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"Do not think me mad. A great hope has possessed me. I spent years looking for him...and only found what was left of Lord Maedhros. If Maglor is here, then...then nothing else matters. But I will wait."
Tasa looked with wonder upon her old friend. Tenacity she remembered, but this was beyond. She fixed him with an uncharacteristically hard stare.
"Nothing else matters? Would you now forsake your own life and those of your friends for the truth behind a voice on the wind? Would you forsake your happier memories of this place, of your wife, to replace them with hard-earned and hard-forgotten memories of battles and ghosted shadows? If love and friendship could so easily be forgotten; if..." she paused, trying with her gaze to make her friend see reason. "If nothing else matters," she spoke slowly and pointedly, driving her words deep, "then I do not believe I wish to continue this journey."
Her outburst had drawn the attention of the others. Even in her younger years, full of spirit and energy, she rarely spoke out thus, and never with the sole intent of making the listener writhe with guilt. Her mouth was fixed in a firm line, ungiving.
"Malris," she continued more softly. "It was a voice on the wind, and nothing more. If you insist, we may check it more thoroughly after the sun has risen and warmed the coldness of this place some. I think, my friend, that it is time for you to inform us why we are truly here... because I rode far to put hard memories to rest. I travelled long and silent to cast away my demons. Not to battle a whisper in the dark of night."
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