(no subject)

[nerdanel_the_wise]

[OOC: This piece is being used, but it is part of Path Not Taken. As Mary Anne absorbs the power of the tarot in small ways, she sees the paths, can see the various outcomes. This is NOT Millicanon. It is a VISION, and ONLY a VISION. It is a WHAT IF only thing. Nothing more. Námo and Nerdanel IC have no knowledge of these events. They weren't there for them, technically.]


The library is large, bright, full of windows and books. There are comfortable, worn chairs and sofas scattered around the room, and half-finished books left on the tables.

Nerdanel closes the door, taking Gabriel from Mary Anne, and looks beyond her to the tall, gangly youth that looked very much like her.

"Nelyo, please take Gabriel outside? Play with him?"

Maedhros smiles, accepting his brother into his arms, and after casting an interested look at the human, slips from the room while Gabriel yammers at him about the Bar.

Nerdanel sighs, leaning against a nearby table, and looks at Mary Anne. "Welcome to my home."

Comments

[namo]

"He should not have been," he almost snarls. "Offering to be him. And, in the heat of it, did I not allow myself the illusion?"

Námo throws back the covers, standing from the bed nude, and pulls on loose trousers the colour of his eyes.

"All illusions! Even the real thing is an illusion!"

[song_tra_bong]

Her eyes slide away.

She bites her tongue to keep from asking the first question that comes to mind.

"What do you mean the real thing is an illusion?"

[namo]

He leans against the wall.

"I might as well be clinging to a ghost. What I loved died. What remains is different."

[song_tra_bong]

She folds her hands in her lap.

"And you can't love what lives?"

[namo]

"What lives does not bother to even check to see if it is missed," he points out angrily. "He is too busy living to remember those that loved him when dead."

[song_tra_bong]

She hasn't seen much of Gorlim herself lately, but that won't help her argument.

Her fingers curl.

"Don't say 'it,'" she replies, voice low but hard.

[namo]

Now he looks away.

"It is easier that way."

[song_tra_bong]

She gets up and walks over to him. Fingers crooked against his jaw turn him back to face her.

"Maybe. But it's not smart."

[namo]

He meets her gaze steadily.

"It should not have happened. Any of it. From beginning to end. I never should have followed my brother."

[song_tra_bong]

"Maybe," she repeats.

"But it did happen and you can't undo it."

please God tell me you can't

[namo]

There is flicker of...

...of something in his eyes.

"No. I cannot."

[song_tra_bong]

She releases a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding.

Slowly she draws her hand away from his face.

"Then...you'll just have to learn to live with it."

[namo]

"So it seems. Now, if only my absent lover's doppelganger would not visit..."

[song_tra_bong]

She swallows, almost nervously.

"I...I can try and talk to him. See if he can't leave things alone."

[namo]

He chuckles mirthlessly.

"Oh, and stop his fun? Why would we want that?"

[song_tra_bong]

Her lip curls.

"Because we both know he has a twisted sense of fun and I thought I'd try and spare you some of it if I could."

[namo]

"What? Does the Queen not understand the purpose? The new path placed before the Fool?"

He begins to stalk the room.

"To willingly bed the one who killed Gorlim, calling him by that one's name as you take what he offers because it hurts so much less than being alone with memories and dreams and wants... To do that with eyes purposefully shut while what amounts to a wedding band sits on your finger to mock oaths sworn... Tell me, O Wise One, what path is there that does not lead to the divorcement of that oath and the dissolution of the bonds that you wish would choke you but do not because the arms have never dared to hold you that tight?" he demands.

[song_tra_bong]

For a minute, she can't decide if she wants to cry or throw up.

Instead, she steps in front of him to block his path, eyes burning.

"I'm not the Queen yet, you asshole, but you're certainly in the running for the Fool if you keep this shit up. There might be some other path, but you're too fixated on wallowing in your pain to look for it. And I don't know. Not that and not anything--I'm flying blind here, but I want to help, and tearing me up one side and down the other is sure as hell not going to get you anywhere."

[namo]

He glares.

"Then what would you like for me to do or say?"

[song_tra_bong]

She rakes a hand through her hair.

"I don't know. But not yelling at me would be a start. I'm here because I care, dumbass."

And she even manages to make 'dumbass' sound affectionate.

[namo]

"I am not yelling. I rarely yell."

And it's true. He hasn't begun yelling yet.

"I love him and distance only hurts."

[song_tra_bong]

Mary Anne decides she would rather not ever see him yell.

"Of course it does."

("Love hurts like nothing else, sweet. Did no one tell you what you were getting into?")

She remembers the taste of Atlantean and takes his hand anyway.

[namo]

He looks at their hands.

"What stops me from giving up? From just taking an endless number of people into my bed to soothe the loneliness I find more acute at night?"

[song_tra_bong]

She's quiet for a moment.

"Nothing. Nothing but love."

[namo]

"Love did not stop me from taking him to bed, Mary Anne."

Now he tilts his head, looking at her oddly.

"Why does that not bother you? You love him."

Hey, it's obvious to Námo that those two love each other, though he can't understand why.