The trouble with promises is that, however much one might wish it otherwise, they are not concrete enough to sustain life. Words without deeds are flimsy, fragile things – too ephemeral to eat or drink or hold you up if the ground should give way beneath your feet. They give hope without change, encouragement without progress, affection without love. Even oaths, if made lightly, become as weightless as the breath used to speak them into existence.
It is in the months after the battle in Mirkwood that Filigereth begins to realize this. The old man had promised her a sword, a legacy, a mentor - perhaps at one time he had meant to act on his words, and promising her these things had given him purpose and direction. But now, with his brother slowly returning to health and the Order beginning to coalesce once again, he does not need her as a catalyst any longer. She had been a foothold for him, a very literal light in the darkness, and he for her, but she can read the signs on the horizon like a gathering storm.
Her insecurities and obstinacy, the fact that she cannot stand to walk in the boy’s long shadow – these will vex him, as they frustrated his courier in their shared vision. His willingness to sacrifice anything, even the people who trusted him, and his tendency to make promises greater than his power to fulfill them -- these will keep her from ever trusting him fully.
In her heart of hearts, she knows if there was a choice, it would be the boy. It would always be the boy for the rest of them, too, and so she cannot stay. Better to go on her own terms, than to hold onto something that cannot, will not be until they resent her for it.
She will not break her oath. She had sworn to carry light into the darkness, to protect the helpless, to bring hope where there was none. She had not sworn to stay in one place. It does not break her oath to leave.
There are very few things she needs to pack. It takes one night, and she knows if she waits any longer she will lose the nerve. It is still night when she makes the bed up flat with a note atop the covers.
Thank you, and goodbye.
-Little Bird
She considers leaving the sword – though it was given freely, her conscience pricks at the thought of keeping it, a constant reminder of what she will be losing. But it was a good weapon, and good weapons are few and far between, and to return the gift would not change anything now. Perhaps it was telling that the one gift he had given her himself, and not told someone else to find for her, was a too-big sword. A gift she could not use, given in haste. A promise that he could never fulfill, made in despair. No matter, now. It will hurt to leave it and hurt to take it, but she would rather have a blade than not.
Breigalph snuffles as she slips into the stable in the fore-dawn dark, only a single bird warbling its mournful song in anticipation of the rising sun. It feels at once like just a few days and a whole lifetime that she had left Gondor in the same way – alone, in darkness, and out of desperation. Once she leaves all chance at neatly closing this part of her life is gone, she knows this, but if she stays there will only be more promises, more words, more hurt when the promises are hollow. The Order would keep her close, would tell her they wanted her here, but their actions would never show it. She realizes this now – they had meant well, but she was not what the Order needed, and the Order cannot give her what she seeks now.
Better to depart now, while she has the clarity of mind to do so. She will not have closure, but she will have peace in due time, when this place has become a hazy memory.
I am sworn to valor.
I shall be courageous in the face of my enemies..
I shall be righteous and just in my every action.
I shall speak the truth always.
I shall be the light in the darkness, to safeguard the helpless, protect the innocent, and do no wrong.
So Filigereth, daughter of Angrenarth, last of the House of Sparrows and Warden of the Order of the Dawn, puts the rising sun behind her and spurs her horse across the endless plain of Rohan. There will be time to mourn later, for things that were and things that might have been; a past she cannot return to and a future now fading out of her reach. Until then, the path is straight and the sky clear, and the road stretches ever-onwards before her.
