Full of Wisdom and Perfect in Beauty by Gadira

Interlude II: Shadows

Sometimes, in my dreams, I see her face. Her features are sharply chiseled and haughty, like those of a gull perched on the sea-battered cliffs of Andúnië, and she looks at me with disdain.

She was beautiful, they say, with huge and stirring eyes. Her face was soft and her smile kind, but never for me. Never in my dreams.

Maybe I have imagined it.

The first face I can remember in waking life, out of an early blur of severe ladies with silver on their hair, is that of a man with black eyes. For years he watched me, loved me, turned me into what I am now –an imperfect mirror of perfection, never worthy enough; a shadow of his powerful reign.

Was he ever a shadow of him, too? Did he ever learn his secrets and carry his every bidding, in a distant day before I was old enough to understand? And if he did, how did he break away and shatter the silver prison of hopes into a thousand cutting shards? What did he do to fill the black eyes with fear and loathing, to deny their love until it turned into hatred?

He is the conspirer, the traitor who befriends Western enemies with gull features behind the King´s back. The apostate who smiles in soft disdain as he kneels at the feet of the gods of Númenor, while he surrenders his soul to the foul spirits of the Western shores. The sharp glance that tears apart the minds of men, the temerity that climbs to high places in the dark hours of the night. He is miles ahead of me, the keeper of precious secrets, and he will not even turn back and look at those whose respect he does not need.

And this is why I hate him.

Tonight, I will throw a last party before my departure. I will sing and dance, and share my wine with my friends until I am drunk, and later I will share the bed of a lady whose features I will not be able to remember afterwards.

At dawn, I will not be at the courtyard of the Tree with my escort at the appointed time, and his disdain will maybe turn briefly to annoyance for the delay before he turns his back to me and rides to the front with his friend. They will exchange accomplice glances, marvelling at my stupidity and my extravagance, and still, I know that one day we all will be taken by our doom, and then I will be remembered as nothing but a shadow.

But beware of shadows, Inziladûn. Beware of shadows.