Guilt-Stricken, Sobbing by Elwin Fortuna

Guilt-Stricken, Sobbing

What have I done? Who is this that lies dead before me, peace written over a pallid face? I thought I knew him once, know I've seen him before.

Of the Elves. That much I can discern. And that alone is enough to make me distressed beyond anything I could have imagined.

This red haze that clouds my eyes makes it hard to see his face, but the lineaments of his body are familiar to me.

Who among the Elves would love me enough to follow me out from the Orc-camp, who would cut my bonds while I slept? Who have I killed in my sudden waking madness?

I close my eyes and shriek my anguish to the cold heavens.

Beleg, Beleg, Beleg, it is you, oh, do not tell me it is you.

Dimly I feel hands pull me away, dimly catch a whispered "silence in your grief, or his will not be the last death tonight!"

I jerk against the hands that hold, drop to my knees by the house that once held my lover, and kiss those lips, hard, as though I could transfer my own worthless life in exchange for his.

Oh, Beleg. The stroke was Morgoth-thought that killed you, it was none of my doing. I loved you. I loved you with a wildness beyond anything I could have ever dreamed! Why else did I try to send you from me, time after time, but to keep you from becoming entangled in my dark fate? And yet here you are, like the worst of my night-visions come true, dead in my arms.

I slip into darkness, glad to die beside you from grief alone, the pain soaring up in my heart, overtaking reason.

I snatch at your sword, but find it slipping from my hand, wet with your life-blood. Your blood is on my fingers now, dripping across my hands. I watch it flow down my wrist in a kind of horrified fascination.

I cannot join you in death, or I would. My life is forfeit for killing you. Thingol will now not only have my head, he will draw the torturous noose slow around my neck.

A thousand times again, the Forest is no home to me.

My mind sinks cold into darkness again as hands stand me up and I am led from your body, pain closing over my eyes.

Beleg, believe me, I whisper to the wind. I did not mean it. I loved you.

And there is no answer.