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Malris remained silent for several moments, his hands once more at his sides.
He had not expected to be...repulsed. For that was undoubtedly what had occurred. His mind throbbed, as if he had been struggling in some battle of the spirit once more, but confusion and guilt, not Orcs or Elves, were now his enemies.
His wife had found peace, at least. But Tasa, it seemed to him, had lost every vestige of it.
"Very well," he said at last. "We shall stop here...though it is...hardly conducive to sleep..."
Neither was it. The floor was as hard as the bedrock of the very isle, and as cold. The whole set of chambers were bare, except for the vast, oak-crafted bedstead, bereft of mattress or drapery. And Malris still felt the summons of that gentle son of Feanor so very keenly...
"There is unhealthy irony here," he added. "We are incarcerated in a room containing a bed neither of us can possibly want to sleep on."
It wasn't just Maglor's persuasion. The others...they would worry, they would search...would they stumble on more trouble, in the darkling places of the fortress that had too long defied Morgoth?
But Tasa was drained, utterly, and furthermore would despise him, would disarm him with the aggrievement of every Elven maid to every Elf, if he tried to talk her round...not necessarily even for her own good, which would naturally damn him utterly...but for the good of the others.
But what sort of authority do you hold over me, he could hear, an acerbic hypothetical utterance.
Who are you? Not father, not brother, not leader, not husband, your vows elsewhere...across the sea perhaps...
"You will at least take my cloak?" Malris asked, braving the actual Tasareni, despite his fears of the projected one. "I know I will have little need of it tonight."
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