[Amanaduial the archer]

Amanaduial's post

Raeis glanced up, slightly surprised by the question, but was not able to look far enough up to catch the man’s eyes, her neck bent as it was beneath Morgoroth’s weight. She shrugged without thinking.

“Where will I go…” she repeated the question, slowly, then trailed away. Where? She had always assumed that she would simply go home; indeed, she and Voice had discussed it often, the latter conjuring up from their mind images of a faraway land to keep the elf hopeful. Raeis remembered them, in part: slashes of light which ripped across the darkness of that cell ruthlessly, wielding weapons of peace, warmth…

...dappled sunlight across the forest floor through the canopy of leaves overhead; an elf, crouched in the trees, her golden blue and beautiful, unscarred, unburnt…unmarred face turned outwards across the boughs to the far-off lands to the South where she longed to roam…nearby another sat, leaning precariously across with the ease of one used to agility and balance through these heady perches….a flash of intense light grey eyes, golden hair… Smiling up at her, she turning to him… “Just think, Rae,” he whispered excitedly. “One day…one day we shall travel over those plains, we shall cross the great Anduin, see Ithilien, Gondor, Harad: and you and I shall dance beneath the golden, blessèd branches of Lorien…”

Raeis stumbled on a stone and her good eye flew open – and she was astonished to feel it moist despite the heat around them, a burning, dusty heat so different from the humid calm of that summer forest, conjured from her own memories… She had not revelled in them for a long time, so many timeless days in her cells having passed since she had long since given up hope and the Voice had ceased it’s comforting murmurs of hope and freedom. Jeren took the strain from her as she regained her balance dazedly, still awakening from the vivid dream, and she nodded to him gratefully as she resumed her position: without his help she would have fallen under Morgoroth’s weight.

A kind act…but he cannot keep us company as the Voice did…it could help, could keep us alive in the dark prison-hours… Raeis blinked sharply and looked away physically, as if she could look away from the thoughts. She had lost the voice, had found companions in return, but she worried about the strange truth about her friend and tormentor in the dark: she missed it.

Raeis spoke abruptly, wanting to hear another voice in place of the emptiness of her thoughts, unaware of how alike this reasoning was to Jeren’s. “I…I will return home, I suppose. Mirkwood was…”

Home? You ran from the place that you called home, remember? Ran from your parents, your life, your name… home was not a place to you in that blissful space before your imprisonment, after you left Mirkwood: it was a person. One person. Caromanieth. The one person you can never return to.

The Southrons killed him.

Raeis shot a fierce look across at Jeren and was surprised when he returned it calmly, his eyes utterly emotionless. From inside her mind, Aman saw and understood wordlessly more from that exchange of looks than she maybe could have seen in conversation with this man in his whole lifetime: underneath his cool dark exterior, some bad memory brewed fitfully – some anger to do with the elves, to do with her, as her anger was to do with him. Raeis held his gaze then looked away, at the same time that he did, but a second later couldn’t resist peeking back at him through her shattered eye. The hurt at loss of the Voice seemed to dull a little: it had been wrong about these Men, both Grash, the one who had let her free, Zurumor, who had saved her life…and Jeren, whose thoughts seemed to mirror hers. The tips of Raeis’s ears twitched slightly as she thought she heard something with her keen senses from the way they had come but, lost as she was in thought as she was, and because the others hadn’t shown any sign of hearing it, she ignored it. Shifting Morgoroth’s weight heavily across her shoulders and pulling them both into a more upright position, she plucked up her courage and glanced openly across at the brooding Southron to return his question. “Jeren, home was never exactly a place to me, not once I left: home was encompassed in…in one elf. I left Mirkwood with him, and when I did...I changed, my home changed, my world changed - and then it was brought crashing down around me.” She paused, not looking at Jeren, then continued. “What about you, Jeren: where will you go, now you are free?”

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Bethberry's post for Darash

Darash sat confused and frustrated. After the near-deadly encounter with the bestial orcs--no better than charging, stupid rinombos-rhinoceros--iit had been with a relief amounting to joy that she had first seen Lyshka safe and then spied Grash. The two women had sprung on rejuvenated feet towards him, eagerness lightening their tired faces, ready to tell what they had seen.

Now Darash sat trying to make sense of it. She had run to him and taken his arm, pulling it almost, pointing back to the melee. She had gesticulated wildly almost, running on in her native tongue, describing the struggle and their near-escape, only to be put back under greater assault by Aldor's treachery with the orcs.

"Ahdor. Ahdor. Machumba nuwalla, esumba relege isbatu. Ngeme ebulu," she had told him excitedly. "Dtcekma." It meant carrion bird of prey, vulture, feasting off the dead, without honour of the kill. But Grash had looked at her with strangely glowing eyes. She had taken his arm again, drawing him towards the small bend in the path, so he could look back and perhaps see the traitor in the orcs' midst.

Grash had smiled at her as if humouring her. It was maddening! Darash had never before experienced such failure to be taken seriously. She had turned to Lyshka, pleadingly, her frustration clearly visible in the tight knot of her muscles around her shoulders. Lyshka had nodded yes, but shrugged, as if to say she wasn't sure. Darash had turned back to Grash, the fire of being thwarted and misunderstood shining in her eyes. The man had almost chuckled. He had not looked at her eyes; his own gaze had not met hers and staid there, but wandered off elsewhere. With a snort at this hare who did not recognise the vulture, she had stormed off, exasperated with him who seemed not to listen.

And so she had sat in semi-isolation, her eyes wandering from time to time around the group of her companions who were licking their wounds like animals who had escaped the trap. Lyshka had come over to her, hunched over as if to say "Maybe. I don't know. I couldn't see for sure. It was a blur like the whipping rain." Then Raeis had mouthed the name. The elf understood! The women knew. Why were the men so obtuse? Darash sat there, trying to rest, her eyes closed in the soft afternoon light, aware that Grash was watching her from time to time, but utterly without comprehension.