She stands on the precipice. She stands upon the point of no return. The wind whips through her hair, catching her braided locks in its wild grasp and pulling threads and strands of her hair loose. The skirt of her tunic flaps wildly in front of her as she stares down the sheer drop. A sense of nausea overcomes her, and she stands upright once more so she does not have to see the bottom. Behind her, she can hear the shouts and wicked laughter of those who had pursued her through her forest home and through the unfamiliar lands of the Northmen and the Beornings. She has little hope left, and little choice. She reaches around herself and removes the case holding her bow, and her quiver, and she throws them down the drop first. They would be waiting for her at the end. As the voices grow closer, she casts another leery glance down the stone fall.
So this is where it has all led to, she thinks. Mornwi draws in a deep breath, trying to ready herself for what is to come. The voices grow closer. She moves back, and then throws herself into a sprint, hurtling towards the precipice. Her footsteps hit the ground in the same rhythm as her pursuers’ as they close in. An orcish screech rings in her ears, and she can feel a hooked hand swipe at her cloak and only narrowly fall short of her flight. She jumps up onto the stone siding of the waterfall and then pushes off once more, nearly slipping off of the edge as she goes tumbling down, down, down. Desperately throwing her arms above her head to twist her center of gravity… she crashes into the icy waters of the Anduin below. Her lungs fill with frigid water. Cradled by the cold, she finds her mind black of all will for several seconds, and she struggles to force her limbs to move. The brisk cold of the water turns her very bones cold before she can start the dash for the surface. She fights against the waves before breaking over the crest of them, expelling the water she had inhaled before even has the chance to breathe in the fresh air. The wind is just as cold as the water.
Heaving, gasping for breath, she spares a brief glance to the top of the crashing falls to judge the fate of her pursuers. High above, she finds the orcs sat atop their wargs, waving their weapons and cursing her fortune in surviving the fall. They turn westward, their hounds howling madness as they race to descend the mountain and meet her on the banks. Mornwi starts to swim with the current, taking sight of her bow case that had already gotten stuck against some tree roots. She grabs it and hauls it onto the shore, climbing out with it.
Best consider the quiver gone. Damn it! Throwing the case over her back, she continues to race along the shores of the Anduin in case she can catch sight of her quiver - or more accurately, her father’s. Likely a futile sport, as she had run out of arrows days prior, and was now just trying to cast the orcs off of her trail long enough that she could make more. Even the thought of making more is a fruitless pursuit - she knows little of combat and the arts thereof. She left home with few words to anyone and no plan to her name.
The elleth shivers and shakes as she moves along with the waters, but the currents only grow worse and more rapid the further south that she walks along with them. I must follow the Anduin south… perhaps in Lorien I may find rest, respite, and wisdom — or at the least, I will find arrows once more, though it is likely I shall find my own body laden with them. She raises her soaked head up to the sky, peering through the cloudless night to see if she could make out where the High Pass is. Yet the Misty Mountains are plagued by more orcs and wargs. The soft grass by the riverside pulls her boots in with every step and more force from her is required to pull her feet out. Now even colder with the winter air whipping against her, she holds her drenched cloak around her arms. With no sound of the orc riders closing in yet, the adrenaline fades, and she is left weary. I have been running for days, she thinks, with little rest and less food… and no training. I am no warrior. What hope have I that I shall even see the golden boughs of Lorien before being run down by these foes?
“Oh, Varda, please,” she whispers as she continues her hopeless wandering down the western side of the roaring river. In the distance, she can make out the Wolf-Denes of Anduin, and beyond that to the further west lies the path through the Misty Mountains. “Answer me this; which way did he go? Which road should I take?”
Mornwi drags herself further up the shore, coming to pause on a rock that overlooks the river. I cannot linger here long; I am far too out in the open. Despite the worrisome thoughts of being found, the cold keeps her still, and she draws her knees up to her chest. She shudders and holds herself close, wishing she was back home and warm by the hearth her sister once kept. With no light or warmth to be found in the home of her family and no reason for her to keep her sister’s memory hung up above a mantle when it should be returned to the one who is worthy of it, she had fled the familiarity of Felegoth and its darkness. But I have found a greater dark, dear sister.
She turns her weary gaze up to the stars, praying to find an answer in them. Her time is running out as she waits for guidance; whichever road she takes, she will be pursued. She can already hear the distant howling of the wargs as they have caught her scent again. I am not a warrior. I am not a warrior. I am not a warrior. With this mantra, hopeless, she rises from the stone and begins to move. Cold as she is, her legs burn with the effort of perseverance. She prays again to the stars that she will make it to Lorien.
