Work Text:
The sea air of Numenor and the soft warmth of Valandil’s lips turned to sharp iron in Isildur’s mouth. He startled awake, tasting blood. Gingerly, he touched his mouth and found that his lip was bruised and tender. Something must have struck him in the face in all the chaos.
Slowly, the rest of his senses returned. The light stung his eyes—full, bright sunlight, unobscured by smoke or clouds. His body was one aching mass of bruises, it seemed. Cold water lapped at his waist and stones rattled beneath him. How on earth had his dreams managed to convince him he was lying on soft, sunlit grass?
Something nudged his side, and a soft whicker reached his ears. Isildur forced his head to lift.
“Berek,” Isildur sighed in relief. His horse had found him somehow. “You stubborn little thing, how did you manage it?”
Berek gave him a worried nuzzle. Isildur struggled upright. He was lying on the shore of a river, not a person in sight. Had Valandil gotten away safely? He had been standing outside when the cottage collapsed. It must have broken his heart to leave Isildur behind. And his father, surely his father was alright. Isildur refused to believe otherwise.
“Did you search for me at all?” Isildur murmured to himself. In his place, Isildur would have insisted on digging through the rubble until he had no strength left, everyone else be damned. Valandil had always been more responsible. He deserved to carry the dagger that marked him as a member of the Sea Guard, handle cut from horse-bone, the sheath carved from the rib of a whale. He had always been the better soldier—and the better friend.
By some miracle, Isildur’s own dagger was still secured to his belt. He clutched it in his hands, raised it to his lips and murmured a prayer against the polished bone. “Wait for me,” Isildur whispered, hoping against all reason that his words would somehow reach Valandil’s ears—or, if not his ears, then his heart. “Don’t give up on me yet.”
If he could just make it home, he would prove himself worthy of his dagger and of Valandil’s faith.
—
The days passed and Isildur dreamt of many things, many times: of Numenor’s sparkling shores overtaken by a cataclysmic wave, of his father fallen in a battle yet to come, of Ontamo’s glassy eyes staring at him in reproach. The darkness of Mordor seemed to have stained his soul, calling him forever back to the smoke and sulfur.
Isildur dreamt most often of the ground giving beneath his feet and the cold, cruel water that swept him away. He would wake choking on it, lost for a moment as he tried to separate his dreams from reality. Tonight, it came for him once more.
Isildur had never feared drowning. He had grown up playing on the shore, had learned to swim as soon as he could walk, could dive deeper than anyone, knew the sea better than he knew his own heart.
This water was not the sea.
This water was darker, colder, more vicious. Rather than water, it felt like clawed hands grasping at him, tearing into him. It pried his mouth open and shoved itself down his throat.
Isildur’s lungs burned. He thrashed against the water’s hold, desperate to break free. It only clutched him tighter. The water would claim him again, as it had every time before, as if to tell him there was no point in resisting in the first place.
“Are you really giving up?” a familiar, welcome voice berated him. “The Isildur I know is too stubborn to die.”
Isildur reached toward the voice, his hands finding purchase on arms he knew well. Their owner seized him by the shoulders and dragged him up to the surface. The water vanished all at once. Those arms cradled him as they had in another dream that had come to him only once before. Isildur remembered every moment of it in perfect detail. He could never forget.
“Valandil,” Isildur breathed.
“Yes, you fool,” Valandil replied. His dark eyes were full of sorrow. “I’m here.”
Here was an unfamiliar field, white flowers blooming all around them. Isildur could hear horses somewhere nearby, but the tall grass obscured everything save for Valandil and the blue sky behind him.
“I wish you really were. I miss you.”
Valandil gave him a wry smile. “So do I. So much that it hurts.”
Isildur took Valandil’s face in his hands, tracing his thumb over Valandil’s cheekbone, the shadow under his eye, the crease between his brows. “Why do you look so sad?”
“There’s not much left to laugh about any longer. You and Ontamo took it all with you when you left me.”
Isildur could not bear the weight of Valandil’s gaze any longer and kissed him. Warm breath pushed past his lips, quickening his pulse. No dream could satisfy this gnawing hunger, but at least this dulled its teeth. Valandil smelled of salt air and beeswax and sweet hay and clean linen, all the good and comforting things in the world. He smelled like home.
Valandil broke free first, pressing his forehead to Isildur’s, the tips of their noses touching. “Forgive me, Isildur,” he pleaded. “I cannot forgive myself.”
Wrapping his arms around Valandil’s shoulders, Isildur turned his head so their cheeks rested against each other. How he missed Valandil’s warmth. “I never held it against you,” he said. “You were always more level-headed than me. I would’ve fallen apart if I lost you.”
A bitter laugh shook Valandil’s frame. “Would you have? It always felt like you never cared for anyone else as much as for your foolish dreams.”
“Is this not a dream?” Isildur tucked Valandil against his chest, his friend’s curls scratching his chin. “We could have known our hearts sooner, if we had been wiser, but you loved me because I was a fool. What use is there in regretting it now?”
“This really must be a dream. The real Isildur would never say something so reasonable.”
“I never loved you any less,” Isildur insisted, “but you always saw more clearly. You treasured me from the beginning. I didn’t understand what I had to lose until you were already gone.”
“If you know now,” Valandil said, pausing to kiss him, “then come home.” He laid his hand on Isildur’s chest, pressed it flat to his shirtfront. Isildur’s heart beat its wings against its cage as if it longed to roost in the palm of Valandil’s hand.
In all the old tales, love was some glorious, sacred thing that raged like storms and shattered the skies and shook the earth. No stories spoke of love that was as unremarkable as the turning of the seasons, as mild as the rustling of the leaves, quiet and mundane as the first drops of sunlight on a warm morning. No one ever told Isildur such a quiet love could burrow deep into the crevices of his heart and weave its roots into his being. No one told him that such a love could extend its branches toward the sun and grow so tall and strong that even after it was ravaged by fire, it could come to bloom again.
His love for Valandil had survived flames. A time would come when Isildur could bring him flowers.