[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Tasa's mind was occupied yet with the sounds... she wondered at them, fearful, her Noldorian curiosity pushing her to learn more even as her softer side recoiled in horror. From a soft whisper, the not-sound had grown to a cacophony of battle, metal scraping metal, the screams of the dying, the splitting of flesh and muscle and the slow drip of blood from an already forgotten corpse.

Surely... surely it could not be imagination? If Malris heard nothing, if he felt no such relentless anger slipping effortlessly to surround them, then it must be only within her mind.

Tasa probed her defenses, finding her mental barriers weak, shattered in places from her previous battles with Giledhel and her minions. She could not block another mental assault. She could only hope for a physical battle where long unused muscles could effortlessly wield dancing twin blades. She could master any opponent with speed and cunning whether or not she matched him for strength. Yet she felt naked in the burning bright of midday, weaponless in the midst of battle. She heard the soft hiss of a blade removed from its sheath; the sound had no purpose, no reason for existence. Cirlach had long been in Malris's hand; Tasa's blades were strapped crossways upon her back, beneath her pack, ready to be drawn in haste from either side of her long, silvery golden braid.

As light from Cirlach's runes filled the dead air, Tasa witnessed her body as though from afar, seeing, rather than feeling, each limb begin to shiver and then shudder. She felt the air grow colder, though Malris seemed not to. The sound had come with the renewed light.

"Malris... the blade... put it away for the present."

He did as she asked, worry lines etching his brow.

The black lake now stood before them, deeper than either could guess, a surface neither dared to break. They stood a moment, watching, Tasa still struggling against that which every instinct told her to be true, yet that which Malris could not confirm even with an uncertain shiver against the lurking unknown.

A curve of white foam slashing across the murky blackness caught Tasa's attention. She reached over, taking hold of Malris's left arm, eyes wide with fear.

"There is something in the water..."

He placed his hand on Cirlach's hilt and the grating noise, before deadened once more to nearly a whisper, roared somewhere within Tasa's ears, echoing through her head. Tears fell in soft streams down her white cheeks.

"No!" The curve in the water cut closer to them, moving in a swift 's' pattern, coming from far and away to the left. Tasa grabbed Malris's sword hand and released it equally quickly as though it had burned.

With the contact, she had heard a rageful shriek of near ecstasy. With release had simply returned the grating of before; the angry battle sounds with a voice and unknown words.

Whatever moved just below the surface came nearer and nearer, now almost upon them.

"Malris... do not draw your blade... Please... your sword, it is the--"

She screamed over the sounds that Malris still heard nothing of, petrified, her words laced with agony. Sounds of steel on granite clawed through her mind, blocking her own voice from her. Malris's attention wavered between Tasa and the water. He had to draw his sword. The creature was upon them.

As a rain of oily liquid burst forth from the edge of the lake, a roar, now heard by all, came forth as well, accompanied by the putrid smell of stagnant water laced with rotting plants and small, dying creatures. Malris's blade was in his hand in a breath's time. Tasa's cold hand released his arm and she fell, unconscious, to the damp stone beneath them.