Teithad Haid - Private Writings

The fair valley of Rivendell, upon whose house the stars of heaven most brightly shone.
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Black Númenórean
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Over the long years of their lives, elves must have a great deal of time for reflection, especially those who dwell in Imladris, a haven of peace. Some of those who live in the Vale have dwelt there since its establishment, coming from many and varied backgrounds. Others were born in the valley, or traveled there from elsewhere and chose to make it their home. Rivendell is home to noble and common alike, a place where representatives of all the strains of elvendom may be found, and occasionally visitors of other races, such as the Men of the north. Whether you are a resident of Imladris, or a friend or stranger passing through, this is a place where you may record your thoughts in journal form, uninterrupted by the perils of the outside world.


Rules:
1. Double posting is fine
2. IC only, 300+ characters
3. Open timeline, write in any year you please
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Evil is a lifestyle | she/her

Black Númenórean
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Ihethrillend
1701, Second Age

Night falls over the valley as I take this moment to write, with my candle wedged in the burl of an old gnarled beech. Its light is feeble and flickering, but the golden pool is warm, and just enough to guide my quill across the page to convey glad tidings. Peace has returned at last to Imladris. We have driven out the Lieutenant of Morgoth, broken his back and sent him fleeing southward with what remains of his hordes. This is my first opportunity to write of the battle and its aftermath, as I have been confined to my sickbed and the care of the healers since its end. My wounds were serious, but fortunately with skill of the vale’s healers I am out of danger and at long last released to go about my own devices again- carefully. They still pain me, but I am glad to be able to seek refuge in the wider vale, and solitude, escaping the sight and sound and smell of those not so fortunate as me, still under the healers’ care. Does that make me callous, or cold? The truth of the matter is, when I think about it, I prefer not to think of the battle at all.

I never wanted to fight. Long before this war began I entered training as is customary and found in myself an unexpected aptitude for martial pursuits, but never entered into the armed services of Lord Oropher, and never had the occasion or the necessity to engage those talents against another living creature until Sauron’s invasion of Eriador. Now that I have known battle, I find I have no taste for it at all. The necessity for defending peaceful lands against the forces of evil is clear and a dear and terrible price must be paid for freedom by those who are able to defend it, but I only wish that it need not be. There are those of my kind, and among the Edain, who live for combat- and I will never understand this. There are also those who, while they do not love war, give their heart and soul to their arms and serve their lords and countries nobly day by day as warriors. For them I have the utmost respect and admiration, but that life is not for me.

A certain amount of adulation has come my way, which is yet another reason I am grateful to escape the halls at last. Anyone else who had happened to be in the right place at the right time could have intervened as I did seeing Lord Elrond in peril, but fate decreed that it was I who was there. The fact that the actions I took resulted in my wounding I believe gave fire to the story, which has no doubt been exaggerated. Those who approach me about it seem to think I am some sort of hero- if only they knew that I am a simple brewer, and cultivator of fruits, who would love nothing more than to throw down his arms and return to his cellars. Elrond has offered me a home here in Imladris, to dwell in the valley as long as I wish. I think that when I am healed I will return to my Greenwood, for I long to see her misty dark beauty again, and wander her paths. But there may come a time when I will take the Lord of the Vale up on his offer. I have had enough of war, and it is my most fervent wish to somewhere find a quiet piece of land where I can live out my days in peace.

For now I must rest, recover, and enjoy the serenity which, at least for now, is granted me. Until my pen finds these pages again, I remain,

Alagon
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Evil is a lifestyle | she/her

Chief Counsellor of Gondor
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During the First Siege of Imladris, SA, Nariel found much to take her time within the valley, and so one weary afternoon her hands recovered from a bag she'd sought to make use of, a journal; there stowed long before, and long forgotten ..
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Isildie Nariel
Esgalbar, Havens of Sirion. FA 515


'I hate you. Don't leave me. I feel like I can't breathe
Just hold me. Don't touch me.
I admit that I'm in and out of my head. Don't listen to a single word I've said
Just hear me out before you run away
Stay with me. Set me free.
'

(Lyrics from ''I Hate You ... Don't Leave Me', by Demi Lovato)


Dear cruel fates,

The scent of suffocating vapours still offends my breathing. Not because I have not recovered (in body) from the wretched ordeal of our city's sack. My lungs can taste the fresh air these days without succumbing. But the potent aroma still haunts and drags me screaming back home as though I never had made it out alive. I hate that most of all I can not think of Ondolinde and think of glad times. I think only of the last time I saw ... What remained of it. I can not forget that day ..

Of course in this particular case, it was because some utter moron was sat cross legged upon the kitchen floor, setting fire to what looked like laundry. I had known how Silugnir hates to have to stay inside. Ravaged by the domestic mundane and four walls, I miss the sun also and I long to gaze upon the sea at length. But my eyes moisten when I ever ready to achieve this simple ambition. It brings to mind my father and his stories of Vinyamar and his beloved coast. I think on my mother, decked in glorious designs under the bright envious daystar's glow, and I am unable to cross the threshold, knowing that the sun now shines, unrivalled. Some days it is all that I can do to make myself even take meal. What is the point ? I would hide in bed all day, all ever and after, ... If not for the fact that our biggest secret is apparently trying to burn the house down, out of apparent idleness !

I tore free of my bed and readied to berate what I assumed was his latest solution to get out of actually cleaning the laundry. I stopped when I recognised the dress I had been wearing on the day my parents, my city .... Died. Clearly Maeglin instructed his Moles to do things that will MAKE us hate them. The whole thing of treachery aside, I face each day wondering how he shall try to encourage my Uncle to murder him next. Honestly, they are lucky I am here to look after them both. Else all chaos would ensue. I suppose babysitting my 'Elders' gives me cause to keep going. Every time that I think of simply not waking at all, I am forced from melancholy by my weary anger of their quarrelling.

I know that it is up to me to sort this out. Again. My uncle works hard to keep us, and he needs this manner of behaviour like he needs a hole drilled through his cranium. But did our stupid rebel have to goad us through the act or arson ?! Of all things ! After what happened ....

'What is wrong with you ?' I had to ask. 'You can not start fires in the house !'

He calmly points toward the hearth and asks me 'what is the purpose of that, then ?' I swear. I want to throw things at his head !

'You tell me,' I demanded, 'for you are the one ignoring it, in favour of burning the house down ..'

I can not continue. He is staring at me as I have never seen him to do before. And I have known my share of others staring at me. Still, the intensity disturbs me.

'It got you out of bed,' he shrugged, as though that was worth his proposed vandalism of our belongings, the danger to our lives. I dashed a pail of cold water from the kitchen over him and his little bonfire, in answer. He blinked. My uncle there comes through the door and takes stock of the pair of us. Erfaron soaked in the throes of reckless stupidity. And me ... And I ...

My Uncle's face is a mask of sheer disbelief, tinted with concern. 'What happened to you ?' He managed to ask, the almost nervous tone of his voice arousing bewilderment in my deepest suspicions. For he looks at me, not the drenched fool on the floor.

'I got out of bed,' I shrugged. Tirindo did not cease with staring. 'And HE ruined my dress !' I accused our resident antagonist, with relish.

'It is utterly impractical,' Erfaron seemed not the slightest piece of remorseful. I snatched up the ruined tatters of my gown then and refused to look at him. They were both staring at me.

'I figured she should be prepared, receive some instruction on how to quell a blaze,' the fiend sought to justify his scandalous act. 'Or would you have her live the rest of her years in fear and grief, drowned in her own tears ?'

'I require no ‘assistance’ … from either of you !' I informed them both, proudly. None told me what to do ! And turned to stow my spoiled clothes upon the bed where I might gauge if they were beyond all salvation.

There I halted. I could not say when the clothes dropped from my grasp, or when exactly my hands flew to my head. For there, laid out like some horrific murder scene was the bulk of my beautiful hair, strewn across my sheets. I had been so furious and frightened by the scent of smoke I had not stalled enough to notice when I rose.

My fingers struggled to find some comprehension in the ragged, uneven ends of my shorn tresses. My hair was .... Cut ? !

That was when I heard the shouting from the other room, as ever. And was forced to separate their stubborn tantrums both. Stood between the pair, I had a hand upon each chest until they panted down to the point of sense. If anyone found out we sheltered one of Maeglin's people, we would all three be subject to the wrath of the mob outside. Our wretched little community still all be crying loss and fury, looking for someone to hold accountable for our misfortunes.

The battle between them ceased, I sank to the floor and hugged my knees close to my chest, as the mutilated mane I once had been so proud of, tickled at the nape of my neck.
'I can not face anybody ! I can not step foot outside this house now !' I lamented, bitterly. 'You have ruined me !' I accused Silugnir.

'You have not set foot outside, not looked to face another soul since ever this house was constructed !' He crossed his arms, unmoved.

'You,' my Uncle warned the Mole, but failed to compose a conclusion that would come close to his want. I was certain in no mood to speak in the Mole's defence. And it seemed he would not have it so. Why he deliberately provokes anyone and everyone, I can not guess. As though he had lost more than just his duplicitous Lord in the devastation. He should be grateful ...

'I should see you from my sight,' Tirindo seethed, his voice and his gaze both sharp as knives.

'So you have promised afore,' the snake narrowed his eyes, disregarding his wetness entirely. 'Yet cowardice clearly rules your hollow threats, for what else might stop you ?! I have not a want to loiter a mere moment longer of this world !'

And there my uncle met his former friend in keen stare and said, coldly. 'We are not kinslayers here. For sure, if you crave an end, leave. See how resolutely I shall not stall you.'

I made a promise,” Silugnir remembered. And Uncle made a rude noise.

So they stand, they stare, they seethe. And I weep for my murdered hair. My uncle draws me back toward my bed and bids recall that my father ever kept his own hair short, a practical decision to keep it from his face, during archery. But I am not an archer.

I tentatively take up the small bowl of water that is by my bed. I dare at my shattered reflection and a hand drops heavily from where my splendid veil used to be, now gone. I always had complimented myself on how I might some day have such a long gorgeous train of garnet tresses as had once my mother. She would wind it, braid it, garnish it with jewels and flowers. It kindled like a crown all about her head. Until the day it had caught fire .... And then she had screamed and screamed and ...

The bowl dropped to the floor as I swept my glance past my uncle toward the thorn in both our sides. The elf who had saved my life, and shared witness to my mother’s end. The one who knew .. My mother's beautiful hair had proven her doom and her death.

Why this promise to her at that belated hour meant so much to him, I can not properly comprehend. Perhaps a Mole requires some desperate need to fool himself there is some good still in his heart. He looked away from me as though he recognised that I had figured it at last. I knew why he'd cut my hair. And I hate that it keeps me from hating him. At least today. At least I now have cause to fashion a new dress ...
Last edited by Ercassie on Fri Sep 03, 2021 5:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not touched by the frost.

High Lord of Imladris
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2nd Day of the 7th month
TA 3012

I awaken again tonight, with dark dreams clouding the paths I wander while I sleep. There is a woman there, and I am catching but glimpses of her, every night the dreams grow stronger, and the details more clear. I feel like I am fighting through dense brush for every step I take towards her, I know I need to reach her, I know I need to protect her. Why though? Only a few nights ago the dreams were but dark blurs upon the edges of my vision as I rested.

I can only catch the faintest glimpses of her though, pale skin and hair like the shadows of the woods she hides in. I feel I know her I do not know from where though. Yesterday was the first time I realized that it was an elleth that I was trying to reach in my dreams, my mother has told me that I should right such things down. She seemed almost a little sad when I told her of the dreams. She thinks perhaps I am a reborn soul, which I suppose is possible, but why does this woman haunt me? She surely cannot be my past life, perhaps a key to it? And if she is how would I even go about finding her? Is she even alive yet in this age?

I thought most reborn were brought back in Aman itself so it does confuse me as to why I am here, surely this woman would have gone to Aman if I was important enough to her, after all she is important enough for me that she seems to be the first memory of my past life that I seem to be having.

Sleep is strange, I both fear it for losing myself to the memories of my former self, and yet it beckons me so that perhaps I might get a closer view of this womans face.


Miresurie

High Lord of Imladris
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Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2020 7:53 am
27th day of the 7th month
TA 3012

My dreams no longer waken me when they are about her, all of the darkness about her, it no longer is filled with fear for me, it is like some great mystery unravelling itself, I find it strange that this is what I dream of that this is my first awakening memory. Yet now I can see her face, clear as I can see my mother during the day. Her eyes look at me and pierce me as I have never felt before and my heart sticks in my throat when I try to call to her. I do not remember her name yet. At least not in waking perhaps in my sleep I do remember it for when her eyes come into focus I can feel my breath passing my lips in some sort of prayer to those blue grey eyes that would swallow me whole like the depths of the sea where Ulmo dwells. Then she turns with a laugh. Her voice I remember it at least her laugh she has said nothing to me in my sleep just laughed and run hair streaming behind her into the woods and all I can do it give chase but she is too fast and her laughter is all I can follow. I now crave rest and these dreams if only to hear that laugh, and see those eyes. Those eyes I look for them now every waking moment hoping to see them once more.

Miresurie

High Lord of Imladris
Points: 5 208 
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Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2020 7:53 am
15th day of the 8th month
TA 3012

A name. Melviriel, she is my jewel, as I suppose she was to her parents before me, else why name her thusly? It's finally come to me, I've asked my mother if it means anything at all, perhaps she has heard the name, but no. The best my mother can give me that is that she doesn't doubt my name is because of her. Miresurie, that that is the jewel I am to hunt, for none of my family have and I have gone to all those that I might to ask do not know that name. Not even those that are Ages old can give me some glimpse of hope in finding this woman. I have to have hope that she is still in Middle Earth, I have a name but I have no other information yet but I know I need to find her, I feel loved her once upon a time. I can believe it with ease, her laugh her smile just her ease of being. How I will find her with only a name and none that seem to know that name. If I can learn more from these dreams I have some better hope.

Perhaps now that I have her name I will begin to remember other things, perhaps about myself, perhaps about, her, like where she was from, or where I was from or my own name or some other person that might know me or her that the hunt for her will be made easier for with more knowledge then surely it will be easier to find her.

Where ever you my Beloved Jewel I shall find you even if I must wander this Middle-earth to the end of my days.

Miresurie

High Lord of Imladris
Points: 5 208 
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Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2020 7:53 am
5th Day of the 12th months
TA3012

I see more faces now in my dreams but my mind and heart go ever to that of Melviriel. I see fear in her face and tears and my heart breaks. I am but a ghost to them in this dream unable to change what is going on about me though if I could change anything it would always be to ease the fear and sorrow of my Beloved Jewel. Has she come perhaps to harm and faded from Middle Earth and gone to the Halls of Awaiting where I once dwelt? I am certain now I am among the reborn for more memories and battles flash before my eyes and I wonder which battle it was that took me from her? Did it take her as well? For I know enough of our history to know that there have been far too many lives lost that were innocent, and she certainly was to be counted among that ranking. Names and places they come so slowly from the dreams, and some I can find, but others short of talking to the Lady Galadriel or her husband I do not think I would find any answers.

I have debated on asking the Lady Galadriel if she knews the name Melviriel, but I feel as if it would be wiser of me to wait until I have at least learned my own name in this before bothering one such as Galadriel with my pitiful questions that are at best half formed out of fragments of dreams that I grasp desperately still to remember for the world was a big place so for Galadriel to know one lone elf maiden who does not seem to be a proper lady in waiting compared to the grace and nobility of Galadriel is likely a stretch.

I pray to Lorien for clearer dreams and to Vaire for the memories to become clear. I hope soon perhaps I can find some hint of what has become of Melviriel even if only to find her grave so that I may weep upon it for not being there to guard her against the ills of this world.

Miresurie

Chief Counsellor of Gondor
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Taking the Black – an excerpt of a long lost journal



’When my time comes, forget the wrong that I've done
Help me leave behind some reasons to be missed
Don't resent me, and when you're feeling empty
keep me in your memory, leave out all the rest ...

I'm strong on the surface, not all the way through
I've never been perfect, but neither have you ..


(All the Rest, Linkin Park)


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Erfaron Silugnir
Gondolin
Some weeks after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad
FA 472

The night was strewn of unseen shivers, cold as a compress against my skin. That burning numbed all misery beyond the physical, and aided in the stilling of those inner voices which screamed aloud sense and credited self-preservation. Wind carried me one foot before the other, along a slender wall I walked the brink of heartache. The dizzying heights were hazed by the embracing moonlight as though the great drop awaiting promised a net of stars, and they should catch me if I stumbled.

But I knew, in truth, there would present no vast celestial panoply to stifle the gaping crevice that now cratered my empty chest. I wanted none. My heart and hope the both had been cast to naught by my own hand. I might have known that she would see me to such an end, sooner or later. But still I understood in all earnest and honesty that were I afforded opportunity to do it all over again .. I still would do as had recklessly been done. That brief exhilaration come from touching the fierce, raging glory of the sun ... it was well worth the melting of my soul into cinders as a consequence.

She was done with me, and I would not be, not without her. I should have no cause at all to breathe, to live. This was my final testament of adulation to amuse her. She would know that the losing of her had seen me to my end. She would like that, and the thought provided solace. But turns out I was not half so alone as I imagined ..

"I am not of a mood to watch one fall from such a height."

The voice was strong, and unafraid yet moving in the fracture that endowed it with emotion. Alas that I was too far engorged on my own self-pity that I scarce paid him, at the first, what attention he was owed.

"Then close your eyes," I laughed, "or better still, be gone."

As if ...




"Do you know me not ?"

His words rushed about my senses like strong wine, drowning out all else but their infection. Alas, again, I yet had to learn better just what precipice I stood upon. Hard stone was below my feet, stars above my head. I had naught left to lose, so what thought should I waste on manners. What harm could he do but hurl me to my elected destination ?

"Do I seem," I wandered aloud at his indignant rebuke, "as though your name, or any else you have to say could make some difference ?"

I did not catch his answer, lest it was the force that took me from all balance. A wild rush of deep shadow cast me from all contact with my perilous perch and it was not until I glanced up in some bewilderment from the paving of the courtyard, that I realised I had fallen upon the wrong side of the edge. I found the answer to the riddle in the two, tall, night-clad sentries that stood astride me, each glaring down with the weight of brooding fury in their eyes. I made to rise, and was held to my knees.

"You are in the presence of Maeglin, sister son to the High King Turgon himself," proclaimed immediately, one of the pillars that haunted his side. Dark of garb, dark of hair, dark of countenance. "My Lord stands Prince of this realm and leader of the House of Mole," I was informed. "Blood to the High King of all the Noldor."

I skimmed a look.

Their leader was barely two hundred years old. a child. but his eyes .. they were far more travelled. It might have been the altitude, the vast amounts of Tirindo's wine which I had consumed, but more than like it was the faint of light that hung about the sky, above his head. A king uncrowned, a mind unmoved, an Elf to be observed if any I had ever seen one. The blood of the great was strong within him, I saw it now. As much as I had ever heard it said afore. That stopped me then. Not out of fear, but rather wonder.

"You are of blood to Findekáno ?" I realised.

"I am," he admitted, with both pride and some amusement. "But who is it I should have my escort arrest this night ? I would have your name," he prompted, with a stern half-smile, "if not your manners."

"I am but one who failed to safeguard your kin when it had been my duty to, in battle," I professed worthy cause for him to see me dead. "In payment I beseech you, cast me from the sight of all who grieve the dead that came not home."


The sentiment was not conceived entirely of falsehood. If it had not been for my Captain, seeing me to "other" orders, I would for certain have known my death about the feet of Fingon. Earcolante had saved my life. A more gracious soldier would have counted his blessings. I counted naught, for in the throes of grief and woe, there seemed no light to cast sights toward hope.

"It is a thing strange to me," the Prince said, "you are so willing to die, so afraid to live. It is customary to approach the two fates differently. This world is not enough for you ? You think you should know better than to dwell in the gem of all Elvendom ?"

"I have known the true gem of all Elvenkind," I admitted, dolefully, "that now blazes within another's grasp. The only Silmaril I have ever sought, denied me always after. There is naught of life that can console the loss, and even memory tastes bitter in the understanding that it shall remain now never more than memory."


Why I relinquished this information which I had held close about my chest throughout all the campaigning and struggle in this new world, ... I could not rightly explain. And even now words fail to properly address the compulsion he laid upon me. To believe that he cared any, that he desired to be so informed of matters far below his concern, and so very far removed from his own experiences ....

His eyes spoke of an understanding, as though he had stood aside me and experienced the pain of this now unrequited love himself. His tone did not fall mellow, nor his face less grave, but still there was a slight in his response that I shall recall until the day which truly sees my end.

"Is the moon a thing that can be held within your hand ?" he tilted his head as though contemplating the philosophy. "No ?" he was speaking as much to himself as to me. "How about the sun ?" he persisted. "The stars ?" Silence reigned as even I wrestled with some proper reply. "Yet we worship and admire them still," he concluded. "So long as they remain," he clarified, "so too does our love and admiration for their very existence." He compelled me to hear his counsel. "Noone," he dictated, "But noone can take that away from you."

"She has a child !" I vomited objection, whined self-pitying cause. "They .. they have a child. I was fool enough to refuse her what she wanted most of all, and now she has uncovered another, who will give her what she desires ..."

It was my greatest anguish, and the tirade that beat my skull into the shape of remorse, regret. He had proved himself of an oracle, and I craved more sage words to tumble from his mouth.

"She yet lives, as do you ... thus far at least. Therefore remains hope. I would not let such a thing as another's child halt my wholehearted intention," the noble Prince made very clear. Stately and assured, he seemed both certain and surprised by his admission. "In my experience, a child is ever more devout to their mother than their father, regardless," he mused, as though reflecting upon unspoken experience. "If ever some dread should befall he who has replaced you, then who will see her safe and cared for ? I for one would ever be stood nigh, for who knows what hand the fates deal, in their turn ? Love endures, beyond all trials that would seek to test it. Or so I believe. If you can not say the same," he waved off my anticipated protests with a dismissive wave of one hand. "I do not believe you ever, really ... loved her."


Neither Guard that soldered their grip to my arms, like vices each, could halt a furious objection to such an affront. I found feet. I found fury. I found a want to ... to ...

"You are not yet done," The Prince observed, with satisfaction. "There is a spirit still within you that might serve purpose. Pray locate it, and waste no more of my time. Death shall not have you this night. Away ..."


He bade me to depart, chose at the last not to arrest me. He returned to matters of more pressing concern than the end of the world as I understood it. His merciful sentence infuriated me. Who was he to say when I was ready to surrender ? Who was he to think he knew me in the slightest ?! Kin of Findekáno, I recalled, with sobering gravity. High blood, great of mind and skilled with steel ... so they said. So everybody said. The lord of Moles, the master of miners ...

He called his guards to heel and together they fell to discussion of their plans for the morrow, as though I were not stood there at all. I stood but in utter disregard. One of the sentries made gesture that I was dismissed. Indignantly, I turned to leave, by way of the path home to Tirindo and further contemplation of my fate; not to the waiting skies that had sung out to me not long before as siren, as the only option. I was far too engrossed in anger to allow the insult to pass unanswered. I recall pondering on how he had so hypnotised me into believing that his choice was my own. I had to chance one final look.

And that was when I heard mention of their dilemma. That they had come upon an obstruction to their ambitions. They had no means to effectively assume where the vein of weakness flowed through a mighty obstruction in their tunnels underground. There was every indication that iron ore was to be found beyond the barricade that the Earth had wrought in defiance of progress. If only they might come to find a way of forging through without having the entire passage collapse upon them.

Suddenly I knew. The Valar that had moved my Captain to order me to some errand far from the fateful location of my King. The reason I of all our guard had been allowed to survive the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. The long established learning that my father had bestowed upon me in the blessed land ... It was all come to this very moment. For what chance should else have manipulated us into such a play of mutual benefit ?

"Your mine is set beyond the city walls," I spoke out. They ignored them until I repeated the fact, often times. The sentries prepared to deal out the necessary rebuke for my overstepping boundaries.

"Begone !" one warned, ahead of his Lord's direction. The other held at the Prince's sudden interest.

"It lies beyond all danger that I might lay murder upon he who holds my heart to ransom ?" I would have them clarify, and set out terms. "A worthy diversion .."

"The vast warren of Anghabar offers freedom and adventure far from city streets," the Prince confessed, a knowing smile taking all his lower face toward what he already knew was coming. "For those only perceived of worth and note enough to venture there," he added with an undertow of caution that I should observe, and heed. "What do you know of iron or of mines ?"

He flung the axe carelessly from grasp as though to shave my ear from it's seat on my face. Shifting with the confidence of alcohol, I somehow managed to avoid injury, and procure the weapon in a swift embracing hand. For the first time since I had left my sword in that blasted Orc on the battlefield, my hand felt whole.

"I know of stone," I mentioned. "And for the first time since finding myself robbed of all else purpose, and allegiance, this night I have come to know of a cause that embodies both of these."

His amusement was subtle but certain, a duck of the head and an undeniable twinkle about deep set eyes.





****
The next morning ...






"Get up !"

Tirindo showed nothing less than his typical impudence, in assuming that he owned the world entire. He removed the door which barred him entry, and pulled at the one of my legs fool enough to show from 'neath the bed.

"Get out .."

Dragged from restful repose, I resorted to quite justified response. It was not his darned room ! In truth it still felt like Culasso's room. But it would soon stand empty once again.

"There stand a substantial quota of guards about my front door," he informed me, horror tainting every which word he hurled in my direction. "Whatever did you get up to last night ? Where did you go ?!"

"I met the Prince," I waved him away, and dove back beyond his reach, unless he took to the floor himself, and he was not ready to so lower himself, not yet. He was far too busy lamenting his ill fortune and rocking his face in both hands. At length, I emerged, if only to observe his overstated malady.

"Hold them off at the stairs," I told him, serious. "I shall depart by way of the window .." And so thrusting him, stunned, out of the room, I slammed the door and climbed back into a state of bemused comfort. It took a moment or two for the events of the evening previous to revisit my head, and then (shortly following a wary glance beyond the door, wherein I observed my old "friend" seeking for me to not be arrested ... for the third time this week) I found purpose in some urgency.


Less than a turbulent hour later, I was flanked by countless soldiers, garbed in gleaming starless uniform, and part of a proud procession winding through the city streets, toward a turn of duty in the name of Maeglin. Tirindo stood sentinel about the front door, and hauled me from amidst my new brethrin at the last.

"Do not pretend you are not sorry to see me depart," I told him. For all that he acted as though we were friends. "You are her brother, not mine."

"That is all you would say to me, on parting ?" he sought for some meaning in our brief, stormy acquaintance.

"I could say more," I offered.

"You might say thankyou," he clarified.

"I might also say you hit like a girl," I reminded him, bitterly. "And in such sentiment we might still part in honesty."

"If we are being honest, I saw you to the floor, regardless," he mentioned, sternly. "And would again, if memory should ever become cloudy about blame."

I escaped his reach and melded into the rich flowing mantle of dark pride that ebbed toward the city's borders. It felt .. right. I raised a hand in marked departure and would have him note the gesture.

"Stay out of trouble !" he called after me. "Or rest assured that I shall find you !"



It is strange. I think sometimes that we might have been brothers, we might even have been friends, if I had only stayed with Fea ... much would have been different.

I would never have come to know Maeglin, Lord of Moles and Prince of Gondolin. I wish more people knew of him, knew true. If it were not for him, I would be naught. Another reason for the populace at large to villefy him, I suppose ....
Last edited by Ercassie on Fri Sep 03, 2021 5:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not touched by the frost.

High Lord of Imladris
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7th Day of the 12th months
TA3012

I write this shaking with a cold sweat, perhaps asking Lorien for clearer dreams was an ill advised thought. My dreams this night turn from Melviriel to something else. Something much darker.

I stood upon a hill in a far country, home I think where I was born though I did not recognize it. I stood there beside others though I could not see them clearly looking out over a dark expanse below me two tides and a white rock between them.

The first was dark and black and it came towards me in stillness and peace, the ocean I think deep and dark under a moonless sky, the other was silver and red and it boiled with rage as it surged away from me down the hill. The wrathful crest crashed upon that white rock splintering it and turning it and the dark tide to crimson with three great crashing waves pounding upon it. A fourth great welling of that wave came larger than any of the first three and the rock shattered and fell staining everything around it red. I could feel the crimson on my hands and feet and face though I was not in the swelling doom tide.

I feel such shame when I think of it even now, and I know beyond all doubt that I am watching the first kinslaying in the blessed realm. I must have taken some part in it to watch it in such a way, I pray this particular dream gets no clearer but I fear with each passing night the horrible details will come sharper into focus until all I can do is watch in horror at the workings of my kins hands. I pray that I remain on that hilltop a coward, at best, for I did not help my Teleri kin against such an attack. Does Melviriel know that I am a part of such a monsterous affair? Did she forgive me? Or is that why there was fear and sorrow upon her face? It makes me ill.

Balrog
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Íreamélamar
300, SA

I try not to miss home too much. But there are days that the creeping, nostalgic melancholy swallows me up. I’ve lived here in Lindon now for three hundred years, as many years as I lived on the valley of Tumladen and yet this place feels temporary and alien. The wind that blows off the sea doesn’t feel as comforting as the wind that blew off the mountains. The smell is different, it’s colder, harsher. I am a stranger in a strange land. The sky and the stars seem strange and unfamiliar, even though I know that they are the same I have been beneath for six hundred years. The shadows are different, the rivers and streams are wilder and meaner. My mother told me stories about the lands that lay all about me now, of the wild dangers that lurked behind every tree around every river bend. This place doesn’t have the beauty that Beleriand held. There is a sense of anger in the land, of violence and trepidation. Even so, these lands are filled with wonder and beauty. It is a desolate, rapacious beauty. Untamed seems such an inadequate word, but it’s the only word I can think of now. This land is untamed. There are spirits within the land, for now they are tolerating our presence, but for how long? How long before the land itself decides that we are not wanted. We are trespassers, vagrants. I can only hope the land does not reject us.

Am I the only one that feels this? There is something dark in this land, something buried deep in the shadows of mountains and within the darkest clouds. I do not trust it. There is something stirring in the East. I know that I am not the only one that feels it. Something rides on a storm. I’ve seen it in my dreams. Perhaps I am merely troubled by this new land we have been forced to become refugees in, perhaps it is indicative of something more. For now, I must keep my misgivings to myself. I have none here that I could reasonably unburden myself to. Heavy lies the head they say.

Yet, even as I remain vigilant for the sake of my people, I have to set an example for them. The Mablui have adapted well, but we always were a people that could adapt. There are spurs in the Blue Mountains and caverns within that have suited us well thus far. But we are more than simple cave dwellers now, when my mother was queen, they were the whispers of twilight, shadows of earth and air, but we are different now. We are children of stars and sky, of stone and water. Our houses now delve into the earth and reach for the firmament. I am proud of my kinsmen. For a quarrelsome people, my responsibilities as advocate and judge have been light. Could it be that we are growing softer as the ages turn? There are a portion of us that are even turning out to be sailors. Sailors! I would have never imagined in all my years that the once subterranean Mablui would ever brave the sea. I, for one, dislike it. While it is beautiful to look at, there are so many things I cannot know about the sea. Perhaps, as time goes by my proximity while lend itself some knowledge. Fear of the unknown will be the death of us. Even as I fear the sea and its vast unknown thalassic depths, I am drawn to it. I want to uncover the mysteries.

It is a bright day out, the sun is shining and the clouds have been banished to the uttermost west. I remember on days like this I would slip past my father’s guards, take my closest friends, and go exploring the caves within the Encircling Mountains. We never knew where or what we were doing. It was the sense of adventure, the sense of discovery that we craved. Am I too old now to have that feeling? I feel my responsibilities are strangling my sense of adventure. It is not gone entirely though. Perhaps I can gather a few friends and we can go on an expedition, the same kind we went on in the old days. The thought fills my heart with joy.

Perhaps this land and we can get along after all. Ought I dare to hope?

Ñarmotar
Strange Fruit got holes in the flesh but it ain't gonn' spoil cause it never was fresh

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Íreamélamar
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There is something wrong with my sister. She lingers in the lonely places more and more, spurning all companionship, even my own. At first, I thought it was the same
melancholy, the same dread of spirit that I have been dealing for so long. I gave her space to grieve the loss of our parents, of our ancestral homelands, the walls of Gondolin and the caverns far below the land of Nevrast. Even though neither of us lived there, we felt a kinship with that place. So many of our people lived and toiled and thrived in those sunless halls. I wish I could have seen them. Mother used to tell us such stories of that place, the cities they carved, the depths they scoured and glories they found when the stars were but a distant memory. Akorlin loved the stories too, she would build mountains out of her pillows in our early days and tunnel into them until she could see no light from the outside and hear no sound. Occasionally she would invite me in, and we would sit for hours in the middle of that great mound of pillows and blankets and stuffed animals and tell each other scary stories. Hers were never scary, but she was a good storyteller, nonetheless. She is different now. She doesn’t use words to tell stories now. Her eyes say so much, but they leave so much out as well. I am left trying to discover half the tale and don’t know who or where or what the story is meant to be about. I fear for her. I do not know how to comfort her in her grief. No one does. She has spurned and rejected everyone’s attempts to offer aid. She just needs time. How much time is up to her. I love my sister. I hope she knows that. She will come back to us, one day. Her spirit is far afield now, her body is a shell right now, a perfunctory machine going through all the simulated motions of life but with none of the vitality of a true living person. Where does she go? What does she see? Does she see our mother, our father? I see them in dreams every once in a while, but they cannot speak to him. They are too far from me to hear their words. I hope, if she does see them, they are able to speak to her and give her comfort.

And yet. There is a darkness closing in on our makeshift home. A sinister whisper in the quiet of the evening. I can hear it calling me. I cannot make out the words, but I know it is calling me. To what or who I cannot say. Akorlin can hear it too. I don’t know how I know this but I do. Wherever it is her mind and spirit wanders, she can her the whisper in darkness. I pray to Barthan that she does not heed them. I am terrified for her. What if the reason for her melancholy, the reason for her going to lonely places alone and for longer and longer periods of time is to hear that voice? Is there anything I can do? How can I reach my sister the way I once did? Shall I try to crawl through this new mountain of pillows and blankets and tell stories with her in the center of all existence? I miss my sister. I want her back. I cannot let the darkness take her.
Ñarmotar
Strange Fruit got holes in the flesh but it ain't gonn' spoil cause it never was fresh

Balrog
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Íreamélamar
307, SA

She is gone. It happened last night. At least I think it was last night. Akorlin seems to have simply vanished into thin air. I saw her last night before I myself went to sleep. She seemed more determined than she had in so long. She seemed like she was leaving the shadows of the past behind her, that she was finally moving forward. We even told each other jokes! I could never have known that this meant she was going to vanish. Yet I think I should have. Such a drastic shift in her moods and behavior should have alerted me to something being very, very wrong. Yet I was so overjoyed to have my sister back with me, back in the land of the living, that I did not see the warning signs, as myriad as there had been. I have not seen Akorlin smile like she did last night in so long. Our parents had both been alive the last time, I’m sure. An entire lifetime ago. The grief of their loss, the loss of our home and homelands, it took such a heavy toll on her. It took a toll on me as well, but I was lucky. She was subsumed by her loss. The only way for her to find a way out of that bleak, bleak cave was to travel it alone. Find the bottom and find her own way out. My heart stings at the knowledge. What if she doesn’t come back out? What if she can’t find her way out? Did I fail her? Did she fail me? I don’t think either is true. I want to go out and look for her, to find a trace of her, anything. I need to know that she’s okay. I need to know that my only living relative, my last flesh and blood, is alive. Even if she will not partake in the world alongside me, I must know that she is safe. Why am I wasting time writing this? I should be out looking for her. My thoughts will be no less jumbled or confused if I came back later. But... but... what good would I do? She was a hunter, a tracker, a ranger. There is no way I could track her down and find her if she did not want to be found. But why? Why does she not want to be found? My own sister! I don’t know how I am going to do any of this without her. I look out on the faces of this settlement, this poor excuse for a kingdom and a city, and I see so many faces like hers. So many people are so lost. We are all so alone. This is not our world, but our world is gone. No matter how much we try and recreated it, we will never rebuild the towers of Gondolin nor will we find the tunnels of Ninquefel again. What can I do for my people that I could not do for my sister? They were wrong to put their trust in me. I have failed them. I don’t even know how I have failed, but when I see the grief in their eyes, I know that I have failed. Would that Ulmo came to me as he did our forebearers and show us a place, show us how to move forward, show us how to find our footing in a world that feels so utterly unrecognizable.

Farewell, Akorlin. I pray I will see you again before the dying of the Sun.
Ñarmotar
Strange Fruit got holes in the flesh but it ain't gonn' spoil cause it never was fresh

Balrog
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Íreamélamar
307, SA

Dear Brother,

Let me go, please. I have no use in the world you've created. The world I want was destroying in black flames and shadow and hundreds of feet of water. I do not begrudge you the life you have cultivated. It was you we all looked to when Gondolin fell. No one else could have kept mother and father's people together. You may have not been ready, but you did admirably. The Mablui and the Houses of the Tower of Snow and the Pillar owe you a debt they will never be able to repay. But the world you have brought us to is not the world I want. The lands of my memory are gone. I cannot simply find a new place and call it home. My home is Gondolin, and if the Hidden City is no more, then I will have no home.

I do not expect you understand this, but you must accept it. The gods have given us different paths, dear brother, and they will not meet again. I do not know where mine will lead, but I know where yours will lead. You will be the king of a new people and receive love and adulation and respect. I don’t want that world. I am not jealous of you, if anything I pity you. I know that you only want to look at the stars or under your rocks. I don’t have to say, and so I won’t. My feet will carry me across a world alien and strange, each step will take me further from home and closer to something else.

I love you brother. But the city you are building is a pale imitation of the homes of our parents. Don’t you understand that they’re gone? If you any sense you would leave as well. Our people don’t need a savior anymore. You saved them and now you are the one that needs saving. Will this new home save you? Will leading our people save you? You are as broken as I am, Ñarmotar, can’t you see that? Becoming a king will not mend the pains and the hurts. Time will not heal the wounds of our losses. If that were true, we would have recovered already. Yet we have not. I still wake screaming for mother and father. I know you do too, even if you hide it well. We are lost children in a land that does not want us. Settling down and carving out a cave for us to paint on will not bring us happiness.

I know you will try and follow me, try to bring me back. I know because it’s exactly what I would do in your place. For a time, we belonged together, as inseparable as the sun and the sky. But we no longer do, dear brother. We are oil and water. We cannot mix. You cannot understand the pain I feel anymore than I can understand yours.

I cannot take the pity anymore. I cannot take the half smiles and bows. I cannot take the kind words from the old grandmothers. I don’t want to hear stories of how mother led our people into the measureless caverns and build a kingdom. The only image I see of mother when I close my eyes is her standing before the dragon, then the dragon scooping her up in his mouth. I cannot even remember my last memory of father. Was it that morning? The night before? I wasn’t at home when the attack began. I don’t even remember where I was, someplace unimportant.

I know you will disregard my wish to be left alone. I do not begrudge it. Well, I do, but I don’t.

Be warned though, dear brother, I am not the same sister you had in Beleriand. This land has warped and changed me. The beckoning winds call my name and I will answer because the echoes of mother and father are too much to bear.

I want to go home. But I don’t know where that is anymore.

Maybe I will find an island, isolated from everyone and everything, and live out my days there. Maybe I will find my own cavern and carve out my own mansion and rule as queen of air and darkness.

Goodbye brother. I pray we do not see each other until our parents are given back to us

Akorlin
Strange Fruit got holes in the flesh but it ain't gonn' spoil cause it never was fresh

High Lord of Imladris
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CW: PTSD Dream
The Nightmare Part 1

My husband and wife say I should write down what it is that makes me quake with so much fear in the night. I do not know how to tell them that it is a memory that destroyed me utterly and still does but perhaps writing it down so they can read it will make them understand... I cannot say the words aloud they tear me apart and I shut down as if I were there once more in the blood stained reeds screaming. But the reeds were not where the nightmare ever starts. It's never in those reeds.


The day started as it should, Afarfin and I had managed to get our friends to all have the night off from watch. We were ever wary of the Sons but today was going to be important, I had gotten a friend to get me fabric and I am certain my mother would be proud. I had sewn this dress over months getting pearls and small gems I ran my fingers over it in the late morning light, that made it sparkle so brightly like the surf flashing upon the sea. It would look like the stars glittering in the night later when I finally wore it. Afarfin didn't even know about this, he thought I would be in some new tunic and leggings. He was going to be wearing nice clothing I'd helped him with his clothing so he would be surprised. I remember smiling thinking about it and what a surprise it would be but there was more yet to do.

Time felt as if it was standing still, a strange feeling for an elf, perhaps Afarfin had felt it before he was older than me and had lived in the blessed realm the two of us were busy getting the last touches finished we'd found a clearing in the reeds where the ground was higher and the reeds created a natural room with meadowsweet and marsh mallows. filled the clearing and we were putting up torches that could be lit to twinkle in the evening so the clearing was lit. I could hardly keep my hands from him, and he from me we tumbled out of the clearing and into the reeds so that we did not disturb the flowers that we had been so careful to avoid trampling while we were decorating. Afarfin was kind and strong we were entwined for hours kissing in those wind swept reeds that danced over us kissing our bare skin hiding us from the sight of Manwe and everyone else before we finally broke apart to get ready.

I needed all the time I could get, my hair was tangled from our tryst, though Afarfin joked that I should wear my hair that way that Arasoron and Aigronding wouldn't know what it meant, and I couldn't help but give him a swat as I walked away. "I love you but I swear I'll kill you if you tell anyone before the ceremony."

"I'm going to tell Arasoron, and call your bluff."

Those were our last words. I threatened to kill him. and a stone rises threatening to stop my ability to breath. I was in my home my hair brushed and was partially pulled up and pinned when the alarm was raised. I knew that sound. The three blasts of the horn and our day was changed.

I grabbed my bow, too afraid to try to use my fathers - it's draw was so heavy that I couldn't fight for long with it. I ran terrified knowing my house was far enough into the reeds it would take a while before anyone reached my home, Afarfin though, he dwelt near the border. I couldn't possibly let my last words to Afarfin be that I would kill him. I ran. My heart thundering in my ears until it and the alarm horn that blasted on occassion warning as many as it could to run was all that I could hear. The reeds were high enough it was hard to see where the battle was, until I realized that there was smoke, the brothers of the Spirit of Fire used flames to destroy our haven.

There were screams then I could hear them as I burst through into an area where many stayed I'd stayed off the path that we'd created between the house clusters and had gone running as straight as I could through the weeds and I came crashing out into the side of horse my eyes wide as I drop backwards as a sword swung at me and the horse snorted and stomped at me and I scrambled out of the way of those iron shod hooves and the gleaming blade that cut towards my back as I ran trying desperately to stay alive. When suddenly Arasoron was there and his blade drove into the horses rider covering us both in a spray of blood as the Noldorian rider fell. I had not been in a battle like this since my father had died the kinslaying of Doriath, I do not know why I froze perhaps because I had known peace, watchfulness but peace for so many years. And there was the warning.

The dour elf that had found me when I was outside of the reeds hunting for deer and told me that the Mordagnirs especially Aigronding would turn when they realized the Noldor were attacking they would side with their kindred and slay those that were traitors like Afarfin.

I ran, my fear of Aigronding killing Afarfin or Arasoron killing me snapped something in side me and I ran towards where Afarfins house was ignoring the shouts of Arasoron followed me I had to lose him, he was in his armor, my arrows couldn't do anything, and his long sword would cut me down long before I could get close enough to get into the weak spots in his armor with my knife.

"MEL! There are-" I didn't hear the rest of what he said. I needed to get to Afarfin I had my knife out it was better in this fight, the Noldor with their plate was going to be too hard to shoot with my arrows. The smell of smoke filled my lungs and it rolled through the reeds creeping like deathly fingers the shouting was getting louder and I made it out to see the flames licking to my left catching more reeds on fire as I crashed into a plate clad elf my dagger sliding into their side covering my hands in slick red blood the flattened reeds were once green or tan were
all stained red.

Everything was red, through the curling tendrils of smoke red. I scrambled off of the Noldor that bore a crest of the House of Feanor and stumbled along the reed wall attempting find Afarfin as I ran my feet sliding on the blood soaked reeds, another Feanorian saw me and I was terrified, I ran, I couldn't fight them, their sword was long enough that my dagger couldn't do much, I was saved or doomed I am not sure which it was when a child ran out in front of the soldier and suddenly easier prey was before the wolf and the child was cut down as I ducked into the reeds still trying hard to find Afarfin but knowing full well that I couldn't be seen.

If I was seen I would be dead.

High Lord of Imladris
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Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2020 7:53 am
TW: PTSD, Character death
The Nightmare Part 2

I ran in the reeds. They slapped at my face stinging and cutting - so different from how they had been hours ago near the clearing. I kept pushing them out of my way my feet splashing in the wet soil that they grew into if it were not for the crackling of fire and the screams of those that did not manage to escape the cruel deaths they faced at the hands of the Sons of Feanor I knew they would hear me and I feared that I would be given away by some steed that heard me and paid heed or spooked at the shadow flitting through the reeds just covered by the smoke and swaying blades of green - though many bore splatterings of red dripping down to the marshy soil.

Every time I came to where there was a clash I had to build my courage to peak out and see if I could find Afarfin, or perhaps Aigronding or Arasoron. More to avoid the latter if at all possible, the words of that elf that had found me outside the marshes haunted my mind. They played on repeat over an over. I could hear screams and calls of my name. Arasoron.

He was still in pursuit of me. He was close, but not close enough I knew that well enough, I was the swifter, not weighted down by armor like he wore, I prayed Afarfin had been near his home and had been able to don his shining armor before he had waded out into battle. Yes please Aule, Tulkas, Manwe, Ulmo, Osse, Uinen whos hair was the seaweed in the shallow waters. Perhaps the reeds were part of that too... Whoever was watching who ever could hear let him be in his armor. He would be a more than equal match, if I could get to him we could run together, we could be safe in my haste my food slipped in the mud and I started to fall before I felt a sharp sting upon my back and I fell forwards - the iron shod hooves of a horse passing over me missing me by inches. I'd been struck by a Noldor. Not a Mordagnir, and they thought me dead for they did not round back towards me.

My back stung terribly and I wept there in the mud and reeds, I still had so far to go to get to Afarfin and I was already saved by luck, or perhaps my desperate plea had been heard I looked up warily the rider and horse were gone and the screams were still filling the air. I had to get around this cluster of dwellings to get to Afarfin. I pushed myself back to my feet, my hands squelching in the mud fouled with blood the movement hurt so badly I had no idea how deep the cut was, perhaps it was superficial, perhaps it was deep I could not tell and I stumbled forwards, my hair in wet clumps clinging to me partially from the wound on my back partially from the mud I'd fallen in, tears streamed down my face as I forced myself onward, my steps no longer as swift as they had been my breath was shorter, I held my dagger against my chest as I ran trying to make sure I was not taken unawares again.

Now the sound of hooves had me quaking in fear, but I couldn't stop not with Arasoron trying to find me and not with Afarfin unaware of the danger he would be in if he were to be fighting near Aigronding or Arasoron - Seen as a traitor for even thinking to love a pathetic Moriquende. No I needed to find him. I needed to warn him. We needed to run. It was the only thing that kept me going, I would leave everything else behind... even my fathers bow if it meant that he was safe. Another rider crashed through the reeds ahead of me their horse getting stuck in the mire of the marsh and I grabbed them from where they fell seeing their banner and cut them down, their blood staining my hands... Just as they had done to us in Doraith.... As they had done to my closest kindred in Aman... I was just like them now and I felt so ill, but I needed his sword, I was not skilled with it but it it seemed more useful than a dagger at the moment. It was heavy in my hand but not so much so I could not raise it the horse screamed in terror the sucking mud taking it down, it was scared and in pain, there would be no saving it it would be dead before help could come suffering and drowning. I felt... Nothing when I christened the stolen sword with the blood of the dead riders horse. Perhaps because it was mercy. Perhaps because I could not possibly feel worse anymore. I ran then darting across a short opening covered in mud and blood like some terrible wraith
light enough that the mud could not take me and saving me from the Noldo and their horses that were heavier wearing armor.

The reeds here fell as I hit them, their remains charred and blackened and ruined from fires that had died out in the wet grounds I was so close. I could hear him.. Afarfin was still alive! I knew his shouts anywhere telling...

'Aigronding watch-- '

There was a guttural howl that came from me. I know now it came from me, as I crashed through into the clearing where the battle was taking place to see Aigronding holding my beloved laying him down a sword run clear through his abdomen. Blood trickling from his mouth as he struggled to speak, I can see my name on his lips... the sword in my hand fell aside. The world ended. I was too late. I'll kill you. I was too late. I'll kill Aigronding. With my bare hands if I must. I feel my muscles tighten to leap at the Noldo at the slayer of my beloved who got to hold him as he died who looked into those eyes the eyes of his oath brother and chose to run him through...

I awaken. I never get the chance to kill Aigronding. Not on the day that it happened, not even in my dreams. The longer the time the more it hurts that I am denied that over and over, though the nightmare now comes rarer. I use to relive it every night every night for months...years? Decades? I can't even remember anymore until I could remember everything that was going to happen I even tried to change what happened but Irmo mocks me and I hate him for it. If ever I could slay a Valar it would be him for the torment of my dreams. Most nights now I try to work myself to exhaustion so that I don't dream at all but Irmo torments me at least once a year on the day... that horrible day when Melviriel died, slayed by Aigronding in a far crueler fashion than he slayed Afarfin. I have had that dream more times than years I've been alive now... I know that I couldn't say how many times anymore but I feel like that is why I will not pass to the Blessed Shore. I would make Irmo tell me how often he allowed me to be tormented by that dream.... and I would cut him each time for it.

Chief Counsellor of Gondor
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Taking the Black - Part 2 - "Because I knew You"


’I’ve heard it said, that people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn. And we are led
to those who help us most to grow if we let them
and we help them in return.

Now I don’t know if I believe that’s true.
But I know I’m who I am today because I knew you ..


(Lyrics credited to ‘For Good’, a song from the musical ‘Wicked’)


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Erfaron Silugnir
Gondolin, FA 472


I remember to this day, the way they stood; an unholy trinity; strong, and skilled, and shrewd. He introduced them as Hrango, Hatholdir, and Herontortha and, at their Prince’s approach, the trio broke apart from their gesticulating counsel and turned to greet their leader, with as great a mirth as schoolboys reunite come playtime. As dauntless though as was Thangorodrim, as different as are the Noldor, Vanyar, and Teleri. They were his most trusted advisors, his closest of friends, and my new custodians within the House of Mole.

“My Lords,” Maeglin addressed his folk. “I have for you a new recruit, come to us from the legacy of Hisilome. Erfaron is the scion of stoneworkers and sculptors renowned in Aman,” the Prince managed to call them back to matter. “He shall be assuming our masonry advisory position, recently made vacant.”

At that sombre conclusion to my introduction, their group bowed their heads, and there were no words required to explain. The same battle which had delivered me unto them, had robbed them of my predecessor. The tallest of them, in particular, cast an unimpressed inspection of my ever trying to live up to his late friend.

Far from pride in having outlived my former sovereign, I tried not to shrink before their intimidating company. No small feat, given that they all presented as gleaming towers, set in rich hue and bedecked with the fruits of their labour. I was, by sheer contrast, stood in all that I had brought with me into the city. The torn and all but ruined remnants of Barad Eithel uniform, painted still in places with the telltale stains of blood. Tirindo had very graciously offered to lend me some of his late son’s clothes, but the hardship which tormented him in even making it through the suggestion was all too clear and as he had glanced through the possibilities, he wore such an expression that I was not too sorry to refuse him. I would not have been caught dead in anything that the late Culasso called clothes, regardless.

The group did not stand long on ceremony, perhaps recognising my unease. Perhaps hungry with curiosity. The first to greet me was built like a boulder, his glabrous head as smooth as the most polished gem. His eyes were deep like wells, his arms extended without pause and as he raised me from the ground in a wordless, breathless embrace, I could not help but note his smile gleamed with metal teeth.

“Let him to the ground, Hrango” were the first words that I heard, from one whose voice would feature so prominently in the ever after that. Arms crossed, his angular face was tilted askance so that he might better appraise what he was faced with. “Hatholdir,” he reminded me, holding out a hand, and made sure that I knew which of the names belonged to him.

His brawny friend, Hrango was gesturing for notice to be taken of my hand which was slowly moving toward meeting his, and I closed the fist slowly. They saw the silver ring in spite of this, perhaps I only drew more attention to it. And they seemed to share some understanding before any explanation was provided.

“You bear my sister’s work,” Hatholdir did not quite make an accusation of the fact, but rather more marvelled. As did I. For Ellie was the estranged sister of Morgath, whom I knew had rivalled my friend Aigronding, back when he was still known as Maltahtar. And Morgath I had been counselled by those friends, always, to avoid. But Hatholdir was not the name I knew .. and rather than assume he, like my old friend, like myself in fact, had taken upon a new name, .. rather than that rather obvious conclusion .. somehow I fell to the memory of Ellinillor once telling me, she had left her other brother back in Endor, for he would not take the ships to the Blessed Land for anything. Even Nenmeldo had made a similar mention once, now that I recalled. It must be that other brother, I supposed, stood before me.

“Hatholdir shall see you settled into our little family,” decided Maeglin, pointedly. “Hrango here will equip you with all the tools you require, and Herontortha ..”

“… will no doubt bore you to death if you allow him,” Hatholdir interjected seamlessly. To my surprise, he was not called to order for the impudence and the Prince laughed as loudly as his soldier, though the bane of their joke scowled slightly and tried all the more not to show it.

“You are the one who jammed the stone gate, and was thrown out of the masons after a mere week,” this tallest of them all, Herontortha proclaimed, rather than asked. Still he was not correct, not entirely.

“It was three days,” I reported calmly. “Not a week.” Somehow the correction did not seem to appease him. “They said that it would take a long time for that gate to be unjammed if it were ever closed upon an enemy invasion,” I reported, what he already knew. “It did not take them quite as long as they had expected,” I told him something he had not yet known. “I was merely testing ..”

“You were merely trying to leave the city,” Maeglin knew, without needing to be told. I don’t know how but he read it in my eyes, and did not say so now to shame me. I do not know exactly why he shared this insight, save to prove he could. And to prove that he understood.


“You have some blood on you,” the taller Elf again put in, rather stiffly. He brought to mind an awkward authority not dissimilar to Tirindo, and I got the distinct impression he had a difficult job of it, given the demeanour of his peers. His eyes jerked toward my stained uniform pointedly. “That is not Orc blood.”

“It is not,” I agreed with him, unsure why he took such offence at my presence and very extremely sure I didn’t need to justify to him how the blood of a fellow Elf had ruined my apparel. It was none of his darn business, and nothing like what his look was alleging. I had not taken arms against another Elf since Alqualonde. It was why I had left the Feanoriens. Well, that and … her. At least one promise had been kept. I never meant to slay another of my kind again. And could not at that time have imagined I ever would ..


In the corner of one eye, I observed Hrango wordlessly gather up a great weight of belongings from a room which stood at hand. The bald elf did not lose his smile as he nodded to me, then thrust what turned out to be his own things into Herontortha’s hands. Out of what used to be his room.


“We lodge in pairs here, in Anghabar, in case there is ever a cave-in,” Hatholdir headed into the quarters Hrango had just departed. “Herontortha was very close friends with Sildin, the old masonry advisor,” he explained. A lot of the recent hostility made sense all of a sudden, and I opened my mouth, closed it again. What was there to say ? “He’s taken the loss hard. But Hrango will take care of him” Hatholdir declared it as though he could ever know so.. “He knows how. So I guess you’re stuck with me, at least until we get you settled in.”

Throwing an arm around my shoulder, the Noldo led me into the room we were now to share. Well, Maeglin had said that Hatholdir would show me around. It surprised me to notice that our glorious leader had in fact departed at some point and I’d never even noticed. He was not like any of the Princes I had known or served in Hithlum though I could not yet quite put my finger on it.

“We have a place,” Hatholdir informed me, with a nudge of his head in the direction of my lonely ring again. “A place where we go to smash rocks, when .. things are difficult to otherwise express.”


I glanced from his knowing expression to my slowly unclenched hand. “It wasn’t meant to be this way.” I don’t know why I thought he’d care. He indicated the bed across from his. He indicated where I was to fit in. And without ever saying so, he let me know. I would, could, fit in here. He’d see to it.

That nagging thought of Ellie’s brother wrestled with my memory anew. But the more that I tried to recall Aigronding and what he’d said of Ellie’s brother, the more that I saw Aigronding as he stood now in my mind. As I had seen him just the day before. With his beautiful red-haired wife, their adoring family, his perfect life … and I suffocated from the envy. I don’t know that I ever even properly acknowledged it save that I felt instantly guilty in my private thoughts. But how was it possible to be so angered by a friend, by somebody who seemed to always manage to do the right thing and get the things that, naturally, he deserved. What did I deserve ? I guess, the House of Mole. My new brothers in arms. Old friends, so different from these new friends. And me stuck in the middle. Same old, same old.
All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not touched by the frost.

Chief Counsellor of Gondor
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Playing with Fire

'I bet you think I either moved on or hate you
Cos every time you reach out, there's no reply.
I bet that it never ever occurred to you
That I can't say hello and risk another goodbye ..

So I just want to tell you.
It takes everything in me not to call you.
And I wish I could run to you, so I hope you know that
Every time I don't ... I almost do ... '


(I almost do, Taylor Swift)


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Feapoldie Aiwenariel
Gondolin, FA 472
Shortly after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad


Tears tumble in Gondolin as heavy as though recent sorrow of our people has embodied a vast scream that ripped apart the heavens, and unleashed this downpour of grief from the Valar. There is not a street to tread that is not haunted by some weeping widow or childless parent. When I opened the windows this bright morn, the sun seared golden as it ever had. And all that I could think was of those bodies of our folk festering unto rot underneath such heat, out in the desolated plains of war, while the Enemy cavorts about the wreckage of so many lives lost.

I told them not to go, but would a one of them listen to me ?

At the least I was untouched by grief for my own part. I am one of a lucky few. And yet tears stain my cheeks regardless on this glorious and sunny day. For the start, my only daughter, my sweet dear, she gave up her first heartbreak to the vile snatch of death. I had hoped, by coming here, we never would see a sorrow of this sort assault her merry soul. Watching helpless as my child cries herself to sleep is a wound worse than any I ever envisaged.

Laegon spent a week at the infirmaries that they put up, a makeshift requirement to a horrific emergency. I have visited Aranadhel there, and thankfully he seems to have survived. When they walked the wounded in, I all but slew him myself for being so foolish as to venture out to fight. But he will live. Now that I am assured as much, I shall wait for him to come admit that I told him so.

I spared Tirindo that much, for Culasso did not make it through the night. We chose not to tell Nariel, although she asked in every hour whether there was news. Eventually Laegon gave in, and broke the hurt in his gentle voice. Sad words are made no more splendid though, when spoken softly. My girl picked up her skirts and ran clear across the City to the last place I would go of my accord. My brother's house.

We entered through the back door for some advantage of fate, Lord Maeglin was leading his company back out to Anghabar, and the pavements at the front of house are thick with a flock of sable night. Tirindo was at the front door, watching the procession of Miners depart off to their dreary holes. It was a thing of no difficulty to slip in the back door.

I might have spoke in wonder or suspicion at the way my daughter sped with knowing surety toward her cousin’s bedroom. It was all I could do though to keep up with her. And when she found all his things were gone, his clothes, his books, his memory entire ... Great sobs racked her tiny body as she contorted in tears upon the bed. This is what she gets for becoming attached to fools ! I should have known that Culasso would meet a foul end. There is some small mercy in my having kept such distance. I know now not what I must miss.

The view from the window afforded me a glance from aloft over the scene in the street. My brother's words I recognised, ... And also he to whom my brother spoke.

"This is the most hateful, unfair thing !" Nariel sobbed behind me, clinging to the sheets. She is not wrong, although she knows not how true her emotions bore through the both of us.

It could not be true ! He could not be here ! Now ???!! Oh tears indeed. What bitter twist of vengeance has been visited upon me ??!

I met my brother half way down the stairs. He stepped forth, forcing me back and upward to the hall once more. Told me what we both know, I should not have come there. I pointed out of course that same could be said of more than only me. He knows. He knew, somehow he has been involved, and never told me ... How could he have never told me ?

My hand flew before I knew what I was doing. As though the betrayal by my own bloodkin evoked this instinctive reaction. "He is here ?!" I exploded. My brother caught my wrist in his vice grip, the second before my palm left imprint on his face. He continues his advance until we both stand on the landing. Until my back is against the wall.

"What do you here, my sister ?" He had the audacity to ignore the more blatant crime.

"I would learn what you are up to !" I rolled eyes. "My daughter came for Culasso. And what do I find but .."

"Your husband sat with Culasso until the last breath," Tirindo told me, devoid of all emotion for the son he had carried home, and ought not to have bothered. "Go home. Ask him. Be not here."

"She is upset !" I pointed out.

"Her only ?" He crossed his arms, endeavouring to change the subject. I tried to push away from him but he put me back to the wall. "I came back in one piece, by the way. Your brother is unharmed. Thankyou for your concern".

Breath escaped my teeth and once again, a roll of eyes. "I will see him," I decided.

"You shall stay away !" He countered. "For the sake of your husband, Fea, and for your daughter. Do not look, do not ask, do not pretend that you have cause to reopen this dire injury. Let the scar sew it’s seam without ever raking it to scream."

My lips part to protest, but he says first, "You can not love them both, sister !"

He has, even now, not the slightest inkling of what I can do.

"You speak of love like the fish speak of flight," I told him. "You can not understand.

"Fea," he warned me, and a meeker soul should have taken heed but I fear not. He would never hurt me, he has tried. "Go. Now." He still believes that he can have me do as he commands. Naturally I took the best of courses where it comes to him. I pushed him. Hard. Away. Aware the stairs fall to nothing close behind him. He is lucky I did not push as hard as I might have done.

Still, eyes like slate willed me to be then sorry and as that has never been enough, hands crashed against the wall to each side of me. He punched close without ever touching me and I felt the power that never brushed my skin. Neither of us turn at the framed painting that fell from its hangings, and smashed in a tantrum upon the floor.

Finally my brother ceased his exhibit of strength and temper. His utter helplessness.

"Are you done ?" I asked him.

"If it were not for Laegon and Nariel I would applaude your reunion with Sarnirion !" He cast the words out slow, still shaking, as though it injured him to do so. "The pair of you deserve one another and I mean that as a compliment to neither one of you. I should find great joy in the tempest you stir within one another, never to be satisfied. You antagonise. You ruin. Everything you touch, dear sister, burns ! And there you sit, in childish distemper because you have not enough hands to hold all that you would toy with. You are a vile ... mean .... "

"Mother ?!" My sweet Nariel peered around the doorway to Culasso's bedroom. She ran to me, scowling at her cruel and heartless Uncle. I can only assume that she thought he will not let us mourn his son. There is no time and that was not the place to correct her.

"We are leaving," I clasped my daughter close, raised chin and refused to give my brother the satisfaction of eye contact as we each sweep down the stairs toward the door. He does not change. Even now. But there I am not surprised. For who else could take sight of all that remains of our kin, and care only for the heirloom he would rob of their unmarked grave ? He is cruelty. He is unfeeling. And dares to call me so, even as he denies me affection, for he would have it not himself.

"Give Laegon my regards," The heartless fiend bellowed, even in our wake. "We all Swallows were shocked and sorry to see him not in our number when we went to war. A broken arm must be very ... uncomfortable for him. Although most convenient for you."

That stopped me in my tracks, and Nariel, her cheeks still stained with dried tears, sniffs concern and confusion. As though my hateful brother is implying .. As though he thinks ...

"Everybody thinks it, Feapoldie !" He added fuel to his foul fire of lies. "Everybody whispers it behind your back."

I removed myself from my child and turned to face his atrocious allegation.

"Laegon's injury was an accident, Tirindo. Naught else. If I were to break anybody's arm on deliberate intent, it would not be his. I would rather slam a door on the arm of each and every Elf in the whole Gondolindrim army rather than hurt my husband. And what's more, if I had done so, they might all be still alive ! Culasso not the least among them !! Good day !!"

I left him to chew upon that some time. Nariel was cried out, and we were to our home.

"I know not if I should want the hurt within my heart to stop," my daughter spoke, "I can not think of Culasso without fresh tears. But to think of never again thinking of him .. I do not want to forget .." She broke off there. "Father shall be home by now," she consoled us both. Else sought for comfort I could not allow her. My dear love’s damaged limb had caused him guilt and overworking to aid the healers. But he had promised. And he kept his promises.

"Your father will be home. And for that we are so very grateful," I made clear. It was unsure if she had heard any of my brother's filthy rumours.


I can be honest with you, Diary, as I can trust no other. That Laegon is still of this world gives me yet cause to find breath, to know peace. For I need him, I can not be without him. He is what gives me cause to rise and also allows me to rest. I would break him all to pieces before I allow him to leave me. I shall allow no one to ever cast me into pieces again. For I have known the hurt of being left behind, Diary. I swore never ever again. It took Laegon to put me back together again. In that easy way he has of believing in me. In us. I wish I could be what he sees when he looks upon me. I can not be without him. I would not be here now, but for him.

But still, I can not help but yearn to be, if only for an hour, the me that I used to be. Before I ever shattered or cared to think that I could. Before I needed .. anyone. There is only one in all this world who still sees me now as I was back then. He who knew me best then, and has not known me all this time since then. Is it wrong to have grown up and found my place and be content, yet wish to reunite with the innocent playthings of my youth ? Most treasured memories like sentimental things we keep safe. I can function as I am, only when I hold up the charade that naught of before ever was. And so I am no longer her, I am no longer his, but I do miss her. The me that was.

I allowed myself to forget, until this day, until after I was so so sure .. it had been so long without word, and there was no way he would not send word. Naught could keep him, he swore, naught .. and I believed. Fool that I was. It made sense only that he must then be no more, no more than we. For he could not be just .. no more mine ? Here in this place of safety from all harm, has my past come back to haunt me. And there is no way out.

I told Nariel that Culasso was now in a better place. It was the truest thing I have said all this day. Tirindo should thank the Valar that his child is took safe now from this world we make for ourselves. I fear for my own, for my daughter, for my husband. I fear for what shall happen now that my past and my present have collided. What then can the future possibly hold for us all ?
All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not touched by the frost.

Chief Counsellor of Gondor
Points: 2 909 
Posts: 1281
Joined: Thu May 14, 2020 8:37 am
Taking the Black – Part 3

'I still look for your face in the crowd
O ! If you could see me now
Would you stand in disgrace or take a bow
O ! If you could see me now ..


(If you could see me now, The Script)


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Erfaron Silugnir – Scribblings of a Secret Satisfaction
Anghabar, Gondolin, 475. FA approx.


The valley is a portrait of serenity, a myriad of intermingling colours as the drawing day collides with the coming dusk. Roosting birds cackle beneath the painted sky, yet flee not from the streams of sheerest pitch black that roar from the earth, like a natural spring of ink. The House of Mole are done about their labours, and pour forth abounding from the depths of Anghabar, fair voices a clear orchestra of blended harmony to carry us to well deserved rest. An anthem sang of gladness, and accomplishment, and comradery. The joys of shimmering glories harvested from the deep with as much satisfaction as must a farmer reap his crop. The earth is our garden, and the jewels and metal that we yield no less splendid to awaiting eyes than are the flowers to the bees, the berries to the birds, the fruits of labour long. The earth provides. And we stood for the longest single, simple moment; unrivalled artisans of her illustrious cache.

The pool not so far from our employ is a source of vast empyreal rejuvenation; still waters reflecting the canopy of the heavens, and in their epicentre the glory of the untouchable moon, as though there sat an equally sublime, but feasible globe in her own nebulous depths. There we congregated, about this most hallowed mere, and fell unto her wet embrace, diving off rocks and dipping wearied limbs about the reverant nest.


This day I basked in the slow immersion of this body with the salve of the daily rite. The dirt of meticulous excavations falling away like sand through outstretched fingers. Tendons purge all tension and curl up in the nurturing cradle of the exaltant lagoon. Our reward. The water drowns all threat and thought, until there is only contentment, and the knowledge that we might showcase this latest tribute to King Turgon, when the shift switches. It will come soon.

Three months at a time, we rally about the deep quarry. An entire season spent in complete, cloistered seclusion, underground, far from … her. From everything. It leaves little time to wonder about all the things I strive most to forget. The simple joy of doing something ... all that I could wish is that my father might have seen me now.


There is always a moment, before I pierce the shimmering skin of the water's surface, when I glance down and see all the dirt laid out like testimony of our trials. The grub and smudge that all other Houses laugh at, as they preen in their feathers like peacocks and prance about in processions to pass their time. Dark garb by contrast do we dress in, dark and dour countenance to see their superficiality, dark hair thick with the darkness so that we may better love the light upon return .... The water shall see all that besmirching away with ease, and I shall be once more my mother's son, brow dressed in the shimmer of the stars. But for that moment, that briefest of moments when I dare to glance down at the rippled reflection, I see something of him. And so I wonder. And I hope. That my father may somehow knows, he had been right all along. Stone is everything. It shelters, it protects, and it stands as timeless legacy.

The House of the Mole are a thing that Father would approve of, were he able still to have mind of anything any more. I know that with the greatest of certainty. Aule is our overseer, in spirit as much as heart. And when this great gate is conceived, this final, this greatest of gates, then the city shall be so more safe that no Enemy shall ever hope to garner entry. And then, then when our creed strides through the streets of Gondolin, the people shall be glad, and proud, and all shall say ‘there stand the Elves, the ones who ensured our safe sanctuary. Thanks to them, thanks to Maeglin's House of Mole, we shall all have no cause to fear .....’

That is what they shall say, I have no doubt. All shall know our name and what it is that we have done.
All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not touched by the frost.

High Lord of Imladris
Points: 5 208 
Posts: 2755
Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2020 7:53 am
9th Day of the 12th month
TA3012


The dream of the first kinslaying still plays in my mind, I force myself awake though from it not wanting to see the blood of my kinsmen. The horror of it has me in sweats, and I wish I knew why I would have taken a part in such a thing. I feel that I need to speak with Galadriel on this for she would have some knowledge of this so that perhaps I can escape this horror in my dreams. As it is I now sit beside my bed my heart pounding like the hooves of Naharin my chest and I do not feel like I will be sleeping again this night. I fear though beyond all other things that there is some information there that I must learn so that I can find perhaps what has become of Melviriel, for what other reason would Lorien plague me with this horrible memory in my dreams?

Perhaps there is some name or face that I need to remember. Who would be there and what name or face I could find in the swirl of blood and death of that horrible time I can not guess. It took many months for me to fully remember Melviriel, I can only hope that this memory does not take as long.

High Lord of Imladris
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27th day of the 12th Month
TA 3012


My only relief in the constant nightmares of my past is that I took no part in the Kinslaying itself in those havens. It haunts me that I did not fight to defend my teleri brethren those that would be the closest kin my guess to Melviriel for when I think of her eyes from those dreams when I first began to remember her eyes hold not the light of the Trees in them. She is a Morquendi. She never made the journey or was born to family that did not undertake that journey perhaps with Elu himself for if she lived in Doriath for a while perhaps she was among the Teleri that were lost in the woods there.

I do not know what memories will be unlocked next I do know now that I followed my brother, though - he is not my brother by blood there, perhaps if I can remember his name and his family then I will be able to find him and find what happened to Meviriel over these many Ages. Has she like Finwe and after waiting long years for my return found another to love and hold and protect her? Could I blame such a thing? I do not even thing Miriel was asleep in the Halls as long as I was before she was reborn and returned. What do I do if she has? Do I sail for the west alone?

I cannot think of such things. I must try to focus my dreams on the face of my brother and find out who he is so that I can have more names to ask of those in Lothlorien and those visiting from the Woodland Realm though their visits are rare here, Imladris though oft has visitors come from there and perhaps I can get a message to Elrond or perhaps Cirdan who is still in the Harbors and is older than Elrond perhaps they will know what has become of Melviriel.

High Lord of Imladris
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3rd day of the 5th Month of 3013

I got word to Elrond. He is aware of Melviriel he has sent me word that she lives though she wanders now and he could not tell me where she has been or is, but that she has only recently regained her strength to wander.

She lives.

My heart is in my throat as I remember her smiling face from my dreams a light in her eyes of innocence and herlaughter a soothing balm on my mind. Was she still the same?

No. She couldn't be. I remember the Slaying in Doriath I can't remember her face clearly after that, but surely that dimmed that innocent light in her eyes, and then there was Sirion my own death I have nightmares of it I can hear a scream in those dreams but... What had that done to her? How long had she mourned before she found another to comfort her in the dark of the night? After all it had been six thousand years. Who could wait that long for love? What horrible twisting to ones mind would that cause especially as all of her family was gone, she was alone in terms of family. Did my oath brother live? Arasoron, I had remembered his name after I sent word for Elrond, I cannot remember his brothers yet though I know he was there at Sirion as well, I remembered him in face but their name more than fleeting memories of them are still scarce. Did they take care of her did they help her with my passing? Did they celebrate with her when she found another love?

Have they passed as well that she wanders and had to regain her strength? Were they ill? Are they traveling with her? I want to know who they are. I want to love them as well, because they kept her safe and from being alone even though I will be jealous of them if she no longer wants me. I will not begrudge her love or safety or a warm body to hold at night. I will mourn her if she doesn't want me anymore but I cannot blame her. I would have her
spirit whole without me than in tatters having waited for me.

Afarfin

High Lord of Imladris
Points: 5 208 
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Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2020 7:53 am
8th day of the 5th Month of 3013

Aigronding. That was his name. I remember it now. I remember his face as he looked at me when I died. I also remember him looking away from me and... and that scream.

How that was not the first memory I recovered I don't know, I don't know if I will ever forget that scream I don't want it to be true. I want it to be some false memory but I know it's not. My concerns about the innocent light dimmed in Melvieriels eyes from the slaying in Doriath... that was not the worst scar upon her sole. She saw me die, not just my body afterwards she saw me die. Did she see Maglor run me through? I didn't even have the strength to give her comfort in my final moment, I remember saying her name I remember hoping that Aigronding would make sure Maglor did not kill her as well.

I know she survived, was it Aigronding or Arasoron that saved her? Aigronding held me in my final moment what did Maglor do? Did he hear that scream and feel his heart quake in fear? I could hear the pain in it, the rage. I didn't remember the rage then but I know that was what it was now. I wrote back to Elrond to try to get more information on what she had gone through and perhaps where I might find her.

Balrog
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Íreamélamar
307, SA

Dear sister,

I will not pretend to understand, the way our brother does. I will not pretend to not be hurt, no injured, by what you’ve done. I know why you did it. I know why you left. I read you letter. I still think you are a fool. How could you leave us, Akorlin? How could you leave me? What did I do to you that would make you want to leave me? Tell me, please tell me where I failed. Where did I go wrong? When did I stop being the sister you counted on, that you loved? I have gone over all my actions for the last three hundred years, yet I can find nothing. I am sure, though, that there is something I am missing. Did I not give you the space you needed? Did I crowd you too much with my mundane problems? Akorlin I am sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I thought talking to you about how I felt and who I was seeing and talking to would help coax you back out in the open. I was so wrong, and I am so sorry. You are my big sister and I looked up to you. I’m sorry that I drove you away. Surely it was me that did it. You would have never left our family if you weren’t angry at me. I’m so sorry Akorlin. Please come back home. Please.

I know Ñarmotar puts on a brave face, but he is hurting and I don’t know how to help him.

I’m so lost Akorlin. I need my big sister because I can’t face the world. You’re out there alone and it’s all my fault.

I went to a spot in the woods at twilight a few days ago, the little grove next to the stream where we went swimming? I thought I saw you there. I must be crazy, but I know it was you. I remember what your shadow looks like and I know what you sound like when you are trying to be stealthy. I didn’t mean to frighten you away. I called your name for an hour until my voice went hoarse. I begged you to come back, to make our family whole again. You must not have heard me, elsewise I’ve upset you even more than I could have possibly known.

I would do anything to make us a family again. I would do anything to have my sister hug me and tell me things were going to be okay, even as hurricanes beat around our ears. Ñarmotar tries to tell me things will be okay, that things are looking better and better each day, but I can see the heartbreak behind his eyes. He can hide it from our people, but he can’t hide it from me. Akorlin, I fear for him. He misses mother and father so much I think the weight will break his back. He stoops a little now, I catch him every once in a while, straightening and wincing in pain.

I want to back home to Gondolin. I want to return to our home in the Tower district and play hide and seek with you in the yard the way we did when we were children. I dream about it almost every night. Do you dream of our home too?

I was angry when you left us. I was hurt. I didn’t understand why you left. I still don’t. Perhaps I never will. I wish I could talk to you; I wish I could see you. Sometimes you feel close enough to touch, yet out of reach.

I miss you, big sister.

I miss you so much.

The pain of your leave-taking is still sharp. When I think of you, I can feel the hot poker pressed on the back of my neck. I know no greater pain than that. I don’t you aren’t doing it on purpose. You would never do something like that. I drove you to leaving somehow and I cannot forgive myself until you do. I will not rest until I’ve found you and begged you for forgiveness. Would you be able to forgive your baby sister? I miss you so much. I have no one to star gaze with me anymore. Ñarmotar is too busy and… and mother is gone. And you’re gone too now.

Please come home, Akorlin. It is so hard to face the world without you. When you were here, even though mother and father were gone, I felt like I could go on until I truly felt okay. What am I going to do now? Who can I tell my truths to? Who can I confide my frustrations and flirtations in?

The world is a quiet place without you.

Why did you leave? Why did you leave me all alone? You had to know that it would hurt. Didn’t you? Is that what you wanted? Did I anger you so much with my inane helplessness that you chose to cast me aside? Did I truly wound you so terribly that you would rather the company of wolves and wind to your own sister?

We are going to die without each other. Each of us.

Mother told me once that we three must stay together, no matter what, or disaster could strike. She used to make me promise to always follow you faithfully, you and Ñarmotar. But you’ve gone. You left us. What is going to happen to us now? Why did you leave? Why are you so angry? It’s not fair that you’ve left us when we needed you. When I needed you. Did I make you so angry that you chose to be selfish?

I suppose I will have to soldier on without you. I hate that term. I am no soldier, nor I wish to “soldier on”. I want to find you and make you tell me why you left. What did I do, dear sister? What hurt did I cause you? I am so sorry. I would take it back in an instant if I could. I would do anything to bring you back and make sure you are safe.

I need you back home, Akorlin. Do you need me? Did you ever need me? Were you lying and pretending all those times you looked happy? When we would sit and watch the stars or when we would try to weave tapestries like mother? Do you remember when I wanted to be a potter and father bought me clay and wheel to practice? I made such a mess. I could never master so much as a bowl. Clay wound up everywhere but on the wheel; walls, ceilings, bystanders outside the window, no one was safe from my horrible skills. You laughed too. You told me to keep trying, that one day I would be able to make a bowl.

I never did, but you never stopped telling me I could.

What do I do now? Was it all a lie you told me?

What did I do that was so bad that you would leave me and Ñarmotar behind?

I hope you forgive me one day, dear sister. I hope I can see you again and beg your forgiveness. And I hope that day is not too long in the future.

Solenzara

-------
[a letter delivered to a secret spot in the woods, unread]
Strange Fruit got holes in the flesh but it ain't gonn' spoil cause it never was fresh

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30th day of the 5th Month of 3013

Word back from Elrond, and he knows not what happened to her during those times. How I am not sure, it is true that he was a child then, so first hand knowledge I doubted he would have but surely with Melviriel living there he would have found out something from her. How closely does she guard herself that not even her lord knows anything of her past with the attack? He has suggested that I come to Imladris, as he can not guarantee the day or hour Fuin might come back. She travels at her own whims disappearing for weeks sometimes months from the Valley. She occassionally returns a bit worse for wear but never horrifically wounded by some blessing of the Valar I'm sure she did not know how to fight terribly well when I died. Indeed long years may have made her more competent but her skill lies with a bow beyond any doubt. Perhaps it is her ability to move stealthily that has kept her well all these years, I watched her hunt a doe once and if I had to get as close as she did with a bow the beast would be off before I'd taken two steps.

I will have to finish up my training here in Lothlorien and say farewell to my new family for the time being, my mother seems to know that it is coming but I think she hopes that it will be delayed longer and longer. Hopefully I will be able to be in Imladris early next year if I plan correctly.

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F.A 538

I have never heard such a scream from an elleth in all my life and it was mortifying and then she went for my last brother and I could not let her kill him. Afarfin had told me that she had warned him that his brother would kill him, I had not believed it not for a moment for I would never harm my oldest brother, and our brother Rassëdil would never do such a thing. And yet there he had been on the field clutching at a sword in Afarfins guts, and at first I'd believed it too and would have hoped to end Rassëdil as well when I caught sight of Maglor. Our oath brother and friend of Afarfin since we were young and his face was pale and he was looking at Melvieriel in fear glancing towards Afarfin.

I do not know what crossed his mind but I knew that there was no fight in him and that had she gone for him I would not have stopped her but she went for Rassëdil and I found myself leaping to stop her, she was not well trained with a sword but rage and loss can be a deadly combination, and Afarfin told me she had slain Noldo before in Doriath. She blessedly did not see me coming nor did Maglor for her charge seemed to frighten him, and I could not blame him she was a specter of death upon the field, mud and dirt and blood covering much of her he turned and ran and I struck as she lunged for Rassëdil striking her with the pommel of my sword in the way of her blow and I had hoped that would be it.

No. Instead she fought like a werewolf caught in a trap and it was all I could do to keep to her from landing a blow on Rassëdil. She kept screaming she had warned him, and that she'd been told. By who or what I do not know but I do know that even catching her and depriving her of her arms pinning them against her sides did little. I could not hold her and finally I struck the side of her head sending her toppling in the mud beside Rassëdil who was staring wide eyed not realizing how close he had come to death until the fight was over and Melviriel lay face down in the mud of the battlefield. That was certain. He clutched at Afarfin like a desperate puppy to it's mother screaming for him to stay with us but one look told me Afarfin was already in the Halls.

The sight of my brothers on that field. It haunts me as I know it tormented her mind. I needed above all to get Rassëdil and Melviriel to safety if only so that both of them could recover from the loss of Afarfin. Rassëdil carried Afarfin's body and I Melviriels in case she awoke and went berserk once more. We made it to the ocean hiding and running and I found hemp rope from a small boat no longer sea worthy to bind Melviriel so that we might have a moment to rest where we did not have to be on guard of her waking up. I do not know how long we waited but the ships of Cirdan eventually appeared and carried us beyond the reaches of Maglor and the other sons of Feanor.

And Melviriel rests now. At least I hope she does in the hold of the ship, bound to the mast for she almost escaped once already, and it will be some time more before we make land again for we are seeking out other survivors of the kinslaying before we return to safe harbor. I pray that she will regain her proper senses soon though her grief must be thick, I know they planned to wed soon how cruel a fate.

Arasoron

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**This entry and it’s two succeeding segments are set before the previously posted entries of meeting Maeglin/Moles (above)

Home is Where the Hurt is ... (1 of 3)

Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad !
only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!
Oh, God! it is unutterable! I can not live without my life!
I can not live without my soul !

.. You know that I could as soon forget you as my existence!
””

(Heathcliff, Wuthering Heights)



Image

Erfaron Silugnir
Gondolin
Days after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, FA 472


There is naught alike to walking through a door unto a warmest welcome and a vast adoring crowd that call aloud your name with joy and relief that you have come back to them. Indeed, tonight was naught like that at all. The tide of faces ... that was present, and even the hastily constructed banner that they waved and jostled with excitement ... but it was not my name that they had set out with fervour in bright colours and great jubilation. It was not me that they looked to clasp back to their keen, embracing relief. They were not expecting me. But I was all they were gifted this evening. Just me and a cool dash of great disappointment.

The whispers commenced as does a draught, a bracing shiver of a fear that slinks down the length of your spine and chills you to the core. Finally they began to give voice to the dreaded and unspoken question. "Where is Culasso ?" one finally asked with brutal clarity. Tirindo's expression should have been answer enough and yet they forced him to relay the entire account of his visit to the infirmary. The mistake. And soon they whispered, sank into their seats, and cried out in such grief I felt as though I had committed some horrific trespass by turning up in his stead.


One asked who I was. Tirindo's answer of course, I can recall plainly now, as ever practical he had been as long as I knew him. "We have a spare room," he pointed out, and led me without further introduction up the stairs. If I think upon it even now, I think I can recollect a new wail of grief that stained our calm departure.

And so began my first day in a new home, a new start. A life I had searched so long for, and now would have given anything to have died with all the others. Yet still at that point, I believed there yet was something that would make it all worthwhile. For why would he reach out to me, why did he not kill me, why would he even spare me the time of day, if not on her behalf.


"This is you."

The room as far as I could see was as far from anything remotely like myself. I did try to point out it was clearly already inhabited, by someone with horrible taste but his silence was answer enough. Culasso's room. Culasso's things. I was handed a box and bidden to commence with the gathering of everything that had ever made the small space "his". My accursed benefactor expected me to help, even as he made me feel criminal for moving any given thing from it's once assigned place.

The plan, his plan, was to later pass the box around the entire "Family" and see if everybody in the house wanted something to remember the dead by. The offer, I can see with hindsight, was meant out of generosity, but when asked if I wanted to keep anything ... from a stranger's now placeless belongings ... it cut a chord somewhere inside of me. I had nothing but what I stood up in. Everything I owned was back in Hithlum.. Everyone I knew and served with was now ....

Gone.


Tirindo finally leaves. Apparently he needs to find his wife, he says. She is upset, he says. As though he would even need to tell me that. As if I don't have any concept what that means. When I grieved loss before he had any proper concept of the notion. Still he treats me like the child. The unmade bed did not sink quite low enough to match my mood. One thought keeps me going. One hope. One soul. My reason for existing, for surviving. If I am saved from a fate that stole so many of far more decent lives than my own, it can only be for her sake. For what other reason would the fates have brought me here, and now ? Why would Tirindo of all Elves take me into his home ? Clearly she has somehow persuaded her brother into tolerating me here, where she has a cause to visit. We shall be together again, despite all. She always gets her way. Not he, nor I, nor all the denizens of the accursed Enemy can halt her will. She is everything. She always will be. I can not be without her. All the time I was, I was not anything at all. I am her's. I can not wait now that the hour is so close upon us. After so long ...

He's locked the door ! Damn him !
All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not touched by the frost.

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F.A 538

I am not sure which is better the cries of utter rage, or the curses and demands to be left free so she could kill Rassëdil the treacherous snake. The ship has come to a quiet and terrible conclusion that the sobs muffled by the framing of the ship are worse. None of us have cried over what has happened in the Havens we are all awash with the disbelief of what happened. Melviriel in her solitude has no such social contract to the rest of us so on edge to keep her sobbing to silence. And the skys and sees seemed to mimic how she was feeling, the waves had us raising and falling and clinging to what supports we could when we were on the deck, keeping us from venturing to the shore and keeping us in the deeper parts of the see where the waves could not break us.

Her face and hair are now covered in a thin layer of dirt much of the thicker mud having cracked and fallen off her cheeks dark from the dirt but pale deltas of her skin show through where the tears rolled down her cheeks washing away the grime that now was beginning to sit fallen about her as it had dried and flaked away. No one else on the ship is brave enough to go near her Rassëdil is angry now accused of such treachery and having to defend our name as well as his own in that there were none on the ship that had not heard the accusation of him killing his own brother.

There are no herbs on board so I have no way of calming her or giving her any release from her waking nightmare other than to strike her hard enough to send her into unconsciousness but eventually that will kill her, and that is not the goal. She was to be family, Rassëdil told me our brothers last word was Melviriel, and it would not do us well to dishonor that. He wanted her protected given a chance to escape to the West and the blessed lands away from the wars, and it was what stung Rassëdil the most. His brother would protect her someone now accusing him of killing his brother - I have told him we need to try to make sure that she learns the truth when the worst of the initial pain has left her. That all she has now are the brothers of her husband she has no family to fall back on. He grew even angrier when the last time I got to close thanks to the swelling sea and she bit me.

I left her there to be tended my blood fresh about her mouth her eyes locked as I retreated. I do not doubt that blood has dried and is crusted and flaking off now for I have been tended and am trying to calm myself so that I do not follow Rassëdil for the time being.

Arasoron

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Home is Where the Hurt is ... (2 of 3)

Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued [his] attachment more than mine -- If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years, as I could in a day. And [she] has a heart as deep as I have; the sea could be as readily contained in that horse-trough, as her whole affection be monopolized by him -- Tush ! He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse -- It is not in him to be loved like me, how can she love in him what he has not ?”

“He might as well plant an oak in a flowerpot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigour in the soil of his shallow cares!


(Heathcliff, Wuthering Heights)


Image

Erfaron Silugnir
Gondolin
Days after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, FA 472

Hours, days, might have passed a week ? It feels as though great years have danced their fill beyond these four walls, so long I am forced to wait before the door is finally released. By now I know the scene from my new window as though it is already a memory. It resembles such, in truth. I never imagined that I should lay eyes upon so fair a sight as Tirion anew. Yet here the scent of some scant recollection teases me to search what once so familiar flowers send their wares, wafting out upon the evening breeze. The gentle climb of flutes marches down streets that fall to silent reverence for their glory, and then, when all else grows properly quiet, the soft dapple of a water fountain.... tickles thoughts of once upon a time.

I have closed my eyes and fallen for the ruse, over and again, almost believing that I was in fact back home. And imagination whirs my hope into a frenzy that all I have known since last I set foot in my origins has all been in truth some horrific prophecy that I have foreseen only for the purpose that I might know better, before I need to know what to do; to somehow skirt about it's ill portent quite entirely. It does not have to be the way it has been. Everything can be well ... as it once was ...

But here, in time, I see the stars are altered, and the world is changed. Everything about the scene outside, once you look quite long enough, is but a pale reflection of what it clamours to replicate. A false projection. An imperfect copy. Everything is wrong. A tease, an untruth, a deceit. I hate it here


At some length my gaoler enters, wary as a bird facing a snake. Tirindo. He plays all nice. Meaningless drivel is given up in droves as gesture of some courtesy we both see through entirely. How am I settling in ? What thoughts have I given toward obtaining employment here within the city ? Do I have any questions that he might answer ?

I have but the one. Where is she ?

"Married," he states, firmly, arms crossed and all stern as though he is my elder and my better. He is only elder by some 500 years, give or take. He is not MY brother. He is her's. He can not keep me where I have no will to be. And he knows it. This short conversation is one we have both been dreading.

I informed him that she has my Father's sword and I will have it back. His argument that I had made a gift of it to her, and could not have it back .. I disagreed. He pointed out that she had buried it regardless, with all thought and all memory of me besides. I said it might yet be unearthed. He then informed me she had buried it ... in Vinyamar. Beyond all reach, as I should now accept she was beyond my reach the same.

He had no bow to hand, I noticed. He had no need for weapons to deliver up that crushing blow. That, disregarding the almighty blade I was now mourning, I should count myself lucky that his damned sister had let me keep my life. For abandoning her. For leaving her in the dust to wither and to die.


She had not died. I knew she would not. There is not a force in all the world that might conceive the end to her. And while we were on the subject, it was hardly my fault if he and his dratted father chose to physically come into our camp and remove her, against all will, back to loiter with all other cravens in the rearguard. If he and their father had left her with me, she would have been utterly fine.

That was when his fist broke across my jaw and I was swiftly introduced to the floor. Sore topic, I noted belatedly. He was never one to properly hold to a grudge though; looked more surprised in himself than I was for his managing so unrestrained a feat. He offered a hand for me to pull myself to height. He couldn't help but to mention though that even the vanguard had not proven so safe. Else my own father would yet stand of this world.

I took his hand. My foot hooked about his ankle, and the other slammed into his other shin. He found the floor soon after that as well. It is a brutally hard floor, I should point out. We both were now fallen, from what once we were and yet pretended to still be.


"Why are you doing this ?" I had to know. I could not keep from asking any longer. If he would not help me reunite with her, then what did he think he was doing ? Why bring me into his home if he cared none to observe me alive ?

Because, he said, and here I quote, it is the only house in all the city that our dear sweet Feapoldie would never deign to visit, so he informed me. Transpires that she hates him nigh as much as she hates me these days. He droned on quite a while about how it is all my fault. That every time he left her to serve his duty with the other archers, she was furious at his abandonment, and this is all because of my own abandoning of her. She took it out on him, because I was not there to suffer her wrath personally.

I had no words to answer that. If she had wanted me sincerely to come for her, perhaps she would have better not chosen to hide away in the concealed city all these years ! It had not stopped me looking. It had but stopped me finding. Until now .. chance had ushered us a twist of fate to make good purchase of ... he honestly thought he would prove the obstacle ? The stars have literally led me here. For why, if not for her ?


"Stay away from her," he warned me. That is the condition to my holding a roof over my head in this damned accursed place. "Stay away from both of them," he mentions the new 'husband' here as well. A husband who apparently requires others to fight his battles for him. I did try to point out that I never have laid eyes upon her husband, and have no desire to do so. I might just rip his heart from chest if I ever were given opportunity, to inspect the meagre organ and discover what it is she sees in him. Clearly this is but another of her games. It is blatantly evident to me that she has married this fool Sinda just to force my hand and make me hasten to win her back to my side. She always was a one for grand dramatic proclamations.

He finds this theory all very amusing, I can tell you. It is rather insulting, to think he is her brother and he knows her not at all. The games that she has played in all the time we were together ? She desires challenge and excitement, and everything that some fool who has never even seen the light could never hope to offer her. No. This is all a game .. If I ignore it for long enough she will grow weary of him and come searching for me.

Tirindo though, mentions that I should not have come looking to confront this "Laegon" at the city infirmary. That is where he found me, so I can hardly protest I was not there. Still he does not consider it truth that I was merely checking if a friend, injured in battle, had made it through the night. He demanded that I give up the name of my "friend". And I can not. Might be that I suffered some terrible head injury during the battle. My mind is blank, and the name escapes me entirely. The Halberdier’s son. It means nothing to him. So that is enough for him. I am liar now, apparently. He gathers up his height again and starts toward the door.


"Do not let me catch you lying, or speaking to Laegon, again, under any circumstances ...."

There is something in what he has said to me, that sticks. "Speaking to Laegon ... again ..." I have, to the best of my knowledge, never broken words with Laegon. I do not even know what he looks like ! But .... infirmary .... I did speak to that healer. I asked him about the Halberdier’s son .. The stars fall from the heavens with the force of such abrupt realisation. That healer was Laegon !

She had married ..... that ?

"Stay away from him," Tirindo concludes, firmly. "And stay away from her. Elseways I swear to all the stars, I shall brick up this door, and leave you here to rot !"

I pointed out he does not understand. Laegon is nothing to do with us. Now that I have seen her husband, I know Fea must have taken him in jest. He is scarcely a sentence in all of the novel of our unity. He shall not make up a footnote. He is nothing. It is only, ever, always, she and I.

"We have history," I pointed out.

"They have a child," he replied. Four words. And. They. Changed. Everything.


She had always wanted children. She had spoken on the subject endlessly. I guess she tired of waiting. I guess opportunity presented itself. Here in Gondolin, she has already found what peace and safety she believes is true. And someone else has given her that child. She always gets what she wants, does Fea. I should have known.

As if it would have made the slightest difference ..
All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not touched by the frost.

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F.A 538

She has gone silent, and with her the sea as well, there is hardly a wisp of wind to the air now, and I miss the screams and the sobs. It was easier. Much easier when she had been screaming endlessly cursing me to go down there and leave her bound. Now though she seems a shell of herself, and she does not even look at me now when I come down to the hold to make sure she has food and water and her needs tended. Her eyes have grown cold, and distant like she is looking off in some other realm. Perhaps the unseen realm? Though I've never heard of a Nandor doing such a thing, that is reserved for the high elves that have trod upon the ever green shores.

Her wrists are raw from her struggles still though so I know that she still seeks to break free in the darkness of the night as we struggle now towards Cirdans island haven. The storm blew us off course and I know that letting her go ashore even here would be dangerous for her, that the only safe haven is Cirdans perhaps once we are there we can send her like her mother to Valinor, it would be safer for her there, though I doubt she would go willingly, she wants revenge on the person who did this to her beloved and I am not sure there is a ship that could carry her now. Rassëdil has told me enough of her exploits that I do not know if her sailing west would be safe for the others on the ship. There is blood on her hands as there are on mine and I fear the wrath of the Valar should I try to sail westwards.

I head below soon for we have eaten and the portion of food for her has been made up and it sits beside me now as I write, and all I can see are those haunted eyes peering up at me through tangled dirty hair no longer red from tears bit numb and dulll looking. Afarfin would be angry beyond belief and I am not sure it is the look upon her face or the wrath of my brother when he is reborn that frightens me more.

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CW – some consideration of suicide
Home is where the Hurt Is (Part 3 of 3)

'I leave the gas on, walk the alleys in the dark,
sleep with candles burning, I leave the door unlocked.
I'm weaving a rope and running all the red lights.
Did I get your attention ? Cos I'm sending all the signs ..

I'm still breathing, but we've been dead for a while
This sickness has no cure.
We're going down for sure
Already lost all grip,
Best abandon ship ....
'

(Still Breathing, Katy Perry)


Image

Erfaron Silugnir
Gondolin
Some weeks after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, FA 472

Inevitably there came an hour that I was led patiently beneath a bow of golden arch, followed soon thereafter by the sheen of flawless silver ... I could tell in many words the wonder of the six gates that were set as sentries to mark and protect the hidden city and all would fall short. This time, unlike my arrival, I was awarded the time to properly revere their might and glory as unburdened by exhaustion, grief, and the Elf whose name I can still not for the life of me recall, as I took my passage through the mighty Orfalch Echor, leaving each wonder in turn until we came to stone. Tirindo was owed a duty upon the fine ramparts of the silver gate where, he reliably informed me, he would observe all and anything I might get up to, though some distance from his reach. Whether or not he believed that he might shoot me from that perch I know not, but the grim set of his features dared me to challenge his boast.

Very soon I uncovered the fatal flaw within the indomitable structures of those barriers. They were not built with the mind to keep somebody in, as much as keep them out. That is not to say it would for certain prove a terrible obstacle to anybody seeking to move through them, once they had been manipulated. The stone gate for example is devised to jam it's defiant mass in place, once the order is thrown. Then any attempt to shift said weighted impediment will be a feat difficult to say the least. But all means to throw the gate into lockdown were on the inner side of the defence. It was but a slip of hand to apply the correct leverage and anchor the gate into permanent position.

I meant of course to edge through the crevice and then pull fast, so that it was jammed shut behind me. Armed with a chisel of dolerite which I knew from my Father's unending lectures was a durable force to be reckoned with, I was utterly prepared to walk back out into the waiting clasp of liberation, and leave Fea, her accursed brother and the lot of them to rot behind the walls they had so fortified to hide behind. Let them stay there. I did not intend to. Not if it meant an eternity of watching her live out the future we had planned .. with another in my place. I would rather die.

There was a slight snag in my plotting, even though the outcry of the masons and the guards behind me all spoke of the fact they could not follow. The stone gate was NOT the final obstacle unto the waiting world. I had miscounted and forgot the wooden gate, where from a brace of grey-cloaked sentries flocked to help me try and force their way back to their fellows.

If it had not been my first day on the job I doubt they may have believed that I got us all locked out by accident. As it is, we spent a good long time sharing our stories and small fare until the whole of the masonry unit was called out to assist with the utter destruction of the polished stone barrier. After many, many more hours, of which some could be categorised as days simply because the guards refused to cut corners and compromise the safety of the city, we were finally herded back inside, as others readied to work around the clock to implement the replacing of the ruined barricade.

Needless to say I shall not be bothering to return, even if they would dare have me back. Already the jest about the mason who got locked out of his own gate has begun to spread, and I shall never live it down. There was a dread long lecture from some haughty superior who threatened to have me brought up before the King himself to explain myself in endangering the entire population by my own incompetence. I deigned to inform them that I had done it on purpose, in order to actually test the longevity of getting through the barrier, at need. Then he changed his tune, and threatened to have me brought up before the King himself to make a proposal about testing all the city's defences, as some confirmation for the faith that all Elves put in them. I noted that it might not do for one Elf to be solely involved in the quite deliberate ruin of all the hard work that had gone into the city's fortification, to which he thankfully saw sense.

Apparently Prince Maeglin has already begun plans to construct a seventh gate, that should supercede all others in it's hardiness and obstinate role. Which took talk around all those stood gathered to the Prince and how incredible he had proven with skill of arms during the recent battle. There were some that said he clear took for his mother, and the mighty Noldor. But still others spoke upon his Father, and the same unswerving resolution that delved deep within the nephew of the King. Words concluded on the matter of the death of Eol, and I have to say that I took up more interest then as they spoke of the one Elf who had ever managed to depart from Gondolin for ever.

This night, Tirindo repeated a similar tirade to those I had already heard before. And I must say I am sure that he is now quite exaggerating the limp to his leg, as though for sympathy. How should I have known that he had suffered some horrific injury by fire, until after our little encounter ? How could I not have guessed that it was of course, dear Fea, who had managed it .. albeit some years ago now. Still, all pander to him and hasten about as though he is some utter martyr. Meanwhile my jaw has showcased all the colours of the rainbow this long week and all I gain is glances of contempt. As though I started it. He started it !!

He has begun with threat of bricking up the door again tonight, and me within. I care not. I glance out my fractured window unto a deceitful sky and consider dropping from that height. Alas that such a fall should but offend my legs, and leave me but yet less able to find a way out of this trap. I would need to conjure a far greater drop if .......

Already a new plan is hatching to remove myself of Gondolin for ever. Truth is that it really is a last resort, but I am swift losing all will to carry on elseways. It is so unjust that the King allows for two Mortals to come visit and depart .... as though he believes they would never give him up. But his own people ??!! I can not comprehend the reasoning for his vicious decree and all consideration to write a petition on the matter causes only Tirindo to fall on his seat with laughter. I care not though. I am leaving. One way or another.

They can keep their waterfalls and shining streets, they can keep their music and their singing. Without her .... there is no meaning to any of it. Without Fea .. I do not desire to remain, within this city, ... within this world. The Valar persevere with their cruel vengeance for the fool decisions of my youth. Whatever reason I was spared from slaughter, I can not think that it was worth it, save to endure a further lasting agony now after. Tomorrow night, I shall take the swiftest exit. In pursuit of Eol, who is free from this detested prison.

They say he was thrown from the highest point .... I shall seek out proper specification on the morrow. Then tomorrow night ... I shall step clear into the sky and then away. For good. After all, a place like that is hardly like to be guarded. Who of all the souls that dwell in Gondolin would while away the cool hours of a restless night at the point where the Prince's father was killed ?

Who indeed ?
All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not touched by the frost.

High Lord of Imladris
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The sight of land has heartened all of us. We will be on land once more tomorrow and with fresh food and water after being tossed into the lonely tracts of the ocean in the storm following massacre at the Havens. Several voiced that perhaps we had ventured too close to Valinor with kinslayers aboard and we would all parish, I too had begun to belive this having taken part of that bloody affair in Valinor and killing kin in defense at the Havens. Surely though protecting ones self when attacked does not make one a kinslayer? Several thought to throw Melviriel overboard and let Ulmo and Osse deal with her - but that in itself would be kinslaying and so I managed to protect her from that fate.

I have only one reservation about land... and bringing Melviriel off the ship. It had been well over a month since they had set sail she'd not been freed from her bonds that entire time, and she likely was going to be weak and docile enough to handle since they were all hungry and thirsty now but her rage still burned. Her eyes are still the same that burning rage that I fear I know I will need to knock her unconscious to take her off the ship safely especially if Rassëdil is anywhere near. I do not want to find that even after a month of being bound and half starved like the rest of us she has some reserve and ends up doing harm to my youngest brother. No, that would not do at all and I will avoid it at all costs. The bigger issue will be where to keep her once we are upon the land? We need to bury Afarfin, and soon upon landing, perhaps that is why she burns... does she know that the white bundle neatly stored as far from her as possible is her beloved whom we would not leave to rot in the fens of Sirion abandoned to the Sons of Feanor?

I will likely have to leave her there in the hold until we have some place safe to keep her where she cannot hurt herself or others. Such a place now does not exist on Cirdan's isle that I'm aware of, we will need to make some stone keep to hold her ire, and that will take time if we want it to truly hold her.
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I rest ill each night, the look in my brothers eyes as I hold him haunts me the tightening of his hand upon my mail even as it loses its strength and begins to relax into the oblivion of death and her name her name on his lips before the blood chokes him and the light of the trees faded from his eyes and then all light until they were flat and dull and even the bubbling that I could only faintly hear before silenced. Maglor was there and I should have feared him, his blade likely would have found me next but...

She had come for me then, and the noise from her then, it was unholy, I think even Morgoth himself would have feared that noise above anything else. I know I did and I dropped Afarfin leaping back my sword at the ready I know Afarfin loved her beyond anything but her fingers were stretched out to me weaponless but far more deadly than any blade of the Noldor and my own sword was stained with blood as well, Maglor had turned then seeing her coming and had fled whatever fight had been left in him passing as fast as the life had left my brothers eyes. How could I possibly attack even to defend myself? He had her bare hands but I knew she would take my life no questions asked.

I was only spared by Arasoron finding her and striking the back of her head knocking her unconscious. My breath short and fast terror still in me when I wake. And now on this cursed ship all I can here is her wailing cursing my name and all of us on board, it helps not my mood or my dreams and my brother will not silence her saying she is broken hearted but I think some other madness grips her and perhaps it would be kinder for us to send her to the Halls of Mandos by tossing her overboard. It would be kinder for the rest of us as well though the others upon the ship look at me now from as if it were me that ran my brother through thanks to her words.

Rassëdil
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Íreamélamar
310, SA

Time is a funny thing. It stretches and bends, contracts, and twists and all we can do is run along the path that has been laid out for us. We can look back all we want, or we can stare at our feet as we go, or we can try and peer through the mists of the future, but there’s nothing we can do about the path itself. It’s silly, isn’t it? I’ve lived for hundreds of years now, seen horrors that people nowadays cannot even imagine, and I still feel like a child that needs minding. It’s like I haven’t grown or changed at all. That’s why I left. Well, it’s one of the many reasons I left. The more I think about it, the more reasons I find that I shouldn’t have waited three hundred years. I’ve felt more myself in the last three years than I have in the last three centuries. I had stuffed myself away in Bar-in-Gonagwelu, hidden myself deep in the crevices of the roots of the mountain and hoped I would come back to myself. But how can I?

I lost the lion’s share of who I was in Gondolin and it’s not like I can go back and find it there again. The Powers of the West saw to that. My world is gone, my family is reduced to three people. My brother and sister want to solider on, to find a way through the grief and come out the other side of the mists to see who they are and what they’ve become. I don’t want that. I don’t want to go forward. I want to go back. I will break the world if I have to, but I will find a way back to my home and I will never leave. I will defy gods and nature, but mark me, I will find a way back home. Would that I could take my brother and sister with me. They hid their pain well, but I could see it. I know them. I know them like reflections of my own soul. There is no way forward for them either. There is nothing but horror and pain and sadness in this new world we’ve found ourselves in. They cannot see it; they can’t see that the world is naught but tragedy. We are not meant for this new world.

I do not like the mountains and the streams here in Middle-earth, the trees pale in comparison to those of Beleriand. My father had such a garden, a world of green and viridian and vermillion. It was a wonder of the ancient world; my father’s Hanging Gardens. He had trees there that were found nowhere else on earth. He was an adherent of Irmo and through him learned to make the world a beautiful place of rest. Yet the world gave him no rest. Why should he have given so much to the beauty of the world only to be met with ugliness and death in the end? Time is a vile trick, used by those that can manipulate it so that others are broken on the wheel. When are the Powers That Be going to be held responsible? Their inaction has caused so much grief and pain, yet they sit in luxury and splendor. We are told that things “work in mysterious ways” but in truth they are just voyeurs who want to see how far we can twist before we break. I will not break, I tell you. I will not break. I will not break. I will not break. I will break them before they can do the same to me. I have endure lifetimes of pain and tragedy and misery. I watched my mother torn apart. Do I blame the dragon whose teeth it was? Do I blame the balrog lord who engineered the fall? Do I blame the goblin in charge of the troops? Yes, but I blame those that could have stopped it more. I will seek to chain them with their inactions as they have chained us by our actions. They sit in judgement yet refused to be judged. They took my mother from me; they took my father. They took my home and my friends and my people. Barely a hundred people made it out. Two houses and a tribe of Avari, numerous and vast, reduced to barely a hundred. And why? Because the Powers have a plan for us all? They give us hardship so that we can grow and learn and endure? That’s what zealots will say. They’ll dash themselves to pieces on the rocks of loneliness and pretend they are showing devotion to gods that don’t even know their names.

Would that we could see the future with the same clarity as we look at the past. We could avoid pain and heartbreak and loss. And don’t tell me that’s the point of living. Suffering isn’t the point of living. If we were really meant to suffer then we would never have existed at all. The bad outweighs the good, it always has and always will. Why is it so easy to remember all the tragedy? Because there’s so much of it. Good things are ephemeral and ethereal, they fade in the mists as we walk through them. The bad things that happen to us shape us, turn us all into monsters. Sooner or later, all of us will become the things we hated the most. I’m sure I am a disappointment to my mother and father. They would take one look at me and see the broken, twisted thing I’ve become. What good am I? What good are any of us?

What if we stepped off the path? What if we got into the bushes and the brambles?

What if we refused the path laid before us?

What if we could make our own way?

Defy gods and nature and all the rest? Defy expectations and disappointments?

I think that’s what I’ll do. No one has a right to set a path before me but myself.

I am I and if that is all I achieve in this life, that I might scream to the skies that they cannot have me, that they cannot make me walk or crawl or run because I am I, then then will be worth it. My life is yet to be determined. No Doom, no Oath, no Pronouncement, no Decree. I will not be kept down by fearful gods or webs of apathy. They will not determine my steps. They should not set your steps either. No one ought to let anyone determine who they are or where they will go. Scream with me, scream with me that I am I and you are you. Our wills alone will determine what is in store for us.

I defy Mandos, his Doom, and all that live in fear of his words.

Time is an illusion, nothing more than something that can make the world seem to make sense. We’re always living in the present tense. It’s so unforgiving when good things end, and I will always be back then. Will happen, happening, happened; will happen, happening, happened. We will happen again and again, but we will never be the way we were back then. If there was some amazing force outside of time that could take us back to where we were, I could hang each moment up like pictures on the wall, inside a billion little frames, and it would look like— Will happen, happening, happened; will happen, happening, happen. We will happen again and again, but we will never be the way we were back then. We will never be back then. *


[heard and transcribed by a scribe during a drunken outburst at a roadside tavern somewhere in the Wilderlands, delivered to Bar-in-Gonagwelu]

OOC:(*adapted from the lyrics of "Time Adventure" by Rebecca Sugar)
Strange Fruit got holes in the flesh but it ain't gonn' spoil cause it never was fresh

High Lord of Imladris
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FA 538

Blessed silence, from the banshee that haunts this ship, but with the silence the deadness of the wind. Curses upon us endlessly since we left the shores. It is as if we are lost to even Ulmo that we can find no land at all to turn to.

Rations grow thin and the only one that does nothing to aid in our return to shore is her, her and her foul curses that hang over my head like a rain of arrows fired from the mighty bows of Doriath. One is sure to find it's mark if only by the shear number of them, I see the looks of the other survivors of the Fen. I work twice as hard to keep peace with those that are aboard with me and my brother for many are survivors of that lost kingdom as well to our kin, and if it were not the last name upon my brothers lip... A dying wish that I feel to my bones and I would spit in the faces of all the Valar before I break that promise to Afarfin. But some days... his admission of wanting to toss you overboard as kinslayer had not helped him in the other survivors eyes either even if at first they may have agreed with it.

Rassëdil
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