Finrod: 30-Day Character Study - Writings by cuarthol

Undreams

For Day 21. In Dreams. Your character is asleep and dreaming. What are their dreams typically like? Write or sketch a dream sequence that explores your character’s subconscious.

Warning: today's entry took a dark turn.  Reference to character death.

His nightmares are of unending ice.  He has walked unceasingly, nothing to mark the passing of time but the loss of another life.  His life is now measured in lives, and each feels like a debt too burdensome to ever hope to repay.

Even Irmo’s paths have shut them out and they wander aimless and lost, never finding the rest they so desperately seek.

Some dreams slip through, marred; untamed by Irmo’s guidance they assault the Exiles with whispered terrors and visions that are difficult to separate from waking, and yet waking is its own terror.

Cold had driven out even the memory of warmth; darkness, the memory of light; and loss, the memory of peace.

Ingoldo tries to recall the sweet dreams of Valinor that had once enfolded him as he slept, safe in his bed.  He tries to recall the smell of lilac and the chirp of crickets and the dance of white moths in the light of Telperion.

He had danced upon a time, his feet light and body lithe.  He had once fallen into Amarië’s arms and they had laughed and kissed and found themselves in dreams together; dreams of a distant sea beneath the stars where they knew love.

He had in dreams ridden the ships of the Teleri, rolling upon the waves as he sang to Ossë and felt the salty spray of water on his face.

Now the spray of water raises cries of alarm, looking for who had fallen in, desperately trying to reach them.

Írissë has hold of Itarillë but Turukáno is almost in the water himself, pushing uselessly at the ice that covers Elenwë. 

Time lurches forward in another agonizing increment of death.

Ingo cannot tell if he is awake or asleep.  He walks again, unceasingly.  His nightmares are of unending ice.