Black Thorn

Black Thorn by ~gingertom84 on deviantART

See now who is dead and who is alive. The living weeps for the dead, and you should ask why. Simply because the living knows too late the dead had loved him.

This is a story of dreams. This is the story of the Black Thorn.

You sleep now, and in the deeps of slumber, you see a thorn-tree, black as soot, under the gaze of the crescent moon. Before this tree, is a grass-covered mound, and you know the thorn had and forevermore is weeping over it.

Sit now under the black thorn, and he will tell you his reason for his being. I am the black thorn, and this is my story.

I had not always been this shape. I was a prince of the Twilight Lands, of Greenwood under the Stars. I was magnificent to behold, as of all princes of these hallowed trees. Hair jet-black, skin so pearlescent it shimmers, and my voice was – well it brought tears or laughter or make the rivers and stones speak if I will them. But … these - these memories, cannot be compared to the days I had spent with the one I’m weeping for.

O, sweet Selluin. I am happy to weep you. I, Ithrien Armellar, weep for you till World’s End.

Remember how I met you, Selluin? I was wolf-hunting at wood’s edge with my fellow princes, and there you were aftered by black spirits in wolf-shapes. I saved you with my gold-tipped arrows. You did not speak, you did not know how, but you held to me, knowing me your savior.

I wondered what moved me that day, perhaps it was pity, perhaps it was love-at-first-sight, to keep you at my side. I told my fellows I will teach this wild-man the ways of the Wood so that he could save himself from the wolves. My fellow princes shook their heads, and left only after they extracted an oath from me never to reveal the road to Dimloth.

The following days were our happy days. Selluin was mighty and beautiful as the warrior-kings of old. The velvety hair in his face, inner-side of the ears, chest, belly and palms were cream-white, whereas the rest were golden-brown. His eyes, blue like wizard’s stones, black within layers of blues, mirrors of souls. For that I gave him his name, Selluin, Silverglass. His small, black nose, it tickled him when I touched it. And I taught him all I knew, all the secret ways, secret songs and secret places of my people, except the road to Dimloth.

Those happy, happy days, sadly, were my shortest as well. Only two winters had passed, and my father’s messenger came to wood’s edge with solemn news of my father’s death-dealing sickness. None of my brothers and cousins was willing to do what I had taken upon myself, for they were happy to wait for his death. Greed for Power knows no family ties. Mayhap Innocence was still with me as I was youngest of my royal father’s brood.

I was set to find the cure for my father’s illness. You see, my people know no sickness, so a sage older than these trees could only tell me this be an evil done by one who cannot wait to sit on Dimloth’s throne. I am one of the lasts to be considered for the throne, and I couldn’t care less in face of my father’s impending death. The sage then told me of four hallowed herbs that will lift the curse killing my father. But they could only be found each in four different seas. It was a quest that brought me to every known and secret places of Old Earth.

I told Selluin of the dangers and the speed needed for the quest, and that he should stay. Selluin, he’d learned to speak then, will not be left without me. I laid a spell of slumber over him there and then, and made haste with my father’s steed. But I did not know he’d followed.

I’ve overcome all perils with my sweet-singing voice, and the people of the four seas welcomed me as a deity of plenty. For the hard ways of the world are made easy for one born fortunate in looks. But that was not so with my beautiful Selluin.

I’ve crossed four seas, three hallowed herbs already in my pockets, and I was about to harvest the last one. I remembered feeling warm and wet amongst those tall and ancient trees. The plant I was looking flourished on one of these very tall trees. I risked climbing it, though the guardian of this herb was nowhere to be seen. I was eager, so I did not care to look for and subdue it with my singing spells. At last, the hallowed flower shone white before my eyes, and I plucked it from its high perch. In that very moment, the guardian appeared, fully equipped in three rows of needle-sharp teeth, eyes and skin bleeding blood, claws and tail black with poison, but it did not get me.

My poor, poor Selluin, he saved me that day. He leapt upon the guardian, and so both creature and he fell over the branch and made that most terrible bone-breaking noise. It was the most fearful sound I’ve ever heard in the long centuries of my life. With all haste, I made it to Selluin’s side, and with his dying breath he said, You taught me love, and so I looked for it. Have I looked wrongly? He spat blood and died, before I could answer him. On that day I knew my happy voice had fled me forever.

I carried him across the four seas, after I’ve embalmed him in enchantments so that nature will not eat away his flesh before I make it back to the Twilight. I retraced my steps, and the peoples and creatures along the road told me the one I carried suffered the way in great pain when I paid toll with my singing. Why I asked them, why have you done to him so? O, my prince, they answered, simply because you have princely bearing and your soul-soothing voice is coveted. Whereas the one dead in your embrace, he was rudely wearied and worn like a beggar.

The hard ways of the world – I curse them into the blood-churning bowels of Death. Indeed, my happy voice had fled me forever. O, for my Selluin is dead. He’d followed where I’ve trodden easily, but in his place insufferable pain. And I did not know until the last hour.

I returned to the place where Selluin and I first met at Greenwood’s edge. When I made it back, my king-father was dead. So I spent the four hallowed herbs and all my spirit in Selluin’s embalming enchantments only to look in remorse in his dying face looking for unrequited love. His soulful, blue eyes, though, by which Selluin was named, I cannot keep with any amount of magic. Thus was my state for unnumbered wheeling of the stars and seasons, till grass and crawling plants covered both our bodies like forgotten statues of fallen cities. And I was transformed into a black thorn. Mayhap the Lady Vel saw to this fitness of my being, unmoving in my remorse and despair like a tree covered in soot.

I am Ithrien Black-in-Despair. Leave this dream, and return now to where I cannot follow - to your warm, sunlit days and your lover’s loving embrace.