His chest still ached. But it was rather fitting. For it needed to ache. Some outward sign that not all was well within. That something lay broke, or abused within there. Something that needed care and attention more than ever. Yet still, as he walks the borders of the valley, like a caged wolf, he does not pause upon it or speak its name.


A bugle call echoed against the rocks, and the gold stops and looks past his shadows and trees. In the meadow beyond there stands Haldir, the dark stag. Golden harks swing to try and catch what he had called to, and then he sees a group of small does grazing not far. They called back to him in their own tongue, and the dark deer seemed rather pleased to have gained their attention. For many days they ignored one so unlike themselves. Snorting and tossing his head the gold moves on. Ever since that day the two had been somewhat quiet around each other. Each holding back. Their shared thoughts and moments hushed. Yet there was something there that hadn’t been before. Some deeper connection, a deeper tie, stronger than the magic which brought them together in the first place.


The golden tried not to think of that either. With so many things not to think about, it was becoming a rather impossible task. His heart still raced to think of that day in the cave. In fact he had been spending more time patrolling and actually doing his duties to avoid having to go in that dark hole. How strange that something which had once brought him the most comfort he had felt in years, now only seemed cold, and foreign. A few nights Haldir had fallen asleep and woken to find the gold resting outside in the open instead of the cave. That was another thing of course too. He troubled to find sleep and rest. The gold caught snatches here and there, sometimes while standing at patrol even. Yet all in all, the emotion which coursed through his body and drove his madness still existed. Perhaps they were tempered with the release, but in the next day or so they would rise again.


Besides the rock cave of the healers he pauses. His crowned head looking up the side of the mountain. He did not wish to go there. But as he gaze swept back over the valley, there was nothing left to keep him. The vale was waking and soon there would be others about. And other always asked questions. Letting his sides shutter in a sigh he moves towards the small deer trail that lead up through the rocks and pines. Haldir, the dark stag felt the pull, and he too turns from the open meadows to the rock face, following.


Upwards they wound, the quick, light pace of the deer catching up to his bonded, though he lingers behind. Cresting over a rock face they come to the dark abyss of a cave. It opened up, like a dark abyss, beckoning him in, as all shadows do. But the chest of the gold ached and he turns away, letting his body sag against its jagged mouth, and earth eyes fall across the mountains and valley. How those peaks rose up like walls, a weight was settling on him the more he looked out. This was his land you see. Everything the mountains contained was his to rule. Like his hoard he gloated over it, and felt ever nimble creature. Like the trinkets about him in his cavern they were his.


Yet unlike them they had voices, and independence. They moved and spoke, and they invited in the thieves and clingers. All of which needed to be brought against. All of them needed protecting from their simple little minds, from the winds that banged the doors, and the snakes which slithered about the walls. And every action which pulled him to that end, broke from the golden a piece of that which he clung to. His independence, his freedom, and the dark soul which he cloaked himself. Like rust taking over metal it made the whole structure brittle and breakable.

Every name he called on before to strengthen himself had become weak under the hypocrisy of where he stood. He was built to break things. To tear a tree from its roots. To wipe out a kingdom. Not to build one. His own twisted psyche called him to care for those which had come out to graze upon the meadow instead of see them to their doom, and he hated himself for it. Over the days and acts of lead it built and so grew the weight on his back and the prison walls upon the mountains.


Haldir stood away not far, pawing at the snow and earth, his bright eyes searching for some dried grass and twigs. Every now and then he looked up and saw the Laurelin leaning against the rock wall like an unsettled beast. Like a captain watching a rolling storm blow in. Like a guilty man out his prison window which grew smaller and smaller. His breath heaves, but his heart was still slightly bitter enough to keep him from comforting his bonded. The wild vicious earth eyes, promising violence and hate still glowed too red in his mind. The dark stag was returning to the snow covered terra when a snow catches him. Large ears pull up and antlered head turns down towards the valley. The golden, hears it too, and looks below. Somewhere, a wild panting and frantic heartbeat rises to them.


"Talk?"

we live like thieves
     kings among men