[piosenniel]

Elora's post - Menecin

The stars were perhaps their most beautiful in early morning. Menecin had remained sleepless through enough nights to make such assessment with certainty. Imladris was peaceful. He was not. It was an irony that never failed to shred what little grip he had on lucidity. The rage and grief twisted upon itself a little tighter. It never got tight enough to stop.

If he stilled, he could hear the breathing of those that watched. As he studied the clear morning sky, he wondered not for the first time what they watched for. They were waiting for the storm to break loose. He knew it for he saw it in their eyes when they thought he was not watching. He never stopped watching though. To stop would be to surrender to the dark fog that sinuously seeped into every thought and dream.

Beside him lay a lap harp. He had left it out all night, instead of covering it from the cool air. A harp such as this deserved better. This harp had played with Maglor. Maglor himself had overseen its construction, had plucked it's strings. Menecin plucked at a string himself. Maglor had gone mad. He had watched it unfold before him. Another irony that did not escape him. He was following in Maglor's steps, but he had taken no terrible oath other than to love her.

Her face was carved upon his memory, as was her voice and her scent. He could feel her upon his skin still. Menecin's eyes closed, the ache rising. She was there, just beyond his touch. No evil was in her that could be seen. Yet her actions were filled with such malice of intent. The rage sharpened and the grief. She was there but was lost, as was he. Adrift in pain, the world shattered by love, vast gaping wounds in his spirit that did not heal. Neither did he die. Even in her pain there was no mercy.

"Perhaps a song to welcome the day will grant what succor sleep did not this night, Menecin."

He could not keep the bitter smile from his lips as he struggled to keep what raged within him in abeyance. The savagery must have shown in his spahhire eyes. It was a brutal light that was revealed to one of the many who watched over him.

"There is no more music," he snarled in reply. The expression of shock was to be expected. Menecin saw it too often to expect anything less. He drew himself back, sealing off his senses. A few short hours, when night was done and the day not yet begun, he allowed himself. He would awaken within him, undead, unalive, in the transitory hours of each day. He would float. He had been brought to anchor by the Elf who had watched him through the night.

Menecin unfolded his tall frame, clad in the customary finery of a skilled bard who had performed remarkable feats of bravery and courage. Wisdom gleaned from three Ages in Middle-earth blended with his distress, making him dangerous to any and all, including himself. He turned, and walked unhurriedly back towards the chambers they allotted him at Imladris. Their comfort was barely noticed by Menecin. All was hell.

Behind him, in the eastern sky, day's blush had begun. The stars winked out, one by one, and he withdrew into himself. The startled Elf trailed him, wary and concerned with the bard's beloved harp cradled carefully in his arms. Menecin closed the door to his bedroom firmly. The Elf found the harp's aged and battered case and gently placed it into its wardship. He straightened, looking at the wooden door that sealed Menecin away from the world.

As many had done before, he shook his head in sorrow. A hint of the bard's formidable passion and greatness had emerged, only wracked with anger. All of it was brought about by one woman, her name no longer spoken. Her bounty price was the highest ever set. No trace of her though, apart from the trail of ruin she left scattered through the lands. For her, he suffered. The Elf seated himself at a nearby table and inked the quill that waited.

Next to the date, he recorded his observations.

"No change, no glimpse of relief, only rage."

His quill hovered a moment and was then set aside. He did not add the other comments that filled his head. Instead, what he did record was the latest on a page filled with similar comments. Books spanning decades, hundreds and thousands of years, contained the same dreary pattern. How anyone endured such torment, refusing to believe that she was indeed what she was known to be, defied imagination. It would have been better that he did not survive. Sometimes, it is best if the healers fail.

The Elf rose once more and stoked the small fire in the grate to warm the room for the next who would watch Menecin. Within his room, Menecin sat disconsolately with his thoughts and attempted to free himself from madness that always loomed and never swooped to relieve him of self-awareness. He longed for it with a need that shamed him.