Second Age; Dagorlad
“Captain Byrion!” Alphaear calls the name of her superior as she falls in line behind him. The smaller Noldo must side-step scurrying soldiers, and avoid getting hit in the head by weapons and supplies as they are carried about; the whole camp in a flurry of action as they prepare for battle. As they walk, the Silvan captain, with his mantle of autumn leaves and branches, barely spares his tactician a glance behind.
“Captain Byrion!” She calls again, before sighing heavily and jogging to set her pace aside his rather than behind. “Captain, you cannot be considering this folly. To assist Lord Oropher in his charge would result in unjustifiable numbers of casualties. We should wait for the High King’s directive!”
The captain does not look her way even then. His proud gait does not falter, though he does exhale softly as he prepares to reply to her. He gestures her into the war-tent for their company first, however. As an extension of the Woodland Cavalry, the tent was available for all of the cavalry to use, but the expression on Byrion’s face was enough to clear it out within seconds.
Byrion sighs, standing on the other side of the map table from Alphaear so he could rest his hands upon it and lean towards her.
“When I was told that I was being assigned a Ñoldo she-elf as a tactician, I admit, I was greatly concerned for the wisdom that went into that decision. Yet you have proven yourself ten times over as a strategist and a soldier, all but for one thing.”
There was a moment of silence between them; the silver-haired Ñoldo stays in that quiet, glaring at her captain, waiting for him to finish his sentence. But he waits, too, his eyebrow raised at her.
With a great reluctance does Alphaear eventually ask, “And what is that thing?”
“You question everything,” Byrion says in an exhale as he stands up straight, dragging his palm across the map spread out on the table. “You do not know how to trust in your superiors, who may be able to see a larger picture than you.”
The she-elf snorts before countering; “I see the largest picture. That is my job - that is why I was assigned to you!” As she protests this, Byrion shakes his head in disbelief.
“Why must you always perceive yourself as the smartest in the room?”
Alphaear swears her lip could bleed from the number of words she has bitten back. She must shout now if only to make her voice louder than the activity that has begun to pick up outside. “Because I must be, as your tactician! I have studied these maps for moons! I know every weak point in our defenses and theirs! If we proceed with this course of action, we will crumble.”
“It is not your call to make,” Byrion says as he leaves her by the maps. He strides towards the entrance with his shoulders back, his leaf-motif cape fluttering. “I want you to come with us, but stay behind. Keep out of the fray. You may be needed, though I doubt that anything will go awry.”
Alphaear narrows her eyes at him as he passes, and then she turns sharply on her heel to speak again before he can leave. “And if you are wrong?”
Byrion pauses at her question, halfway through the motion of pulling back the tent flap. He looks back at her for a brief second and then offers her a wry smile.
“If I am wrong, then may we shake hands in the Halls of Mandos, and you will be the better.”
-------
She had not ever loathed being right before.
Now as the cacophony of metal clashing against each other rang through the air amidst the shouts of elf, men, and orc alike, she wishes desperately that she had been wrong. The acrid taste of blood is on the air as Alphaear drags herself out of the muddy dirt; I must have been tossed off of my horse, she reasons as she stands.
The tactician stumbles on her feet, briefly checking her belt to find that her satchel and her dagger are still firmly attached to the leather. She nods to herself, wincing as she pulls a hand away from her abdomen to find it sticky with blood. Alphaear knows there is no way to treat it in the heat of this skirmish, and so she grabs a discarded sword from the ground and prepares to fight her way out.
This sword is too heavy, she realizes in a dazed state, but there is no moment’s reprieve allowed in war. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees an orc running towards her, yet she has not the strength or speed to do anything but raise her blade in defense as his own wicked arc comes down upon her. She feels herself being thrown backward, wincing as her body hits the ground - no, not the ground, another corpse.
Alphaear scrambles to find the sword once more as the impact had knocked it from her hand. She closes her eyes as she hears the fell creature run towards her once more, but all she hears is a strangled cry as the orc is slain instead. She opens her eyes to see a Man in silver armor reaching out and pulling her to her feet.
“You are wounded! Go!” He shouts, guiding her aside from the clashing warfare. He places a smaller, sleeker sword into her grip before pushing her into a nearby copse of trees. Alphaear stumbles into the brush, holding the sword tightly in her grip.
She leans against one of the trees, wincing as she feels the wound on her abdomen. It was warm to the touch and still bleeding, and she knew she would be of little use in a fight. A quick exhale, and then several more, as she paces her breathing and looks around the undergrowth. Another figure, one she recognizes, comes into view crouched in the shrubbery.
“Hadriel?” Alphaear breathes out, and the Sinda elf quickly rises to her feet upon recognizing the tactician in turn. “Hadriel! Where is the rest of the company? Where is Byrion?”
“Scattered,” the she-elf bemoans, removing her cracked helm as she speaks. “I saw you fall, and Byrion continued to press with the charge, but we were rent and tossed aside like we were naught more than cloth.”
As the Noldo elf takes in this news, her mind beginning to race with possibilities about how to proceed; with the two of them together, even with one injured, perhaps they stood a better chance than just-
“Alphaear!” Hadriel suddenly shouts, tugging the tactician closer by her shoulder. The soldier throws herself between her friend and her foe, raising her sword to face the orc that had stumbled upon their location. The sound of the clashing metal as their battle rages is enough to shake Alphaear from her daze, and she lifts her own silver sword. The acrid taste of blood is heavy in the air as they both give and receive blows, and she feels herself begin to weary against their opponent.
Hadriel senses this and charges forward, gripping the hilt of her sword tightly to drive it through the chest of her foe. Before either has a chance to raise a cry in victory, however, Hadriel’s breath is cut short by the recompense of a blade being driven through her own flesh. Rent, both fall to the ground.
Not yet corpses. Not yet the better.
-----
Alphaear drags her heavy feet through the sludge of blood and bodies strewn across the field. Her listless gaze darts from face to face, from corpse to corpse, trying to identify any of the familiar dead. Hadriel. Therior. Nellor. Asgarion. Colliel. But where is Byrion?
She raises her eyes to look ahead to the few fateful survivors of the Woodland Cavalry, gathered ahead, sharing words and searching also for other bodies of their fallen fellows. She swore she would not rest until she found their captain, but the temptation to abandon her task and join the others was growing greater with each disfigured corpse that she could not recognize.
Her lip curls in distaste and disgust at the sights and smells, and at the sounds of the carrion-birds beginning their feast of flesh. She turns to step away from the bodies, but she freezes as she feels her ankle grow caught on something.
No. Not caught.
Something grabbed her ankle.
Alphaear looks down in alarm to see a blood-soaked hand holding onto her. Following the torn fabric of the glove up the arm, to the body, she is most horrified to see the face of Captain Byrion staring back at her, dying, bleeding, two orcish spears planted in his chest.
She kneels down swiftly, and he releases her foot just in time for her to grab his hand in both of hers. Byrion winces as she does so, gasping softly for breath but resulting in only expelling more blood from his mouth and his wounds. Out of all the whimpering and shuddering, Alphaear can make out a single phrase;
“You told me so.”
She freezes, her mind going blank as she reaches to her hip to grab the dagger on her belt. The misericorde design is sleek in her hands, but as she looks down upon the silver steel, the face reflected back at her is one haunted and bloodied. Pȃn. ‘All. Totality. Absolute.’
Byrion offers her a bleak smile as she places the thin dagger against his neck, and rests her other hand in his hair. She is crying softly, weeping, and he is smiling. He is dying. She is just going to stop the suffering. She would offer an absolution.
She never wanted to be right again.
---
Third Age; A Bedroom
"I have lost everything, Arrvelas! I had nothing! No one! And they are all to blame!" Alphaear shouts at her friend, her dagger discarded on the floor between them, catching the light of the moon from the window; a silver sheen coats the scene, where she sits alone on the bed and he stands across the room, looking back at her from beneath the cloth around his eyes.
He folds his arms across his chest, expression one of either annoyance or disbelief. “You just told me that they have no reason to carry blame but now you refute that? Choose one way or the other.” He leans down towards her, scowling. “And you are quick to assume I myself haven’t lost much.”
She leans away from him as he leans down, her resolve crumbling under the weight of his words, and the glare she would likely have been receiving if it was possible.
"I am sorry. I am sorry, Arrvelas, I should not have said that. I should not have brought you into this..."
As she speaks, Arrvelas sighs. He kneels down, gently scooping up the dagger into his hands. Alphaear watches this, catching sight of herself once more in the reflection of the steel. But this time also catching a glimpse of Arrvelas’s face, where his eyes are covered, but his expression soft in apology.
“I am sorry - or we both should be,” he says gently. “I am being harsh again, insensitive. We are all we have, it seems.” He walks over to the bed, holding out the dagger to her to take.
She stares at his outstretched hand for a long moment, before she extends her own to lay it over his to grab the dagger.
An offering.
An absolution.
You will be the better.
