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Old 09-30-2003, 06:26 PM   #75
Elora
Shade of Carn Dûm
 
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Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Kalrienmar
Posts: 402
Elora has just left Hobbiton.
Sting

Vanwe

The scent of damp earth filled her nose. Only distantly, faintly did she heed it. So tired that she ached, Vanwe drifted in a dark far more oppressive than that of the cellar she lay in. Her wrists and ankles were cruelly bound, but she knew only that she was tired... and somewhere deep within her very, very afraid.

The elixir she had taken at her mother's bidding was an unwholesome thing. It had stripped her of strength so much so that by mid afternoon she had been unable to even hold her head up or keep her saddle. She recalled her mother's hissed imprecations and warnings of what would come if she fell, but she could barely move a muscle to heed her.

She remembered also the honeyed words that followed closely on the heels of the threats. Words were a tangled mess that spun dizzily around as she drifted. She was cold and she shivered, wrists and ankles chaffing against the rope. Nothing made any sense, not her recollection or mind, nor what her body screamed at her in protest.

Yet, Vanwe had not survived harrowing years in the Haradwaithe without some measure of resilience. Perhaps an hour passed, or even five, yet she did manage to struggle back to the cusp of awareness and she clung to it as she had done so before, after beatings. The effort to open her eyes brought a soft sigh of profound exhaustion from her to hang in the empty cellar air.

It was all dark, not so much as a sliver of light. She was trapped! Trapped! This was worse than the cells of Gondor and Rohan! Terror welled up from deep within her soul. Hanasian's words bubbled up with them, warning her in the dark. Then her strength crumbled, having wrung all she had to come even to that point, and she fell back into the nothingness with Hanasian's words, Lespheria's voice and her mother all circling around and around and around until she knew no more.

Vanwe had not managed to even move an inch. Had she known that she would not be able to so much as lift a finger for another 12 hours, perhaps she would have found a way for one scream. Likely it would not have been able to make it's way through the cellar doors. In the dark, Vanwe sank to the bottom of an abyss so deep, created and waiting for only her by the foul elixir made first in Mordor by her own mother.

In the house, Naiore raised a brow, for she had felt the mad surge of terror and confusion of her daughter as keenly as she had felt the brush of the other's mind. She steepled her fingers before her and thought. Vanwe would need a great deal of convincing, yet the seeds were well planted now and could bear enough fruit to be of use. Another thing occured to Naiore. Vanwe was strong indeed to have been capable of even that. She should have lain in the smothering embrace of deep shadow for many hours further before being able to even open her eyes. Lastly, Naiore had to wonder who else had sensed her daughter in that brief, blazing moment.

Barrold had best return soon. They could not remain long now. Naiore drew out a dagger and needlessly began to tend it's wicked edge as she contemplated how to best use events at Annuminas to her advantage. Between Barrold in the south and the orcs of the north, she could be well on her way to establishing a new dominion, the kind she had never had whilst in Sauron's service.

But it all hung by a thread. She held the weapon they would use to stop her, and she was quite a weapon. Barrold had to deliver in order for Naiore turn Vanwe against them and Barrold was overdue. If she had to go out and pull him out of a store he was raiding, she'd extract her due from him in another way.
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Characters: Rosmarin: Lady of Cardolan; Lochared: Vagabond of Dunland; Simra: Daughter of Khand; Naiore: Lady of the Sweet Swan; Menecin: Bard of the Singing Seas; Vanwe: Lost Maiden; Ronnan: Lord of Thieves; and, Uien of the Twilight
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