‘There is very little that scares me anymore.’
That was what she had said before and this simple fact remained unchanged.
But that did not mean that she could not be bothered, vexed, or frustrated in the extreme. A few simple meetings with that cook, Luissalch, someone she would like to consider a friend and yet could not quite converse with without hesitations had sent her mind into a never ending loop of questioning, uncertainty, and long suppressed negative emotions that she had thought could no longer bother her.
Was it pity that moved her? Maybe, in part, it did but even that did not feel right. Words that had tumbled out of his own mouth had been a perfect echo of her own thoughts long ago; that perfect refrain of disdain, fear, and even hatred that she and many others felt except it had been turned inward toward himself.
It bothered her.
Nautiel tried to turn her unruly thoughts toward rationality. Luissalch felt regret in extreme quantities and, despite how she had once viewed the lot of them as monsters, he was a person. All of them were people. How could she blame him or others like him after all this time had passed? How could she rightly do anything but extend kindness to a suffering soul when she herself knew what it was to suffer? And, as she had told him thrice now, she was no innocent creature – no pinnacle of virtue and certainly not a symbol of goodness in the world.
‘You are not responsible for your father’s mistakes.’
No, she had told him. But they had shaped her, burdened her, and without them she would not have ever existed.
‘I should never have existed, you know.’
-
Plop! Splash! Doink!
She walked along the Ford of Bruinen, tossing small rocks into the water every so often. Her brows were furrowed in deep, troubling thought and the corners of her mouth turned downwards in a frown; a stark contrast to her usual jesting smiles and the almost-ever-present mischievous glint in her eyes.
She did not like feeling like this. She was, thus, ashamed of herself. What sort of person looks at another’s suffering and feels dually about it? Half of her - the part she wished to listen to - wanted to extend kindness, understand that what had happened was in the past, and try her best to bring some measure of ease to his apparent misery despite not being entirely sure how to do so without causing further damage. The other half…
She frowned when she looked into the water and saw Dineloth staring back at her yet again – always present, always ghosting her every step like a solemn wraith; begging silently for the acknowledgment that Nautiel still refused to give her. She pressed onwards, ignoring that hated specter of her maddened mind yet again. Eyes the color of the new leaves appearing on the trees this spring searched the opposite shore where she felt that now familiar presence; someone unknown watching her every move. As of yet, she could see nothing of this silent stalker. Would they fire another arrow at her as they did the once before or merely watch as they had done since that day? Did she much care?
She shook her head and continued along the shore, one hand tensed and at the ready to reach for her spear or javelin as needed.
Her attention turned back to the roiling thoughts in her head. What could she do? Even her very presence seemed to cause him pain. She understood why, for he had told her. She was a living representation of what could have been his story as well. He could have made a similar mistake to her father except she counted him a much kinder spirit than Satarion had ever been in her experience.
‘He should get over himself.’
That is what Hravanis had told her. It was blunt but maybe she was somewhat correct. And even tip-toeing around him could have the opposite effect despite her best efforts. Luissalch might even pick up on it and it would make him feel worse as a result. Hravanis was surely wiser than she was and he was already so regretful.
He is a person, she told herself. Not the monsters she was taught to fear. They can feel sorrow and pain and regret like anyone else. It would be right to be kind… But the mere fact that her very existence invoked unspeakable pain within him also caused all those nasty feelings to rear their ugly heads in her mind, creating a further crease between her brows and acid in her stomach.
She felt a pressing urge to scream, to cry, to hunt down someone who had wronged her and make them listen to every single horrible, ugly feeling that they had caused so long ago. She had never spoken of it to anyone, not even those who had once shared her plight and hurt. It was so very long ago and yet the pain suddenly felt like a fresh knife twisted in a long festering wound.
They deserved it. They deserved to know in excruciating detail the long held trauma threatening to claw its way up her throat. They deserved to witness her anger, her sorrow, and the fragile, raw, and feral hope that she somehow managed to cling to through all these years. And she deserved-…
The elleth threw – no, launched another rock into the Bruinen, making a large splash, momentarily shattering the maddening image of the child she had once been looking back at her. She knelt down by the river’s edge and held her head in her hands, shaking like a leaf in the wind.
How could she think this way? How could even contemplate doing this to someone, let alone him? What was it about him that made her feel the feral agony in full? Silẅe did not inspire that in her. Even Hravanis did not bring such things to the surface. What about him caused such painful polarization in her? What sort of wretched creature was she?
Stop being scary like your father.
Pouring out the hurt inside of her would only inflict pain on others and there was already enough of that to go around. She had to get a handle on herself, lest she drive away the people she cared for and the people who cared for her. She would be quiet and find a way, as she always had.
She took a deep breath and stood.
Creak! Zzzshh!
Too fast for them and yet not fast enough on her part. No sooner than she felt the impact in her left leg, her hand closed about her javelin and she hurled it blindly yet with precision in the direction the arrow had come from with an animalistic, broken snarl that echoed through the small canyon. In return, she heard a faint shout within the trees across the river and yet, when she made to go in that direction, she dropped to the ground as the pain began to shoot through her right calf where the arrow had lodged itself. Surely this had not been the real target. Had she remained kneeling by the water…
Nautiel gripped her spear, crouched and poised to defend herself or move as quickly as she was able, waiting to see if the attacker would fire again or come to finish the job up close. However, no fresh horror came and she heard her attacker’s labored breathing grow further and further away, retreating with loud, quick footsteps over rock and shrub toward the southwest.
She made as if to pursue them… only to fall once again, hissing barely audibly at the jarring pain in her leg. Inwardly, she cursed herself a thousand times as she rolled onto her back, fist pounding into the mud beside her over and over.
‘Nautiel, I would see you demonstrate if you have learned anything I have taught you.’
Stars above! Not now! What good would that do her?!
She drew her leg up and toward her chest with her hands pulling at her thigh so that she might inspect it. The arrow had, unfortunately, not gone all the way through but the barbed arrowhead was not lodged in bone as far as she could see. Her features contorted in anger when she saw the make of the shaft and the fletching. It was the same as the last one – the broken pieces were kept still in her preferred hiding spot for her odd and ends in the Vale of Imladris so that she would not forget.
Much as she would love to hunt that archer down herself, she could not. The wound was bleeding profusely and, more than likely, she would be lucky if did not faint before getting to safety. After ripping a long piece of fabric from the end of her cloak and tying it about the upper part of her calf as a makeshift tourniquet, the elleth allowed herself a small moment of weakness as she felt the last vestiges of her rage leave her, letting her head fall back as she looked up to the darkening sky. Yet, instead of stars she saw her again; the vision of Dineloth standing over her, looking down with that ever solemn expression.
Nautiel was too pained and exhausted to wish the child away. As expected, she did not disappear from her sight. However, the child did something that she had never done before. She extended her small hand to her and turned her head to look up at the High Moor before looking back down.
Get up.
-
The help was refused but Nautiel did get up.
