Carabas

I'm traveling, spending the night in an old stone tower. Thranduil's standing watch out in the woods, I can see him through the window. The rain's coming down pretty hard, much harder than it was during my watch and I'm still trying to warm up, sitting up brewing something hot to drink. I'd like to call him back inside, let him stand watch from the window instead, but I know he wouldn't. Everyone's still on edge about that Balrog. I hear voices at the bottom of the tower, one of the Men with us calling to Thranduil, telling him to quit haring off on his own like that. I can't see where Thranduil's gone, but the two Men who'd been guarding the door are looking around the edge of the woods. Then a leather wing covers the window for a moment and blocks my view, something flapping around the tower carrying a rider, and I shout to the others to wake up.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm sitting at a bar drinking something green in a shot glass, when iron handcuffs are snapped around my wrists. Some crime has been committed, something which I'd planned to do. I didn't go through with it, though. I'm innocent. But it's still my fault that someone else carried out my plan, and I'm willing to take the punishment.

3rd person dream following a character shortly after his mother's funeral. This man believes he's just been 'granted a power to evade death.' He's currently out riding with the woman he used to be engaged to and his closest friend, who is now pursuing that woman himself. Watching the two of them together, he decides there's nothing here for him and turns his horse away, thinking about traveling.

Years later, the same character is white-haired and recording his memoirs, dictating them to a recording device. He's describing that 'power or curse of evading death' and his wife, who'd been listening, rolls her eyes. She's heard that story of his before. Losing interest, she leaves the room. In his dictation, he's just started describing the moment he was summoned to his mother's deathbed, to take the last of her life and inherit her power. As he speaks, his dead mother appears in the room. This is something he's used to, although he's the only one who can see her, and although she hasn't appeared very often recently. She dislikes watching him let himself grow old. But he's only allowing himself to age as long as his wife is alive, so they can grow old together; after she passes away, he intends to go back to feeding off other people's lives. Still dictating, he remembers the last words of advice his mother had given to him on her deathbed: 'In this life, do not just feed. Remember to dance.'