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ladytauriel) wrote2014-03-18 10:18 pm
Fic: Starlit Spirits - Chapter 9
Kíli was skating again. He was aimlessly going through a routine he had performed two years ago, a contemporary piece by a wind ensemble known as October arranged by, American composer Eric Whitacre. It had been the perfect track for his free skate; it was just his style, lyrical, melodic, morose, as well as relatively calm with the few builds that corresponded with his difficult tricks, of which he did not have that many at seventeen. It was one of the pieces he had yet to perform.
It did not strike him as surprising that he was able to execute his motions with barely a thought, but it did bother him that he was letting himself continue aimlessly. He shook his head. There was something he needed to remember, wasn't there?
Skating. Skating was what Kíli was always doing. It was his only option, when he was at a loss, or when he wasn't ready to break past the barriers he couldn't help but set for himself in all areas of his life. Now, gliding across ice as comfortably as one would bathe in a warm tropical ocean, Kíli automatically felt that there was something he should be looking for, searching for, so far away and yet so near.
Despite the ice beneath the blades of his skates, the fog that engulfed him, and the light of a distant setting sun, Kíli could feel a new warmth from all directions pull at his limbs. The hard, smooth ice beneath him felt as a pillowed cloud, supporting and guiding him to his destination.
He could make out that path of moonlight when he heard her voice.
Hers.
Muttering in a language he could not understand and was only interrupted by soft sighs and broken sobs. Tauriel, his lady, crying, somewhere. How could he continue on this meaningless path and passively stand by, allowing someone he cared about to experience this pain?
It is easier to forget, to let all go, a conniving voice whispered in his head. You know you will have all that will satisfy you, if stay you in a world of perfect dreams.
Yes... agreed Kíli. It was hard to resist the soft pull of the cloudy expanse of peace suspended in the world of dreams beneath him. However, it was like a veil that needed breaking before it let through the flow of life. The flow that was everywhere and nowhere, around him and within him. But, more importantly, where Tauriel was crying.
Over me... The accident. This must be why he was here, separated from the pulse of red,
iron-based blood that was visible on Tauriel's awkwardly prominent cheeks as she blushed, or on her thin fingertips from frostbite.
"Tauriel," he whispered, closing his eyes to the sky of imagination in his head, opening his senses to the overbearing pain of his whole physical body.
A gasp, and a response. "Be still," she whispered.
Opening his eyes again, his vision roughly adjusted to a sight more beautiful than he could ever expect seeing: Tauriel, her face etched with worry, standing at the foot of his bed.
"You cannot be her," he made out of his parched throat in disbelief, looking away and up, where her tear-filled eyes could not pierce his throbbing heart.
He could feel himself slipping again, away from the gentle hands he sought with a single straining finger. "She is far away. She... She is far, far away from me."
Is it her? he asked himself. She, who I sent away with my stupid words and my careless thoughts, that something, anything, can be more important than having someone like Tauriel Lilly? How can I put a job, or a life goal, or even a realistic dream, over her happiness? Over my happiness?
"She walks in starlight in another world," he finally murmured again. "It's just a dream. Do you think she could have loved me?"
Careful fingertips, softer and more fragile than his weary, course hands, let themselves be found. "Yes," she responded. "She could have."