The Weight of Shadows

Chapter Seven: when you were lost I followed right behind

Life #9000

They arrived in Imladris – Rivendell in the common tongue – and Sakura felt sick to her very core. More so because she could feel those grey eyes boring into her like lasers. Glorfindel was staring, and he was staring at her. Aragorn was also staring, though undoubtedly for different reasons than the golden-haired elf.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled up on end even as the three of them stood there awkwardly, the rest of the hobbits who'd arrived with them having vanished off to who knew where. Sakura would have been more than happy to try and figure out exactly where they had vanished off to, if only to escape that piercing stare. And Aragorn's undoubtedly questioning one too. It was something to be said about the eyes of an elf and how very expressive they were.

But Glorfindel didn't despise her so as she had so rightly assumed, and therein lay the problem. She was already dying, her end ticking closer with every minute passed. She was mortal then, and all too soon she would enter a haze of constant pain and eternal rebirth into a body which would break down at birth or even just before. A cruel fate for the one who bore her, undoubtedly so. Tears bit at the corners of her eyes, and old fear rising in the pit of her belly at such a thought. It looped back to the one eternal question she had – why? Why was she stuck in a cycle of constant reincarnation? What had she done to deserve such a fate?

"Ithilris."

Sakura blinked at the name which wasn't hers, glancing around briefly for any sign of an elleth with such a name, but there were none. She turned then, dark eyes meeting those grey ones which burnt with a passion and happiness Sakura knew she could never afford to reciprocate because she was leaving. She was always the one leaving her friends and everyone else she knew far behind, never to be seen again. "What?" The question left her lips before she could restrain herself from doing so, and Sakura could only curse her wandering attention as hands grasped at her shoulders, rooting her in place as he stared down at her so very intently.

"That is the name I have been pondering on for many a years," Glorfindel said, thumb stroking ever so lightly over her cheek. "The name I give to you as but a token of my affections." He smiled then, so brilliantly, so very beautifully, as though his inevitable loss of her wouldn't break his heart so. She hated whatever was making her reincarnate so many times in that instant – whatever was the driving force between their inevitable separation – because truly, it was so very cruel to the ones left behind. As well as herself.

"Glorfindel." The word was choked out, sorrow and regret mingling like old friends in the pit of her stomach. "I am rather afraid I have yet to think of a name for you," she said, smiling then – a weak thing compared to his own, lined with the sorrow of love and loss.

"Forgive me," Aragorn spoke up then, and the pair of then glanced over at where he stood close by. "But I rather feel as though I might just be missing something here..."

A soft burst of laughter escaped her lips then. "You would not be the first," she murmured. "Besides, it is a rather puzzling tale, even for those who have known me the longest..." Her gaze darted to the ground, and she longed to escape those stares fixed upon her then. "Should we not venture in?" she asked, tilting her head. "Or would you rather linger here for a while longer?" A smile pulled at her lips, and she walked forwards then, all but certain they would follow – if only to escape the lingering chill in the air.

"So," Aragorn spoke, catching up with her just as swiftly as their elven companion. "I wasn't aware you had both met... or that you..." he trailed off, glancing at her then, even as a hand grabbed at her own then, intertwining his fingers with hers then as he fell in step with her. Sakura rather hated the slight flush that crept up to her cheeks at the simple action. It had really been too long since she had last seen him. Part of her liked to liken his presence to a warm, fluffy blanket. A taste of the home she would never have there. A cruel thing to dangle before her, but Glorfindel was anything but cruel. He was as kind as summer. Sakura supposed that was just one of the many reasons she had fallen for him, and she hated herself all the more for that. By the time she had met him and fallen for him she had been accustomed to living, loving, and losing. She should not have fallen as deeply as she had. But love was a terrible, intoxicating thing. "Is that a story you would be willing to share?" Aragorn asked, and Sakura snapped out of the rabbit hole of her thoughts she had fallen down. "Here I was, thinking I knew almost everything there was about my younger subordinate..." A smile curled on Aragorn's lips, and Sakura couldn't stop the snort at that.