Fall of the North RPG

[Garen LiLorian]

He digested her story slowly, unable to think much about it. "But... she will remain with the train, correct?" Thoughts swirled behind his eyes, but he was unable to do more then grab at them uselessly. All that seemed important was that his guard duties remained unaffected. "I.. suppose congratulations are in order, lady Erenor... I am confident that you will be wise and strong as the representative of lord Elrond." His eyes remained fixed on the floor of the tent and he wound his fingers together nervously until he realized what he was doing and stopped.

"And... as for me." He swallowed. "You need not apologize for anything, lady Erenor. The name you called me... it should not have affected me so. It is my duty to be stalwart for you, and my weakness if I cannot be so. It is I who must apologize, truly. It is just... an old wound, and one I had thought closed. Truly, not worthy of my lady's attention." He withdrew further back into himself, walling himself off with his courtesy. He raised his eyes to hers again, showing but a flicker of his emotion in the cool depths of his dispassion. "Is this all that was bothering you, milady? If so, I" His voice cracked once again, his eyes flashing. "I would like to know... where you heard that name you uttered in the tunnel. And why you chose to call me... that." He clenched his fists. "And.. I would ask that you do not do it ever again, milady. I hope I am not being presumptuous, but it is for you and not me that I ask... Clearly, I am not... I cannot." He bowed his head again. "Don't... call me that..." He whispered. "I'm not that person anymore..."

[Mithalwen]

Erenor let Angore finish speaking, forcing herself to use the skills long learnt in council to remember points raised in order to deal with as the moment came. And with one set of emotions repressed others required an outlet. Her voice became as cold and contained as his.

" I think Bethiril is gone, Angore - why else would she give me the ring?" . Erenor knew not whether to hope she was right or wrong. It had been the thought of Bethiril alone in the snow that had stopped her from ... well as things were turning out stopped her from offering herself up to rejection and humiliation. She winced inwardly. "There is no need to congratulate me - I will return the ring to Lord Elrond if I survive - and that is not something I can assume. That is not a judgement on your capabilities rather on the dire situation the Dunedain have forced us into. However, I would not replace Bethiril even if there were longer a need for such a role. I am neither wise nor strong and if my counsel was held in any esteem we would have been safe in the havens long ago, and many lives would have been spared.

I am tired of death, Angore: the needless carnage at Fornost, the deaths of Gaeredhel and Rosgollo saving myself and the other hostages, the death of innocents and the valiant naugrim in the tunnels - and now ice and starvation meet us all. All are the consequence, direct and indirect of misjudgement. This is no place for me. It has all been a lie. I cared nothing for the edain until I saw their courage in risking their lives to save mine. I am not worthy of them. I sought high office to gain renown and honour the memory of my father, I sought battle to avenge his death. But no matter how many orcs, or spiders, or even trolls I slay, it will not release him from Mandos sooner. In seeking glory for myself I have endangered others maybe..." she wondered how her dispute with Angore might have affected the course of events in the tunnels, where the separation of the parties had proved near disastrous for all and fatal for some. She choked slightly.." I cannot bring them back to life, but if my fate is to return to Imladris, I will return this ring and beg work in the gardens or with the healers and try to redress the balance in favour of life.....

As for the wound I have opened - well I regret I did so but I have no recollection of my words in the tunnel from when I ran to aid Belegorn until I awoke in his arms ......." she cast back further in her memory .... " the person you were? Ah, I called you Maltore then? Well I shall not use it again....but I dwellt at Imladris long and I did know that was your name ... there was no malice in it. A name is just a name - it may reflect the self but it cannot change it. But since you give it such importance, I would ask you to cease this milady-ing. I recall that you too are of a noble line and my title a reflection of the role I no longer hold. If you would do me courtesy you would look me in the eye" .

He did so and for that time the eyes that had shown such anguish in the twain now reflected an equal fire of spirit. Erenor realised moments too late that this was the point she should have stopped, but one point remained to be answered.

" You asked if that was all that bothered me; well you must know the answer to that in your heart - whether it be of gold or steel - but clearly there is no point in speaking of it!". The fire went out of her grey eyes and they suddenly became too bright as she realised she had voiced that thought. She gave a low cry of anguish realising that Angore was between her and the tent flap and she had no where to flee. She could bear his gaze no longer and turned away curling up in her close wrapped cloak, and grateful that her long dark hair had come loose from its braid, to curtain her from Angore's gaze as the tears traced silently down her face.

[Nuranar]

The world was grey and cold, swimming and vague in the pale light. Lissi fell to her knees and wept out her sorrow, her sobs low and anguished. Something had broken within her, and her heart was desolate.

When she finally raised her head, her features were once again still and calm. But there was something stoic in that calmness that had never been there before. She gazed motionlessly across the moonlit land.

Carthor was gone. This was truly the end. Their fragile new regard, stricken by Brander's death, had withered when Carthor informed her he was joining the king. Perhaps he saw it as his duty, Lissi thought apathetically. She had disagreed - Family before country! she had cried out - but anger had fled with her tears. Now it was time to mourn. A time to mourn for their love, for their son, for what might have been.

Lissi sighed, a tiny sigh, and gazed up at the moon. She saw the path set before her with little liking; it was narrow and hard, and she could not see where it lead. But it was there, and she would follow it with patience and endurance to the end.

Stiff and chilled, Lissi rose carefully to her feet and stretched her cramped muscles. The sight of a dark, motionless figure, standing but a few yards distant, shocked her senses into alertness. Dumb in her grief, she had heard no one approach. "Who is there?" she demanded in a low, steady voice. Beneath her cloak, her hand grasped Faerim's sword.

[Amanaduial the archer]

Faerim watched Erenor go, and as the snowfall thickened, her figure faded after a few metres. He watched the space where she had gone until his vision seemed confused and befuddled by staring into the swirling eddy of flakes. The cold, the twisting whirlpools of snow around him, the distant, detached feeling that the snow and his recent encounter with Erenor had brought about...the landscape could have easily have been underwater. The depths of the ocean, beyond any help or worry...

He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, the cold air sharp in his respiratory passages, the prickling sensation in his throat reminding him that he was alive. Alive. Maybe others had died, but he was alive... Shaking his head, dog-like, to remove the flakes that had settled on his hair, Faerim rose in a swift movement, brushing them off his shirt and shivering, suddenly feeling the cold through the thin material: apparently Erenor had not felt it as keenly, and her presence had distracted him. A touch of his old humour made Faerim grin to himself – if he died of pneumonia, he’d be having serious words with that elf. Swinging his coat loosely over his shoulders, the boy began to walk slowly to the tent that his parents had been staying in, but the path was a slow one, for, like a child, he tried to walk as quietly as possible, trying to imitate Erenor’s silent step over the snow. So absorbed was he in this childish game that he remained oblivious of the fanged danger that lurked not far off in the snow-quilted landscape – and it was only at the last moment that he saw a immediate and, in a way, worse danger, and the reason he had taken so long to get to the tent: a hunched form, highlighted dimly by the light of the tent behind her, kneeling as if in silent homage to the moon, but shaking, ever so slightly. His mother, weeping.

Faerim did not move for a moment, simply standing motionless some distance from the woman. This was why he had been in no hurry to reach his tent, why the young soldier had sat in the snow watching an ancient elf’s figure receding into the snow until his eyes hurt rather than come back – what was there to come back to? His brother was dead, his father a man who had been distant for most of his life, and his mother… The boy hesitated, not sure whether to approach, wanting to avert his eyes but somehow unable to, embarrassed by his mother’s sorrow: he had not seen her cry before, he realised. Lissi had been a strong figure throughout her sons’ lives, strengthening them with her stubborn refusal to allow the harshness of her life to weaken her in front of them. So to see her so broken down…

Before he could look away, Lissi seemed to gather herself, taking a deep shuddering breath and, after a moment, stiffly rising to her feet like a woman under a great weight – and turned to see her son standing nearby. Her tear-stained face was lit in profile by the soft lamplight from in the tent, and Faerim saw shock and fear quickly blanketed by defiance as she groped to her belt – the strong woman he knew emerging. But the fact that he now knew that it was little more than a mask, however well maintained… Faerim fought the lump in his throat as he stepped forward towards her. “It’s me, Mother,” he replied quietly.

Lissi frowned slightly, her mouth beginning to form a word that Faerim recognised and which bit into his heart more harshly than the cold: Brander. Then, as Faerim came closer, realisation struck and her face softened. She looked away, hastily trying to surreptitiously wipe her face. “F-Faerim…I didn’t see you there, you…you surprised…” she trailed away as Faerim didn’t move, standing silently in front of her, and finally raised her eyes to her son’s face. “Oh Faerim…Faerim, he’s gone.”

Faerim’s voice seemed oddly croaky when he replied. “I…I know, Mother. But Mother, I was there with him and it was a quick death, he would barely have felt it for long-” Lissi was shaking her head, her long dark hair straggling from the wetness of the snow. A sense of dread stole over her son. “What?”

“Your father, Faerim.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “Carthor is...gone.” She drew herself up once more, her face pinched as she tried to keep her composure strong. “He went with the king, Faerim. He…he isn’t coming back.”

Faerim stared at her in uncomprehending silence for a moment, then, not trusting himself to speak, he opened his arms; her mask breaking, Lissi’s face crumpled and she fell into her son’s arms. As the snow fell around them, the youth rested his chin on his mother’s head and gently rubbed her back comfortingly as he closed his eyes and allowed a single tear down his cheek and onto Lissi’s dark hair.

[Lalwendë]

Renedwen's cracked hands dug at the snow and the cold caused a wave of pain to surge down her fingers and up her arms, but she was not going to stop. She knew there must be some kind of edible root buried here. The boy Gilly seemed to have a knack for finding the hiding places of the few edible plants in this frozen place; he would poke a stick into the snow a few times and then tell her where to dig. Each time she had found something to eat, enough to share with the few others who had survived so far. Boiled, these roots provided reasonable food, but they were usually eaten raw as people had now begun to get desperate to eat.

When she had first started to dig in the earth with her bare hands she had despised herself for such uncouth, low behaviour. It was something an Orc might do, but not a Dunedain woman. But then she had seen some of the peculiar things others in the group had found to eat and what she was reduced to having to do did not seem quite so bad.

Anything now, she found, was better than dying. She had lost her wish to follow her husband; as the struggles she had endured passed by, each one made her a little more determined. It was as though it would have been a waste to struggle only to throw it all away just by giving up. And, she had reflected to herself, if her husaband and father and brothers could make their contribution by fighting the enemy, she too could fight, by not giving up.

The child Gilly now rarely spoke. He took comfort in finding the roots that they ate, as though being busy was pleasure to him. But he did smile when he saw the baby, who was as healthy and placid as ever, so Renedwen took care that Gilly was always able to sleep right beside them each night; he found comfort from the baby, and she found comfort from having him near. She found it slightly odd that ever since she had taken him on, they had been very lucky many times. Did the child bring luck with him, like a talisman? She had almost convinced herself that this was true, and in any case, she did not like him to stray too far from her side.

[Garen LiLorian]

His expression passed through a number of emotions quickly, the most prevalent being surprise but followed closely by confusion. Whatever seemed so clear to Erenor remained clouded to her armsman, but he was sure of one thing; It was he that had caused her this distress. He reached out a hand uncertainly, holding it over her curtain of hair, wanting and fearing to offer words of comfort, uncertain. He clenched his hand and withdrew it again, dropping instead to one knee.

"My lady..." He stopped, then continued. "And you are my lady, whatever post you might hold, my heart... it has been locked away even from me for many lives of Men. What you speak of..." He shook his head. "The answers may indeed rest there, but I know not of them. I do not even understand the questions." He considered how to continue. "But... that you are hurt hurts me, and that the source of that pain is myself wounds me again." He peered at her, trying to discern her eyes under the curtain of hair. "And I would know what I might do to relieve you of this pain, my lady." The honorific had a strange catch in it.

He clenched his hands by his sides again. "I.. will leave you if you wish it, Erenor. I will not be the source of your pain." But he made no motion to move. "But... I would rather stay." This time he did touch her, taking one of her hands into his own callused palms. His eyes were confused but resolute as he looked up at her.

[Mithalwen]

Erenor's first instinct was to pull away from the contact that broke through her attempts to rebuild the wall around herself that had broken down so comprehensively in the past few days, but then the import of Angore's words sank in. She left her hand quietly in his as she turned back so that she knelt before him. Then pushed her hair back from her face with her free hand before placing it gently over those that clasped its pair.

She looked up at him with a smile like the first sunlight after a storm, her voice tentative but tinged with hope " Truly, you will not leave me? I was so scared you would.... when I was being crushed by the troll, the last thing I remember seeing was you, and I was glad; it gave a glimmer of hope before the darkness came. I realised how much I have depended on you ... but since then you seemed to avoid me - and I did not know why - then Bethiril spoke and I feared you might have to go with her and when ... .just now out there..... I realised how much distress I caused you, I felt certain you would go too, and I could not bear it. " She bit her lower lip and lowered her gaze again.

"Do not be troubled on my account, for if you will stay with me you will be the balm not the source of sorrow. Yet I think I cause you pain again - you do not look comfortable, please, sit "

Although they released hands they did not move further apart. Erenor noticed Angore flinch as he moved his injured knee, though he made light of her concern. She did not press the point. She had been overwhelmed by the realisation of Angore's importance to her; clearly he had not had the same experience. But she had reason to hope he might eventually let his sequestered heart realise what feeling another's pain as your own might signify. She would not rush him to find answers now. If they survived there would be time, if they did not... and her mind replayed his words and the memory of his touch.

"Do we have a chance to reach Mithlond, Angore?" she asked, and for once the "we" did not mean the elves alone, whose lightfootedness and endurance gave them an advantage.