Set in Stone - Haldir's Story -

Chapter 16 - The Truth?

Crush his heart if this is what you have to do. Lie to him. As a matter of fact, she already had. Never explicitly, since he had never actually asked her whether she was half-human, but more than once she had said that she was an elf. She had lied to him by keeping information from him, by pretending to be something she wasn't. She had said she was an elf when all the time she had known she would never be one. Not really. Daëra hadn't had the heart to tell her father what the Valar had told her in her dream. That she would be like her mother, meaning that she would be human. Círdan had grown fond of her in the one or two decades they had lived together in the Grey Havens after her mother had died and he had declared to be her father. Daëra had grown to love him as well, although he never felt like a father to her - rather like an uncle or some distant - yet well-loved - relation. He wanted her to choose the elven life, and sent her to live amongst his own kind - never guessing her decision was all but set in stone. The Valar had foretold it and Daëra herself felt that she could never be an elf: she always had been and always would be a human at heart. She needed warmth and people who were normal - not mysterious and clever and beautiful like the elves.

And yet Daëra couldn't bear to break Haldir's heart. She didn't think she could live for another day knowing he hated and despised her. The situation stayed the same, though: she had to do it or he would grow mortal because of her, he would find out when it was already too late and he would die in loneliness. For a mere second Daëra had contemplated on whether Haldir perhaps might choose to be mortal with her if he knew she was facing that choice. But she soon pushed the thought away: perhaps he would never regret his decision while she was alive - yet after her death, when he was all alone and just waiting for his own dying hour to come... He would be on his own, eaten up by grief and would wish he had chosen differently. No, it was certain: Haldir must never know. He had to stop loving her, but maybe she could accomplish it in a somewhat subtler way... Orophin and Rumil wanted her to make him hate her, yet perhaps she could be granted that little bit of mercy... If he just didn't hate her, perhaps she could live on in a somewhat peaceful way until her pitiful human life would be over and ended by a natural cause. She might even be able to have him make the decision to separate from her, if he thought the relationship was stopping him from doing his work for example. He could never quit being March Warden. If one took this job, it was a job for life.

Daëra was sitting on the forest floor, covered by golden petals that had fallen from the mellorn trees. She could hear the soft noises emerging from Caras Galadhon although she had made sure her place to sit was aside the main paths and - most of all - far away from the borders of the Golden Wood. She couldn't have Haldir stumble on her while she... while she still didn't know what to do and how to do it. Daëra probably hadn't moved the position she was sitting in for an hour or so, her hands were lying in her lap, her gaze was directed at the stem of the nearest tree, seeing nothing. This was how Elladan found her. Daëra couldn't say how long he'd been watching her before he decided to cross the last few metres and attract her attention. Her senses of vision and hearing were not as good as the ones of elves, but still she would have noticed Elladan earlier, had she not been far away in thought.

She wiped her face with her sleeve and then looked up at him. "I thought you had left." - He sighed. "I changed my plans after what you told me. I mean... I never expected what was coming - my father just said I should ask you to 'tell me the truth' and that you would know what I meant. Later my horse was already tacked up for leaving, but I could not reconcile it with my conscience to depart just like that. So I stayed on, waiting for the appropriate moment to talk to you again. I saw you leave with Haldir in the morning and decided to intercept you when you would return to Caras Galadhon on your way back... Only, of course, you never did. Return, I mean. It took me a while to find you, so now I have to ask you for the second time in as many days: tell me the truth. What happened?"