She walked a delicate line these days. On one side there was the relative peace and sometimes happiness she had become accustomed to in recent days. On the other was nothing short of madness; past ghosts begging to be acknowledged and seen. There was one 'ghost' in particular that she wished would leave and never come back. She saw her everywhere now. She often appeared during the most inopportune times. Sometimes she came alone. Sometimes she was accompanied by visions of things that once were but could never be again.
-
She stalked through the pathways of Imladris, footfalls silent despite how quickly she moved. Perhaps if she moved fast enough, she could leave that insistent vision behind. A futile wish; but, it didn't stop her from trying.
With each step her expression, which she had failed to keep neutral, became increasingly more tormented. She shied away from anyone else who was out walking, opting to keep to the edges of paths as she headed for the falls. Her nails dug into the heels of her palms as she clenched her hands into overly tight fists. Her lithe frame stiffened as she saw reality start to fray on the edges of her vision. She turned away from it with a sharp jerk to the side and continued down the path.
She had been advised on what to do. She should accept the child she saw and speak kindly to her and not revile her. Perhaps a small part of her knew that advice was right. But she would not - could not - take it. She had already suffered enough already. Why should she have to suffer more to regain the peace she had already worked hard to find? It had to be some sort of cruel joke to have this particular brand of madness happen to her now, when everything was going well. Was she cursed? Was she paying for all the sins of her father?
Nautiel came to the edge of the falls and sighed silently, closing her eyes as the roar of the Bruinen washed over her, achoring her to the present. There were no phantom sounds of music, the clashing of swords, or words shouted in both Quenya or Sindarin. There was no expansive forest of green stretching out for miles and miles. There was no war camp filled with kinslayers and sons of Fëanor. There was no blood-stained earth beneath her. There was only the darkness behind her eyelids and the sound of rushing water as it flowed down from the mountains...
-
Until she decided to open her eyes.
She recoiled with horror and frustration as the vision of the child, Dineloth, sat on the ground before her, curled in on herself and staring out across the river with those sad, green eyes. Eyes that were a perfect match for own.
Accept her? Speak kindly to her?
Never. She couldn't do it. She very much doubted she could ever bring herself to do it.
Dineloth belonged in the past. She had left her behind in Doriath and that was where she should stay. Nautiel had no wish to give this sad, pitiful, resigned part of herself any sort of kindness, much less acceptance. She didn't care what the child could want. She wanted her to go away and leave her alone.
Nautiel knelt down to the dampened ground and felt her fingers curl about a stone. Her body was like a whiplash as she drew her arm back and threw it, but, something in her posturing changed at the last second. The stone flew through the air with lightning speed... and missed its target.
If she could force herself to scream, she would. Instead, the sound merely clawed its way up her throat and got stuck, unable to be expressed.
She kicked at the ground, sending damp mud flying across the path and turned away, starting off down the path again, leaving the child behind and hoping she did not follow or reappear. If she could not find peace in the valley this night, she would try to find it out in the Trollshaws.
-
The line between sanity and madness was growing quite thin.
