THE HARUSPEX
on his own

Sleep, Lochan, sleep. Those were the words the haruspex called into his cave as he left it. Then he brought himself from shadow into pale grey light and blinked away the sleep. Then he entered a scene that he was not prepared for: the Aurora Basin.

At this time of day, awash in such mist, it was nothing but a cold stretch of grey. Orangemoon turned life into lifelessness; Tallsun's brief glory was over. Ashamin's hooves made marks in soft snow that had fallen that morning and carried himself with a heavy heart. There was too much on his mind--his spars, those won and lost, his visit with the Goddess of the Moon--for him to walk with the renewed energy others might have. But today, too, was a grey day. Today lent itself, in the bucks' mind, to quiet introspection.

But others were not so quiet. Though the Laurelin's steps may have had no voice, his own clamorous call was stark against the Basin's eerie quiet. Ashamin was not terribly close, but close enough to hear the outburst and set off at the moment he did. Hooves pounded against earth, kicking snow behind them and creating a trail of dusty white in his wake.

Ashamin felt far away. As the cracks in the mountain became holes, as those holes became caves, and as those caves started to fill with faint silhouettes, he felt distant. Ashamin let the heartbeats of the herd's members fill his chest and reverberate. He collected them like stones, every step past another bearing him down until it became difficult to even hear his own heart beating. They drew him closer to being a part of something, but pushed him farther from himself.

In the end, he felt nothing like a vessel. This was what he was becoming, he realized with a shock. His eyes widened, he slowed and stopped where he ran. The cave from which the call had come was close to him but far from the others. The heartbeats of the basin faded and left him alone with his own and one other.

He was nothing but an empty shell into which this herd poured its grievances. This was something he had never prepared for but always allowed himself to be: empty, unable to find himself.

That other single heartbeat became insistent--a caught beating that drew him with confident curiousity to the offending cave. It was quicker and lighter than his own, much closer to Lochan's, but not one he'd heard before. It was maybe anticipatory? Ashamin wasn't sure. But there was an irregularity there like fear, like unknowing. And when he stepped closer to the cave, saw Haldir at its lip and the golden pacing within, he understood why?

Trinkets and great treasures were scattered across the shadow. Darkness loomed within, oppressive. But Ashamin's dark eyes were wide and awake in such gloom. Slowly, he became aware.

He did not wait to be invited in, nor did he announce his presence. He walked past Haldir, bending his features to perhaps brush his nose across the deer's dark spine, and straight into the cavern. Thranduil the Laurelin was alone and upset. Thranduil had removed his mask, and now Ashamin could see his twisted face. How ugly his lord looked, like this.

"Thranduil," Ashamin said--the light at his back and his body an unforgiving black shadow. He did not address the lord with pleasantries, he did not bow in pitiful and perhaps undeserved respect. "Be calm, my friend. Whatever troubles you, forget its pain." The advice rang hollow. The painted one was nothing but a machine, dispensing platitudes and helping others conquer over what he himself had not. Ashamin still wanted to die. He still believed he had lost the loves in life that were most important to him, believed they were irretrievable and irreplaceable. He had his own problems, his own need for advice. Maybe his hollow words rang true for others, they'd helped Mortuus and Rexanna and more, but they were nothing but ashes to his own sorrow.

And as for Thranduil... the buck didn't know. Were they even friends? Ashamin looked over the golden deceiver who hid out in the dark, avoiding responsiblity and Ashamin's touch. How many times had the haruspex tried to reach out to the Laurelin, only to find empty air? No, Thranduil did not deserve pleasantries today. And besides, could an empty vessel even dispense them? Were they even there to begin with, or could he only offer advice that were nothing more than turned words given to him by the helpless?


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