[littlemanpoet]

The girl was weakening already. The dreams he had sent had left her fearful; she had the useful flaw of self recrimination, which he could use to his advantage as well. And her heart was drawn to the ranger. All three threads combined, could be worked into a useful leafpack of woe. It was night. He sent her a dream.

In it she walked in the swamp, at the edge of the waters, and the beast rose from beneath the surface. It stretched a tentacle toward her, but as it did so, the tentacle became a slimy hand, and the beast became her brother that she searched for. He called her, begging her to help him. She wanted to help, but was afraid of the water. The more she hesitated, the more pitious her brother's calls. But she could not make her feet move. Then the ranger came to her, spear in hand, and yelled at her to back away from the beast. He pushed her from the edge of the swamp and lofted the spear at her brother as she cried "no!" - the spear caught him in the chest, and the brother's face contorted in agony and despair. Then the brother became the swamp beast, and began to sink back into the water. The ranger said, "See? I told you! You should trust me!" But even as he spoke these words, the ranger became the swamp beast, and the beast became his brother again. The swamp beast moved toward her and wrapped her in its tentacles.

Tharonwe left her mind.

The red haired boy was weak in body, but had shook off the despair. He would be harder to deal with, except that Tharonwe had detected a weakness that the boy could not hide. He had lost a loved one of his own. Tharonwe could see the images in the boy's mind, which were alien to him, for what he saw were things and places that had no bearing, that Tharonwe could sense, on Middle Earth. Lights were bright, but flat; tables and chairs were smooth and comfortable but dead with a sheen that he had not seen. But it was in this place that his love had died. That was perhaps why he was able to dream as Imrazor, of Mithrellas; but it was also why Tharonwe could persuade the boy that Mithrellas had died. He sent the boy a dream.

In it, he staggered back to his home, where his son and daughter waited for him. They asked for news, and told them that their mother had fallen to her death. They could not believe it; as the girl wept, the boy accused his father of aiding in their mother's death, for any true man of the royal lineage of Gondor, would have been heroic enough to save her. Imrazor looked on his son with sorrow, having no words to stanch the bitterness in his son, for his own despair stole his heart of any joy. He sent his son and daughter away, to Dol Amroth, to be brought up and tutored by the wise there, and himself, stayed in his mountain cottage, journeying from time to time, retracing the steps that he and Mithrellas had walked together. All the joy of his life was in the past, and no more joy could he have. No more joy could he ever find. No more joy. No joy.

Tharonwe left his mind, letting the despair echo in the boy's mind, and tying it to the memory of his lost love from his past.

He leaned against the back of his chair and rested. Then he cast his thought toward Nimrodel. She was not hard to find. Her despair was written on the tendrils of thought that issued from the vale where she stay, harbored and cared for by Mithrellas. He would have to reward Nimrodel's serving woman with a quick and painless death, for though she had served his purpose well all these years, she had betrayed Elvenkind by giving her love to a mortal.

Another tendril of thought flew like a hawk on the wind, out of the north and west. Amroth! He was near! And two others! Tharonwe closed his thought from the world, his eyes fierce. He would have to be careful and cunning; doubtless, they would know the nature of his own thought, and would track him down. He would be waiting for them. There was little time to prepare his defense.