With a gasp, she pulls herself free of the water. To stand under the falls behind the East Porch, water chilled by autumnal winds, was enough to clear her mind of anything.
My soldier.
My partner.
My fault.
She throws her head forward, breaking free of the weight of the water crashing down; she watches as droplets fly forward, lit up dimly by the starry sky high up above. They move slowly, entranced she watches, and for a moment the world is still.
If we fall, we fall together.
I know it will be you and I in the end.
Grab my hand. Do not let go.
Shivering against the cold water and the frigid breeze of the night, she steels her nerves and forces her limbs to move. Her white dress, soaked through, ripples gently along in the water as she approaches the bank. Looking up, she takes notice of the East Porch of the Last Homely House above her. This night, it is quiet. She remembers a time when it was not.
“I am tired of fighting, Cardanith! I am going to flee to the west at last.”
“Then you are a breaker of oaths, Mallossel!”
“...You always were so rigid in your beliefs, Oath-Keeper.”
As she steps, feet bare, onto the grassy banks of the river, she feels the fabric of her dress suddenly weigh down on her shoulders and her frame. Free was it in the water. Damp is it once she is out of the weightless relief. She begins to walk along the river as it trails back around in aimless winding to the front of Lord Elrond’s abode. Yet something nags at her mind; it pulls at her thoughts and dares her to look. So she pauses, and she looks.
“What I remember of myself, and what others claim to remember me as have become conflated. Now I am stuck trying to reconcile the two and find it a greater task than I ever imagined. Am I a soldier? A hero? Who am I to decide when others have for me? Who gave them the right? Or did I, in death; supposed as it may have been?”
The face that stares back at her is not her own. It is not as she remembers it. Ripples on the surface of the water distort the reflection, but she can see enough. Haunted, sunken eyes on a gaunt face like that of death itself. Her frame was thin. Lacking in nourishment, those at Tham Send had told her. Lacking in nutrients, lacking in sunlight, lacking in strength. The sleeveless dress she bore only reveals scars she was trying to forget. She remembers the lash of a whip.
She decides it is time to go.
