“I have started to dance again,” she says in a gentle tongue, speaking over her knees where they sit drawn close to her chest. Dead and dry leaves crack into brittle pieces as she shifts her weight upon the ground, waiting for an answer that will not come. It has never come. With a sigh, she reaches down and picks up one of the russet leaves to hold in her hand. She turns it over, examining the spots where the bright red has turned an ugly shade of brown. Dying, like the rest of the forest in the fall. Dying, as the forest has ever been since the Shadow fell over it. Dying… but new life will come. As she feels a gust of winter wind stir her hair, she lets go of the leaf and tilts her head to watch it dance across the open clearing. Before long, it comes to lay gently to rest on the long stone path to the towering fortress of Dol Guldur.
Although a heady weight lies upon her heart as she looks upon the place of darkness, she shakes her head and dismisses the thought. For many days, months, and now years has she been coming to this grave, and quite comfortable has she grown in the fact that rarely has orc or warg dared to show their vile face to her in this spot. Could that be you, dear sister, watching over me? She thinks to herself. Mornwi’s eyes fall upon the earth in front of her. Though once the grave was naught more than disturbed earth, now grass and fresh blooms have overtaken it. Or, they had, at least until autumn stretched its withered fingers once more, and now the dried leaves of the trees reclaim it until spring returns. And how many turnings of the seasons have I spent here?
“Too many,” she answers aloud, the breath of her words as gentle as the wind as it stirs her hair once more. “Your beloved has not returned to Felegoth, know you this?” She asks the empty air. “Father says he is too sad to come back, but Mother will not speak of him at all. I think she is still hurting much too deeply.” Mornwi reaches out with slender figures; no callouses of labor or war to be seen, almost unsightly in the long shadow of the dark fortress ahead. She tries not to let the darkness frighten her as she brushes the leaves away. “I do not know if I can tarry here so often. Even if it be your grace that protects me here, it is still dangerous. This I know too well.”
“After all,” she adds, trying to raise her voice to sound kinder, and happier, and not at all sad like the myriad of times that have come before. “I cannot come to this place as often as I have before. This grave is not where you lie waiting for us.” Mornwi knows that much is true; that it was only the body of her sister that lies beneath the ground, and that one day they would all reunite across the sea and be a family once again. Yet even this hopeful thought is not enough to chase away the shadow of grief that lingers in her heart, nor the shadow that envelopes the forest in deep gloom.
As she traces aimless lines in the dust and dirt once the leaves are pushed aside, she continues to speak to the grave. “I still have your sword. I am treating it kinder now than when I first brought it back; I was careless in my grief. Now, it sits proudly on the wall alongside Father’s bow.” She digs her nails into the earth. Although both weapons sit in a place of honor above the hearth, neither should have been retired so early after their conception in the craft. They are more of a grim reminder. Everything that is made can always be unmade. A dagger for a bread knife. A spear used to fish. A weapon for a memorial.
Her thoughts trail off as movement catches her eye. A dark shadow in the distance chills her into stillness. Her breath catches in her throat as she remembers that moment in this place nearly two years prior, where she had lost that which she loved the most. Scrambling to her feet, she draws the sword from the sheath around her hip, waiting for whatever foul creature stalks the edge of the tree-line to approach. Even with the blade raised and the sunlight warming her skin, a terrible and cold dread sits in the pit of her stomach. The wind begins to pick up once more, stirring the leaves around her feet and casting dirt and debris into the breeze.
The wind stops. Her breath stops. Everything goes cold and she can feel the long shadow of Dol Guldur looming behind her, cursing her presence, cursing her escape, cursing that there was one who dared to step foot on the edge of its shadow and lived to tell the tale; cursing she who lived to come back and taunt it on the edge of a grave every day for two years. Her trembling worsens. Mornwi ducks her head and winces her eyes shut, praying to anyone who would listen that the moment would pass and that the shadow would go away and that she could go home once more and never return to this place.
Did you earn it - that blade you carry? Are you worthy of it, child?
She is not sure where the voice comes from, but it is not welcome. The accusation rings in her ears like a tolling bell that has nowhere to echo but inside her body. She bites her lip until it bleeds. She wants to stifle any sound she would dare to make until it passes. It has to pass. All things pass. This toll will pass. This voice will pass. This shadow will pass. It must pass. It passes through her like a venom that kills, sitting in her stomach until one hand lets go of the root to linger on the hilt of the blade she bears. It is not hers. She stole it from a grave. She has not earned it. She is not worthy of it. …I must return it to whom it rightfully belongs.
