in the grass where he could feel the coolness of the night air. "I wish it was more like you, I wish it didn't do this. I'd feel wonderful if I could think."
"That's nothing for you to be sorry for." Erchirion told him, keeping close by his brother even now. "I should be sorry for not realizing it would do this again to you. I get to thinking that...well since I only go a bit hazy...I wish I could take the rest of it away from you." Or that it hadn't happened.
"...I'll be okay," Amrothos muttered, glancing up at his brother. "Tomorrow will come. I'll be okay."
"It will." Erchirion agreed, patting his brother's hair. "I'm glad to hear you'll be all right. I ...worry." Well obviously.
"I'll be all right..." Amrothos repeated the phrase again, almost as if he didn't know quite what he meant by it. He settled his head in the grass, pulling his cloak around him. "I'll try not to wake you up...." If that was even possible.
"Thank you." Erchirion said, not bothering to tell Amrothos he wasn't planning on sleeping now anyway. There were more important things to think about. "I'm glad you seem a bit better. I was scared for you."
"Don't be scared for me," Amrothos said, lifting his head a little. "I may be the stupid one of the family but it hasn't killed me yet." He almost sounded like himself, a moment odd and a little frightening.
"You aren't stupid." Erchirion told him, "We're all brilliant and you know it."
"...maybe..." Amrothos considered it, as the heavy weight of his own eyelids seemed to be pressing down, forcing him again towards sleep. "...I like your theory..." As soon as his eyes were closed, it was off to another dream. It was bound to be a long night.