Narali was taken as a child,  her family broken. Her father, Barzan and her  brothers, Drompli and Kuran were slain; she and her mother, Velra were driven east in chains to Barad-dûr. Her mother endured weeks of torment there and did not return. Narali does not know how she died. She has never allowed herself to imagine it.

She lived many years as a nameless prisoner, a shadow among shadows, learning silence as a second skin. In that darkness she learned to listen—to footsteps, to breath, to the weight of stone and the spaces between sound. She learned how voices break, and how they endure. When an uprising shattered the gates, she fled west alone, guided more by what she heard than by any road.

Now she walks with Durin’s folk as a minstrel, unarmed but not defenseless. Her voice is her blade. Her songs steady shaking hands, mend faltering courage, and turn fear aside where steel would fail. She speaks little, but when she does, others listen.

The past has not released her, but it no longer commands her.

She is not unbroken.
She is still here.