[It didn't fall away into the sea in a night. It wasn't thunder in the earth that shook them suddenly and took them to the bottom of the sea to meet Ulmo in a violent moment, beyond their control and ken.
Instead, it was a slow sinking. The ground gave beneath them here and there, the sea rushing in only a few feet and then suddenly it was miles inland. Pools sprung up where they had never been seen before, rivers cracked into a thousand creeks where the water rushed in from the sea not out to it.
Fear was so thick on the air that it could be tasted. The animals fled, eastward, ever eastward in great droves. No elf could stop them even if they wanted to, predator and prey alike ran together with no fear for anything but the sudden unsettled hollowness of the ground beneath them that had been moving and shifting since the Host of the Valar had come and gotten their quarry and left again, leaving the Sindar once again to pick up the pieces of what remained.
It was a nightmare.
Mithiel had stuck to Doriath as long as she could. She sank into the trees she loved, helped people pack, and urged all the creatures that could move on their own. There was nothing to be done about her family home. She packed what she could but she had only herself and one horse so it was two, three bags at the most and one of those was supplies.
By the time she left the water was already ankle deep, her horse fussing at the far eastern side of the forest that she bid goodbye for the last time whose western end was already a good six feet under dirty, brackish water.
Somewhere under all of it the graves of her parents were lost to time, the grave of her king, the unknown resting place of her long-loved Princess. An entire two ages of the elves and their love and laughter and their tears dragged into the sea as if they had never even existed.
It was a ride of nearly two hundred miles to escape the now quickly rising water and cracking land. Sometimes she had to walk her horse, not trusting the ground to not give beneath them. By the time she had gone east enough that she was on solid ground again she was so far east she had never come this far in anything except her imagination. Not in over a thousand years of life.
The eastern mountains were now a stone's throw away, the trees were different, the air was still abuzz with terror and despite the trails of elves making their way down the coast or further east that she could easily join, Mithiel found herself a spot under a tree, unburdened her horse and just sat there on the shoreline using her elf-eyes to watch as Doriath slowly drowned and fighting the urge to go and drown with it.
Day and night passed, and she was unmoving, waiting for death or the sea to come and steal what little remained to her.
The second age didn't begin with victory, nor even a whimper. It began with weeping as Mithiel was. Silent and alone with salt burning in her lungs and the corners of her eyes.]
[There is a lot one could say about Kendis. In fact, it wasn’t unusual for a person, even the more reserved and retired of people, to take the time from their day to say something about Kendis. Afterall, to know her was to be forced to speak an opinion about her — as people who are loud, lively, and pontifical often find themselves (to their own delight, no doubt) the subject of conversations.
And in these plentiful, varied, conversations - stated to their face and behind their back - there was never a day in their twenty-seven years of existence that the word ‘heroic’ was used to describe their person.
Foolhardy, perhaps. Stubborn, constantly. But heroic? There was no doubt that Kendis was brave? But heroic? In the valiant, virtuous sense? In that sense, to be heroic was to be self-sacrificing. And Kendis valued themself far too much to sacrifice their person for anyone, let alone a stranger.
Or so one could say.]
Oh, ducking donkey anus. [She hissed low, frustrated before she could stop herself. The curse she used to mentally chastise herself was much more heavy and dismissive. There was no doubt that her words reached the ears of those she’d been doing her darned best to avoid.
Kendis had noticed this very early on in her arrival, about the thi – bein – humanoids they called elves. (Or was it protohumans they called elves? It was difficult to keep the history of a whole new place straight, especially because she was learning it in snatches, as she flitted from place to place.) These creatures had really fucking good hearing. Probably even better than her own.
Probably. And though they were occupied with their caravan of — their trail of mourning, they likely had heard her approach, heard her speak; a contradiction of her original plan of passing through these lands undistrubing and undisturbed.
Yet she hesitated a moment’s more, as if she could push back against the path her unruly own mouth had set her upon. As if her sharp gaze didn’t sense the way a few heads turned away from their trek and settled in her direction. As if she hadn’t already pressed her horse toward the body curled up under the tree against the shoreline.
It was a struggling of and conquering of will that they didn’t indulge in tightening the animal’s reins around their fingers, the urge to fidget was strong — but there was no need to startle the old lady due to their sudden foul mood.
It wasn’t too late for her to turn around. For her to head away and mind her business, to place as much distance - in the opposite direction - between herself and these elves. Between herself and the dejected body lying on the ground as if she wanted to sink into it, and stop existing.
It wasn’t too late – except it had been too late the moment Kendis’ eyes and ached with familiar understanding. It had been too late the second Kendis had made her mind up to help this person off of the floor both in the proverbial and the literal sense.
Because though Kendis Crawford-Louel might not be heroic … She was decisive, she was determined.
And she hated to see loss drag anybody down. For her it had been a bathroom floor, not a shoreline. It had been her older brother’s hand that had pulled her up off her feet. What did this person have?
Fuck, and why was she making it her problem?] Hey. Hey, you. [Her words were sharp yet her tone was gentle; the seemingly contradictory combination akin to the sudden rousing from a deep slumber. She sat on her horse for a moment longer. And simply stared down at this person the way a scientist might at a bewildering yet mildly intriguing specimen that grew in a petri dish, or a sovereign pondering a recalcitrant subject.
She rolled her eyes softly before she signed and eased her way off her horse. She didn’t approach much closer than that but her expression softened significantly.] What do you need?
[There is noise, of course. For elves there was almost never silence, their hearing was too sharp, just like their vision to allow them true solitude. But at this moment as she sat there, Mithiel was unhearing. It was as though her fëa was outside of her body, unable to connect to anything but the rumbling deep within the earth and the sound of water rushing forward and then drawing away cracking branches and dragging trees with it as it goes.
She is aware, vaguely, of the presence of others–the elves drawing away and something, someone drawing near but elf or human or orc, she does not care. Her bones could sink into the earth and she would not be sorry about it. How could she ever care about anything again? How could she be whole when her life was being slowly drowned, salt choking trees that had never been near the sea a day in their ancient lives? Trees that had talked to her, loved her, carried and cared for her? Trees that had lived before the sun and the moon and had protected her and her kin for all these long years?
Her horse is still nearby, loyal to a fault and watching the approaching stranger with the wariness of a wild beast noting the sudden presence of man or wolf, but still, Mithiel does not shift from her spot on the ground, tucked as closely as can be managed to the tree without somehow becoming one with it.
It is only at the very last moment she realises the person is right there and talking to her. Their accent is strange as she tilts her head slightly, listening, and then turns her dark gaze upon them. Her skin is ashen, her lips parched and flakey except where she had clearly been biting at the skin there. Dark circles are under her eyes in a way that elves seldom showed tiredness.]
The human caravan went northeast, about a day ago. [She says softly.] You will still be able to catch them. [because she does not want or need anything that can be given by anyone unless the Valar might spare a thought for their lost children for once, or even more helpfully, Eru might. But the One seems to have no time for them and their suffering and she drifts immediately back to staring out over the lapping water, deflated and unwilling to continue on or find a way past this darkness.]
[Her eyes widen as her brows do a fair attempt to slowly, sharply, melt into her hairline. The person looks – her siblings were the wordsmiths, the book-knowledged ones; and she’s sure there’s a poetic and nicer way to describe them, but Kendis thoughts are simple, if someone dramatic. To her the person in front of her looked wasted away.
Like, she’d figured that, obviously. That was why she had approached; she could see the etching of pain permeating from the other person like a miasma, even from a distance. However, Kendis hadn’t realized how literal the ‘wasting’ was. She hadn’t thought this person would look so starved and dehydrated.
And it was that reality that had the typically sarcastically teasing slant of their gaze widening across their face with shock the way an earthquake cut a hole in the ground, it was that reality that had them choking back a swallow of sympathy.
Wariness hadn’t fled from the scene but it had taken a backseat - or more, accurately, had been shoved there - as Kendis rushed forward, pulling her knapsack from over her should, and pulled out a thermos - one of the few things that had appeared with her in this strange place - filled with water.
She bent near the person. If they had heard what had been said, they made no obvious note of it, instead hovering carefully close with concern.] Can, can you hold yourself up, yeah? Can you do it, or do you need me to tug ya up?
[The noise, and as such the person was still there, blabbering in their strange accent as Mithiel had to force herself back into her body so she could listen. She blinked, her dry eyes aching at the movement as she turned her head to look at this strange looming figure again.]
Why would I get up? [Despite the dryness of her mouth she still spoke softly and melodically, her words rolling gently off her tongue. There was no bite to her, only confusion. Absently she brushed her dark curls back behind her pointed ear before leaning more heavily against the tree trunk, using it as a chair and comfort all in one as it whispered to her softly on the wind.]
Are you lost? [Why else would a human (she wasn't an elf, anyway) be bothering her? They had their own problems and also had been displaced in the fall of Beleriand.]
[Confusion was met with confusion and with it came a tendril of suspicion. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she took in the lack of parched, aching in the other person's voice, as she took in - essentially - the fact that this person didn't sound the way they looked. Again, that lurking sense of prudence whispered for them to 'go'. (Still, again, Kendis kept it in the backseat for now, shoving it backward as a reasonable explanation settled in their brain - they hadn't been in this place for long, but they'd definitely learned enough to see how elves reacted to things differently; maybe it was the same for thirst and dehydration - as they tentatively, yet assuredly, moved closer).
She sighed.] So, we can get you to safety. Are you lost? [If anyone could manage to sound as concerned as a fluttering butterfly and as exasperated as a clucking hen, it was Kendis. And they managed it clearly with the 'duh' unsaid yet at the tip of their tongue as they gently pressed their thermos into the person's hand.] Drink. [That was an order.] Carefully.
[Now that her attention was on this stranger, it was just as fixed as it had been on the achingly new shoreline. Mithiel could not place the accent that came with every word, nor entirely the reasoning for being here. Humans had their own problems and mostly kept to them. They did not fuss over elves, for the firstborn were more powerful and could surely look after themselves.
Until they couldn't.
Until Valar had no mercy and brought continents tumbling down in their carelessness.]
I cannot be lost, for I know where I am and I have nowhere else to be. [Nowhere that still has air to breathe and ground to walk on, anyway. Even if she scrambled to find what ships had survived this and were still going west–how could she face Aman and the Valar without screaming? How could she bear their presence when she was in so much pain?
Still, she takes the strange... cup? Flask? Thing, and takes but a sip.]
You need not worry about me. [No one should anymore, she had no one left who walked these shores. Not a friend, not family, no one who truly knew her well and not merely as another face who had passed by from time to time over the centuries.]
[Kendis made a sound, not quite like a scoff and not quite like a snort; and it was akin to the sound dogs made when they were huffing through their noses in skeptical disdain or sarcastic displeasure, as if they could physically and literally force that much air to billow out their nose to physically and literally show the world their opinion.
She didn’t roll her eyes. But it was a near thing.] Good thing I don’t need your opinion on that. Drink. [Kendis ordered again as her gaze moved away from the person sipping water and toward the shoreline, toward the gathering of elves that was starting to become too far even for her own eyesight.] Where you are doesn’t seem like mu – [Kendis’ teeth clicked together as caught what she had been about to say.
This time the breath dragged in through her flared nostrils was shaky, almost apologetic.] You – you don’t know what’s like waitin’ for you if you stay here, yeah? But there’s always somethin’. You – [She stops herself again, this time less abruptly. Her attention expanding from the person next to her and to their surroundings (if one could call them that; for what really was around them but despair and water?) and tried to take in what the person had been taking in. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t pretend that she could as it wasn’t hers to take in, it hadn’t been hers to lose.
But she could try, at least, to recognize it for what it was … if, for anything, only to avoid almost stepping in it (again) and further traumatizing the person she was trying to help.] We can stay here for a little while, if that's what you need. But -- [ She hesitates only for the space of a breath before changing forward. ] You didn't -- you probably don't want this, but I'm gonna tell you anyway. You can't stay here forever. I mean you probs could. [ They look at this person askance, their gaze very briefly falling onto their ears. ] But you shouldn't.
[Kindness can be delivered in many ways, some of them sharp, but there is a sharpness of her own that snaps back into Mithiel's dark eyes when she is ordered again. She isn't human, and isn't bound to the same rules or notions as they were. She is an ancient thing who has seen the world change time and time again, and today she is not buoyed by her usual joy and love of life. For as young as her body looks (always) there is something ancient behind those eyes that knew the world before the sun was born. Who knew darkness only pierced by starlight and fire, who had been on this ancient land almost as long as anyone ever had.
In truth, she might have been the oldest soul left from Doriath.
She takes another sip of water, watching keenly as this person stumbles over what they want to say to her–an order perhaps, or a feigned understanding? The tree rustles above them, responding to the ache in Mithiel that makes her want to scream even though she will not, one hand digging into the dirt instead.]
I could stay here until the rest of the world crumbles into the sea and the sun turns black. It would not matter if I went with it. If you are looking for lost lambs there are hundreds fleeing over the mountain pass who would welcome the help.
[ They blink. Then blink again in quick succession like the flutter of butterfly wings trying to keep purchase against an unforgiving, adamant gale wind. Yet instead of being blown away, the teeter-totter startlement that'd flitted across their face morphs into offense. She bristles. Then she huffs as she rolls her eyes -- the brief turn of her head could be counted as a win.
Maybe this person is right (they're wrong by the way, Kendis has no time or need to collect 'lost lambs'), maybe they missed the mark. Either way, they've gotten themselves a moment of silence.
A brief one.] If you didn't want my help, you wouldn't be drinkin' my water, lamb chop. Obvi there's still some part of you that still wants to keep on singin' along [ Kendis justs out a stubborn jaw as her pointer finger jerks toward the person in front of her, waving up and down in expansive survey. The corners of her mouth pinch for a moment before she sighs. ] An' we'll have to agree to disagree on another point, 'cause it would. Matter that is.
Some things one does by rote. [she says, seemingly apologetic–but about drinking the water not her lack of desire to carry on, offering it back immediately. Normally she might have cared about sounding careless or rude but she cannot bring herself to at the moment. She can barely bring herself to feel anything at all. It is as though she is floating in that salty water along with her well-loved trees, her home and childhood home drowning up to their necks in it as she too is drowning in spirit if not reality.] I think I have lost The Song, or elsewise never knew it like I thought I did.
[The Song is clearly something to her, not a metaphor or poetic licence. Something she expects this mortal to understand, though the secondborn do not have as detailed stories as the elves do on such things it was still a young enough world that they had not yet forgotten. Watching that finger almost makes Mithiel cross-eyed before she looks at the stranger again.]
It will not be safe after dark, the Host did not root out all of Morgoth's creatures and now they roam freely without a master to temper them. You should go. Thank you, though.
Oh so, it's cool for you to worry 'bout me but I can't worry 'bout you? [ She snips but there's a note of amusement made further clear by the ghost of a dimple appearing on her right cheek.] I guess that's one of those things that're rote to you too?
Call me assumin' but I think, your lookin' out for a stranger that's clearly annoyin' you's a sign. [ She hesitates and bites her lip softly for a moment before continuing on:] Your heart doesn't wanna call it quits any more than your body does [ She reaches out and taps her finger against the metal thermos. ] Despite what our brains might tell us, parts of us'll always wanna survive, we just need to find the motivation to do so.
You can't find your - I don't think your motivation'll strike you here. At least not alone. [ And Kendis wasn't the person to walk her through that; both because she didn't have the time or the patience for it at the moment. But also because she wasn't Ben, she wasn't Nora. She wasn't her dad. Some people were made to nurture ans support. ] Maybe you'll find it and your -- The Song out there [ They had no idea what that was. ], away from here. Like, I'm going to sound corny on ... real cliche but there's a whole out there, an' you likely know that better than me but, at the moment, your mind wants you to forget.
I have lived more lifetimes than you will ever see, there is no injustice done if tomorrow I am sent to Mandos. [But for a mortal life to be cut short there was nothing but injustice, a cruelty that could not rightly be put to words. Their lives were already so short, gone in a moment, that to make them shorter was not something she found tolerable.] It is not the same.
All my motivation has fallen beneath the sea or been consumed by wolves and oaths that should never have been sworn. [If he had not vanished, some say tossed himself into a chasm, she could have strangled that pretty neck that belonged to her supposed friend. Just thinking about him now makes her blood boil, that he could bring such wrath upon her people and fail to even collect his precious gem when she had spent centuries being his closest friend. When he had let her think that he saw the value in Doriath, in peace...
She doesn't even notice her nails cutting into her palm or the red that wells there, untended.]
There is nothing in Ennor for me. My trees, my family, my King, my Princess, my Queen, all are fled away or buried. My closest friend might as well have slit my throat while he was helping slit the throat of my second King or letting his children die. What do you really think is out there? Wonders, certainly, but horrors too. And friends who will betray, and love that will die.
I should have stayed with the forest, it is the only place I have ever belonged.
[’I have lived more lifetimes than you’ll ever see’. Kendis feels the pain of memories claw at her and squeeze until the grip is almost too much to bare. They swallow convulsively as their lids lower to shadow their eyes, as they squeeze shut briefly, as if she’s trying to push something difficult away.] You elves really are so self-important. [She murmurs low, the sound she lets out a scoff and an almost amused huff. It is on the tip of her tongue to get offended, to turn those words into a blade. Instead, with the harsh sound that’d burst from her throat and her wry smile, it turns into a shield.
She can – no, no pretend. But just be, instead. Kendis wants to return to her loved ones but it’s nice to be that … “insignificant” in the way this elf sees her. For someone who exhibited herself with a sort of grandeur, who exceeded in what she held passion for, it was refreshing to be seen as insignificant in the grand scheme of things. A person whose only life and responsibilities were the (supposedly) very short one she’d been granted.
The person she was, she had been before her life had been turned upside down in a way even the Fresh Prince of Bel Air could’ve never imagined.
The person who doesn’t matter in such a way here. A person with actual choices rather than the ones they let themselves, delude themselves into thinking they have.
Their choice now is to sit and listen to this self-important elf – or just elf. Maybe that’s in part why they’d involved themselves, exposed themselves. Because the compulsion to follow through here was familiar to something she would’ve felt last year, before her life went to shit with prophecies and past lives and powers, as it was free from the whispers of people who thought they understood her own decisions better than she did herself.
Because helping this person felt good in the sense – this was the kind of person her father raised her to be, this was the kind of thing that the brother she idolized would do. Rather than good in the sense –
Kendis sighed and shocked her head and tsked. At herself, partially, at her thoughts but also at this person before her.
She reached into her bag and pulled out some gauze without thinking. She pressed the person’s fingers opened and pressed the white, slightly scratchy substance against their skin.] Are you lookin’ for facts, advice, an ear, or some combo of all three?
Often. [She agrees, without hesitation because elves are. Though at the same time they are also often right, it was a delicate thing to navigate, to know your place without being cocky or arrogant.
But Mithiel didn't see how her desire to sink into the sea really made her self-important. It would not hurt anyone. Those left who might miss her would assume her taken in a raid or by some other misfortune, or to simply have died of grief as so many elves had.
Even Melian had abandoned them in her grief, now years ago, and though she did not die her absence signalled the death of her Kingdom and the people therein.
As much as Mithiel had daydreamed and drifted and wandered in ways and places she never should have for many years of her long life, she had never felt like this. Not when cornered by orcs, or when the great wolf ripped through Doriath. Not even when Lúthien left them and then later died.
Not even when her parents died, because someday, somehow she would meet them again.
But how would she ever meet her forest again? How could she replace a love that was drowning in front of her very eyes and would be forgotten by men and only whispered about by elves, too old and traumatised to want to talk about the place that had borne her all these centuries. Had protected her, sheltered her, loved her, taught her. Doriath had been her third parent, her teacher, her friend, her warden and her ward both for they looked after each other. The Ents and Ent-wives that lingered on the edges had known her all her life. The trees had known her name since before she was born.
How could that be replaced? How could that wound ever heal? It was not just a place, just trees and land. It was home in such a fundamental way that watching it sink left her breathless, and she did not care a bit if she offended this mortal who tried to fuss over her and act like getting up and keeping moving was the perfectly normal and logical thing to do as if her heart wasn't being ripped out of her chest at this very moment.
She wished she was dead.
More than that, she wished she had never been so she would not have ever known such grief that seemed to pile higher and higher in every passing moment.
She was cold and did not care, bleeding and it did not matter. She could barely even hear anything above the roar of the sea and the cracking trees, hundreds of miles away while she sat on this near-silent shore.]
Depends on what you wish to tell me, I suppose, for you cannot be convinced to just leave me here.
[A smile almost unfurls across her face; gentle amusement certainly warms her gaze, a sight not visible to the elf in front of her as Kendis’ focus was still on her hands.] That’s ‘cause I’ve made up my mind. An’ I’m more stubborn than you. [It’s almost a taunt, it’s certainly pressed out in a sing-song manner. A sharp contrast to steady fingers curled around bleeding palms. Carefully Kendis presses at the pooling blood. She turns the gauze into a smaller square and dabs the remaining clean, white sections against the indents.
She couldn’t help being a bit fascinated – her curiosity bubbling at her thoughts as she wondered about the strength of this elf, and of elves, in general. She had seen things but she hadn’t been able to quantify, to compare all she’d had observed. The priority had been on keeping things moving. But it probably would benefit her to jot down her past and future observations. Having it all spread out in front of her might help her better understand this world and its inhabitants, especially should she ever run into trouble.]
Well, I’ll take that as leeway to say what I want anyway, since you didn’t like exactly give me parameters. [She curls the person’s hand around the gauze and raises their dark eyes to take them, just for a moment. For a moment, they don’t say anything and it is as if they’re studying them. Or measuring them.] You can call me Cel. How ‘bout you?
I doubt that. [There is no challenge back, her tone is completely flat and she doesn't even look over or try to argue her point further. Mithiel was stubborn in ways that made even the Noldor cross-eyed sometimes. She had so often believed that will could get her through the shadow, that it could break a curse, that she could be enough to defy the Valar and perhaps even change Ilúvatar's mind because it was the right thing.
Not that it mattered.
But what did, as time wore on, dragging down the elves with it?
Some part of her still thinks that they could have changed all of their fates if only they had been more willing to rally against the inevitable.
Perhaps that part of her is sinking now to the bottom of the sea, inch by inch and drowning as it goes.
Mithiel is compliant now only because she is in shock, still, the grief is so near that it overwhelms her every sense. She would not know the difference between being sat on this shore, or in a palace, or tossed carelessly into the void with the other great defier of the Song.]
Mithiel. [She answers, softy.] Once of Doriath, no of nowhere.
Mithiel. [She murmurs, the name pausing in her mouth like a fresh bout of water after a long day of none. Mithiel. Mithiel. They won't be in each other's acquiantanceship for long but that's no excuse not to remember this person's name. Their tongue does a fair show of not butchering the strange tones and flow: Mithiel.] I'm sure you've heard this before, but it's pretty.
I'm sorry that you lost your home. [There is an unusual impulse that overtakes her but luckily she catches before her hand makes it too far upward. The tendrils of hair shadowing Mithiel's face beckons Kendis' attention and she feels almost compelled to tuck the loose pieces behind the other person's ears. Because something about them begs to have their face held -- Kendis dislodges the thought with a shake of her head and instead returns her focus to the other person's no-longer-bleeding hands. She cradles one in her grip, inspecting it until that she's satisified before looking over the other. When she is finished, she gives Mithiel's left hand a warm yet quick squeeze.] And I am even more sorry that my feeling sorry for you can't bring it back for you. [ She huffs, then murmurs more to herself: ] I hate useless apologies. [ Or maybe, more, she hates apologies that can't be supported by action -- because she feels that Mithian needs sympathy, though they may reject. And that, in of itsef, gives the words some depth.]
It's plain. It means daughter of the grey. [She says, thinking now that somehow this person who is speaking to her doesn't know her tongue as well as it sounds because otherwise, they would know. It wasn't some sweet epessë that extolled her beauty or virtue, nor did she possess the Noldorin habit of having many names from which to choose, she had not had a lover who might call her something sweeter or a good friend who did, nor even did she do any great deeds that might earn her a title or something more than what it was.
Daughter of the grey. Her parent's perpetual argument. Was it because of the thick fog into which she was born, or her father's silver hair? Was she named after the twilight of the world where anything lit by nature was desaturated and dim?
She would never know now, not until her parents walked the earth again. With how they had died, that might be centuries or millennia, if they ever came again at all.]
I lost my continent. My home. My friends. My family. My King, twice. My people who are not rotting in the sea are scattered to the winds, some fled east to the old Greenwood, [That is where Oropher and Thranduil said they were going, anyway,] others seeking the havens which may no longer exist.
[Kendis shakes her head.] It’s pretty. Mushrooms are gray. Clouds. Kittens can be gray, and everyone knows cats are the most wonderful creatures ever created, so. Pretty. [The ‘so there’ is almost as bright as a neon sign; the challenge is stated if not worded.]
[She pauses. Even she’s not so much of an ass to pop in with something positive after the litany, the prayer of loss, of pain. It actually renders Kendis silent. It makes their tongue feel heavy and stuck, like peanut butter gluing it to the roof of her mouth.
Her breathing comes out hitched and her nose wrinkles, as she swallows roughly. She’s not crying. Kendis isn’t one to cry – but in this moment they wish they were. They had never wanted to scrape open their heart to someone they barely knew in the past as much as they do now in this moment. Maybe it’s because she’s never known such loss in this life. And maybe it’s because there is an ancient part of her that understands it.
Their breath hitches.
And she doesn’t say anything for a moment –] You can’t die with them. Mithiel. [She swallows roughly.] You can scream, destroy, like – like you can waste away. But – [her breath hitches again] You can’t do that with them. You shouldn’t.
[The kittens are dead too, she thinks bleakly but doesn't say. If they were wild and without a home, no one would have thought to grab them and hundreds of miles is a long way for such small creatures to run even given multiple days to do so. She was lucky she got out with her horse given how late she had stayed, anything smaller that hadn't fled had no hope.
Mithiel's gaze comes back into focus as she looks at Cel and her totally-not-crying. It is a sad thing, there is little that could be sadder. It had all of the horrors. There had been war, torture, homes destroyed, families ripped apart and people killed. No one and nothing escaped it and this land that had been theirs almost since the beginning of time now sat underwater, slowly creeping further and further down.
She doesn't know what to do, entirely, she has nothing left in her to offer to comfort anyone. She cannot even comfort herself and as an only child she had always been good at that.]
I do not think I could scream. I feel defeated, deflated like a waterskin that has a hole in it. Námo would welcome me if I let go. [She adds the last sentence quietly, as if genuinely thinking about it.]
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oh, my love, don't forget me (when i let the water take me)
Instead, it was a slow sinking. The ground gave beneath them here and there, the sea rushing in only a few feet and then suddenly it was miles inland. Pools sprung up where they had never been seen before, rivers cracked into a thousand creeks where the water rushed in from the sea not out to it.
Fear was so thick on the air that it could be tasted. The animals fled, eastward, ever eastward in great droves. No elf could stop them even if they wanted to, predator and prey alike ran together with no fear for anything but the sudden unsettled hollowness of the ground beneath them that had been moving and shifting since the Host of the Valar had come and gotten their quarry and left again, leaving the Sindar once again to pick up the pieces of what remained.
It was a nightmare.
Mithiel had stuck to Doriath as long as she could. She sank into the trees she loved, helped people pack, and urged all the creatures that could move on their own. There was nothing to be done about her family home. She packed what she could but she had only herself and one horse so it was two, three bags at the most and one of those was supplies.
By the time she left the water was already ankle deep, her horse fussing at the far eastern side of the forest that she bid goodbye for the last time whose western end was already a good six feet under dirty, brackish water.
Somewhere under all of it the graves of her parents were lost to time, the grave of her king, the unknown resting place of her long-loved Princess. An entire two ages of the elves and their love and laughter and their tears dragged into the sea as if they had never even existed.
It was a ride of nearly two hundred miles to escape the now quickly rising water and cracking land. Sometimes she had to walk her horse, not trusting the ground to not give beneath them. By the time she had gone east enough that she was on solid ground again she was so far east she had never come this far in anything except her imagination. Not in over a thousand years of life.
The eastern mountains were now a stone's throw away, the trees were different, the air was still abuzz with terror and despite the trails of elves making their way down the coast or further east that she could easily join, Mithiel found herself a spot under a tree, unburdened her horse and just sat there on the shoreline using her elf-eyes to watch as Doriath slowly drowned and fighting the urge to go and drown with it.
Day and night passed, and she was unmoving, waiting for death or the sea to come and steal what little remained to her.
The second age didn't begin with victory, nor even a whimper. It began with weeping as Mithiel was. Silent and alone with salt burning in her lungs and the corners of her eyes.]
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And in these plentiful, varied, conversations - stated to their face and behind their back - there was never a day in their twenty-seven years of existence that the word ‘heroic’ was used to describe their person.
Foolhardy, perhaps. Stubborn, constantly. But heroic? There was no doubt that Kendis was brave? But heroic? In the valiant, virtuous sense? In that sense, to be heroic was to be self-sacrificing. And Kendis valued themself far too much to sacrifice their person for anyone, let alone a stranger.
Or so one could say.]
Oh, ducking donkey anus. [She hissed low, frustrated before she could stop herself. The curse she used to mentally chastise herself was much more heavy and dismissive. There was no doubt that her words reached the ears of those she’d been doing her darned best to avoid.
Kendis had noticed this very early on in her arrival, about the thi – bein – humanoids they called elves. (Or was it protohumans they called elves? It was difficult to keep the history of a whole new place straight, especially because she was learning it in snatches, as she flitted from place to place.) These creatures had really fucking good hearing. Probably even better than her own.
Probably. And though they were occupied with their caravan of — their trail of mourning, they likely had heard her approach, heard her speak; a contradiction of her original plan of passing through these lands undistrubing and undisturbed.
Yet she hesitated a moment’s more, as if she could push back against the path her unruly own mouth had set her upon. As if her sharp gaze didn’t sense the way a few heads turned away from their trek and settled in her direction. As if she hadn’t already pressed her horse toward the body curled up under the tree against the shoreline.
It was a struggling of and conquering of will that they didn’t indulge in tightening the animal’s reins around their fingers, the urge to fidget was strong — but there was no need to startle the old lady due to their sudden foul mood.
It wasn’t too late for her to turn around. For her to head away and mind her business, to place as much distance - in the opposite direction - between herself and these elves. Between herself and the dejected body lying on the ground as if she wanted to sink into it, and stop existing.
It wasn’t too late – except it had been too late the moment Kendis’ eyes and ached with familiar understanding. It had been too late the second Kendis had made her mind up to help this person off of the floor both in the proverbial and the literal sense.
Because though Kendis Crawford-Louel might not be heroic … She was decisive, she was determined.
And she hated to see loss drag anybody down. For her it had been a bathroom floor, not a shoreline. It had been her older brother’s hand that had pulled her up off her feet. What did this person have?
Fuck, and why was she making it her problem?] Hey. Hey, you. [Her words were sharp yet her tone was gentle; the seemingly contradictory combination akin to the sudden rousing from a deep slumber. She sat on her horse for a moment longer. And simply stared down at this person the way a scientist might at a bewildering yet mildly intriguing specimen that grew in a petri dish, or a sovereign pondering a recalcitrant subject.She rolled her eyes softly before she signed and eased her way off her horse. She didn’t approach much closer than that but her expression softened significantly.] What do you need?
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She is aware, vaguely, of the presence of others–the elves drawing away and something, someone drawing near but elf or human or orc, she does not care. Her bones could sink into the earth and she would not be sorry about it. How could she ever care about anything again? How could she be whole when her life was being slowly drowned, salt choking trees that had never been near the sea a day in their ancient lives? Trees that had talked to her, loved her, carried and cared for her? Trees that had lived before the sun and the moon and had protected her and her kin for all these long years?
Her horse is still nearby, loyal to a fault and watching the approaching stranger with the wariness of a wild beast noting the sudden presence of man or wolf, but still, Mithiel does not shift from her spot on the ground, tucked as closely as can be managed to the tree without somehow becoming one with it.
It is only at the very last moment she realises the person is right there and talking to her. Their accent is strange as she tilts her head slightly, listening, and then turns her dark gaze upon them. Her skin is ashen, her lips parched and flakey except where she had clearly been biting at the skin there. Dark circles are under her eyes in a way that elves seldom showed tiredness.]
The human caravan went northeast, about a day ago. [She says softly.] You will still be able to catch them. [because she does not want or need anything that can be given by anyone unless the Valar might spare a thought for their lost children for once, or even more helpfully, Eru might. But the One seems to have no time for them and their suffering and she drifts immediately back to staring out over the lapping water, deflated and unwilling to continue on or find a way past this darkness.]
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Like, she’d figured that, obviously. That was why she had approached; she could see the etching of pain permeating from the other person like a miasma, even from a distance. However, Kendis hadn’t realized how literal the ‘wasting’ was. She hadn’t thought this person would look so starved and dehydrated.
And it was that reality that had the typically sarcastically teasing slant of their gaze widening across their face with shock the way an earthquake cut a hole in the ground, it was that reality that had them choking back a swallow of sympathy.
Wariness hadn’t fled from the scene but it had taken a backseat - or more, accurately, had been shoved there - as Kendis rushed forward, pulling her knapsack from over her should, and pulled out a thermos - one of the few things that had appeared with her in this strange place - filled with water.
She bent near the person. If they had heard what had been said, they made no obvious note of it, instead hovering carefully close with concern.] Can, can you hold yourself up, yeah? Can you do it, or do you need me to tug ya up?
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Why would I get up? [Despite the dryness of her mouth she still spoke softly and melodically, her words rolling gently off her tongue. There was no bite to her, only confusion. Absently she brushed her dark curls back behind her pointed ear before leaning more heavily against the tree trunk, using it as a chair and comfort all in one as it whispered to her softly on the wind.]
Are you lost? [Why else would a human (she wasn't an elf, anyway) be bothering her? They had their own problems and also had been displaced in the fall of Beleriand.]
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She sighed.] So, we can get you to safety. Are you lost? [If anyone could manage to sound as concerned as a fluttering butterfly and as exasperated as a clucking hen, it was Kendis. And they managed it clearly with the 'duh' unsaid yet at the tip of their tongue as they gently pressed their thermos into the person's hand.] Drink. [That was an order.] Carefully.
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Until they couldn't.
Until Valar had no mercy and brought continents tumbling down in their carelessness.]
I cannot be lost, for I know where I am and I have nowhere else to be. [Nowhere that still has air to breathe and ground to walk on, anyway. Even if she scrambled to find what ships had survived this and were still going west–how could she face Aman and the Valar without screaming? How could she bear their presence when she was in so much pain?
Still, she takes the strange... cup? Flask? Thing, and takes but a sip.]
You need not worry about me. [No one should anymore, she had no one left who walked these shores. Not a friend, not family, no one who truly knew her well and not merely as another face who had passed by from time to time over the centuries.]
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She didn’t roll her eyes. But it was a near thing.] Good thing I don’t need your opinion on that. Drink. [Kendis ordered again as her gaze moved away from the person sipping water and toward the shoreline, toward the gathering of elves that was starting to become too far even for her own eyesight.] Where you are doesn’t seem like mu – [Kendis’ teeth clicked together as caught what she had been about to say.
This time the breath dragged in through her flared nostrils was shaky, almost apologetic.] You – you don’t know what’s like waitin’ for you if you stay here, yeah? But there’s always somethin’. You – [She stops herself again, this time less abruptly. Her attention expanding from the person next to her and to their surroundings (if one could call them that; for what really was around them but despair and water?) and tried to take in what the person had been taking in. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t pretend that she could as it wasn’t hers to take in, it hadn’t been hers to lose.
But she could try, at least, to recognize it for what it was … if, for anything, only to avoid almost stepping in it (again) and further traumatizing the person she was trying to help.] We can stay here for a little while, if that's what you need. But -- [ She hesitates only for the space of a breath before changing forward. ] You didn't -- you probably don't want this, but I'm gonna tell you anyway. You can't stay here forever. I mean you probs could. [ They look at this person askance, their gaze very briefly falling onto their ears. ] But you shouldn't.
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In truth, she might have been the oldest soul left from Doriath.
She takes another sip of water, watching keenly as this person stumbles over what they want to say to her–an order perhaps, or a feigned understanding? The tree rustles above them, responding to the ache in Mithiel that makes her want to scream even though she will not, one hand digging into the dirt instead.]
I could stay here until the rest of the world crumbles into the sea and the sun turns black. It would not matter if I went with it. If you are looking for lost lambs there are hundreds fleeing over the mountain pass who would welcome the help.
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Maybe this person is right (they're wrong by the way, Kendis has no time or need to collect 'lost lambs'), maybe they missed the mark. Either way, they've gotten themselves a moment of silence.
A brief one.] If you didn't want my help, you wouldn't be drinkin' my water, lamb chop. Obvi there's still some part of you that still wants to keep on singin' along [ Kendis justs out a stubborn jaw as her pointer finger jerks toward the person in front of her, waving up and down in expansive survey. The corners of her mouth pinch for a moment before she sighs. ] An' we'll have to agree to disagree on another point, 'cause it would. Matter that is.
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[The Song is clearly something to her, not a metaphor or poetic licence. Something she expects this mortal to understand, though the secondborn do not have as detailed stories as the elves do on such things it was still a young enough world that they had not yet forgotten. Watching that finger almost makes Mithiel cross-eyed before she looks at the stranger again.]
It will not be safe after dark, the Host did not root out all of Morgoth's creatures and now they roam freely without a master to temper them. You should go. Thank you, though.
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Call me assumin' but I think, your lookin' out for a stranger that's clearly annoyin' you's a sign. [ She hesitates and bites her lip softly for a moment before continuing on:] Your heart doesn't wanna call it quits any more than your body does [ She reaches out and taps her finger against the metal thermos. ] Despite what our brains might tell us, parts of us'll always wanna survive, we just need to find the motivation to do so.
You can't find your - I don't think your motivation'll strike you here. At least not alone. [ And Kendis wasn't the person to walk her through that; both because she didn't have the time or the patience for it at the moment. But also because she wasn't Ben, she wasn't Nora. She wasn't her dad. Some people were made to nurture ans support. ] Maybe you'll find it and your -- The Song out there [ They had no idea what that was. ], away from here. Like, I'm going to sound corny on ... real cliche but there's a whole out there, an' you likely know that better than me but, at the moment, your mind wants you to forget.
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All my motivation has fallen beneath the sea or been consumed by wolves and oaths that should never have been sworn. [If he had not vanished, some say tossed himself into a chasm, she could have strangled that pretty neck that belonged to her supposed friend. Just thinking about him now makes her blood boil, that he could bring such wrath upon her people and fail to even collect his precious gem when she had spent centuries being his closest friend. When he had let her think that he saw the value in Doriath, in peace...
She doesn't even notice her nails cutting into her palm or the red that wells there, untended.]
There is nothing in Ennor for me. My trees, my family, my King, my Princess, my Queen, all are fled away or buried. My closest friend might as well have slit my throat while he was helping slit the throat of my second King or letting his children die. What do you really think is out there? Wonders, certainly, but horrors too. And friends who will betray, and love that will die.
I should have stayed with the forest, it is the only place I have ever belonged.
I should have known.
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She can – no, no pretend. But just be, instead. Kendis wants to return to her loved ones but it’s nice to be that … “insignificant” in the way this elf sees her. For someone who exhibited herself with a sort of grandeur, who exceeded in what she held passion for, it was refreshing to be seen as insignificant in the grand scheme of things. A person whose only life and responsibilities were the (supposedly) very short one she’d been granted.
The person she was, she had been before her life had been turned upside down in a way even the Fresh Prince of Bel Air could’ve never imagined.
The person who doesn’t matter in such a way here. A person with actual choices rather than the ones they let themselves, delude themselves into thinking they have.
Their choice now is to sit and listen to this self-important elf – or just elf. Maybe that’s in part why they’d involved themselves, exposed themselves. Because the compulsion to follow through here was familiar to something she would’ve felt last year, before her life went to shit with prophecies and past lives and powers, as it was free from the whispers of people who thought they understood her own decisions better than she did herself.
Because helping this person felt good in the sense – this was the kind of person her father raised her to be, this was the kind of thing that the brother she idolized would do. Rather than good in the sense –
Kendis sighed and shocked her head and tsked. At herself, partially, at her thoughts but also at this person before her.
She reached into her bag and pulled out some gauze without thinking. She pressed the person’s fingers opened and pressed the white, slightly scratchy substance against their skin.] Are you lookin’ for facts, advice, an ear, or some combo of all three?
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But Mithiel didn't see how her desire to sink into the sea really made her self-important. It would not hurt anyone. Those left who might miss her would assume her taken in a raid or by some other misfortune, or to simply have died of grief as so many elves had.
Even Melian had abandoned them in her grief, now years ago, and though she did not die her absence signalled the death of her Kingdom and the people therein.
As much as Mithiel had daydreamed and drifted and wandered in ways and places she never should have for many years of her long life, she had never felt like this. Not when cornered by orcs, or when the great wolf ripped through Doriath. Not even when Lúthien left them and then later died.
Not even when her parents died, because someday, somehow she would meet them again.
But how would she ever meet her forest again? How could she replace a love that was drowning in front of her very eyes and would be forgotten by men and only whispered about by elves, too old and traumatised to want to talk about the place that had borne her all these centuries. Had protected her, sheltered her, loved her, taught her. Doriath had been her third parent, her teacher, her friend, her warden and her ward both for they looked after each other. The Ents and Ent-wives that lingered on the edges had known her all her life. The trees had known her name since before she was born.
How could that be replaced? How could that wound ever heal? It was not just a place, just trees and land. It was home in such a fundamental way that watching it sink left her breathless, and she did not care a bit if she offended this mortal who tried to fuss over her and act like getting up and keeping moving was the perfectly normal and logical thing to do as if her heart wasn't being ripped out of her chest at this very moment.
She wished she was dead.
More than that, she wished she had never been so she would not have ever known such grief that seemed to pile higher and higher in every passing moment.
She was cold and did not care, bleeding and it did not matter. She could barely even hear anything above the roar of the sea and the cracking trees, hundreds of miles away while she sat on this near-silent shore.]
Depends on what you wish to tell me, I suppose, for you cannot be convinced to just leave me here.
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She couldn’t help being a bit fascinated – her curiosity bubbling at her thoughts as she wondered about the strength of this elf, and of elves, in general. She had seen things but she hadn’t been able to quantify, to compare all she’d had observed. The priority had been on keeping things moving. But it probably would benefit her to jot down her past and future observations. Having it all spread out in front of her might help her better understand this world and its inhabitants, especially should she ever run into trouble.]
Well, I’ll take that as leeway to say what I want anyway, since you didn’t like exactly give me parameters. [She curls the person’s hand around the gauze and raises their dark eyes to take them, just for a moment. For a moment, they don’t say anything and it is as if they’re studying them. Or measuring them.] You can call me Cel. How ‘bout you?
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Not that it mattered.
But what did, as time wore on, dragging down the elves with it?
Some part of her still thinks that they could have changed all of their fates if only they had been more willing to rally against the inevitable.
Perhaps that part of her is sinking now to the bottom of the sea, inch by inch and drowning as it goes.
Mithiel is compliant now only because she is in shock, still, the grief is so near that it overwhelms her every sense. She would not know the difference between being sat on this shore, or in a palace, or tossed carelessly into the void with the other great defier of the Song.]
Mithiel. [She answers, softy.] Once of Doriath, no of nowhere.
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I'm sorry that you lost your home. [There is an unusual impulse that overtakes her but luckily she catches before her hand makes it too far upward. The tendrils of hair shadowing Mithiel's face beckons Kendis' attention and she feels almost compelled to tuck the loose pieces behind the other person's ears. Because something about them begs to have their face held -- Kendis dislodges the thought with a shake of her head and instead returns her focus to the other person's no-longer-bleeding hands. She cradles one in her grip, inspecting it until that she's satisified before looking over the other. When she is finished, she gives Mithiel's left hand a warm yet quick squeeze.] And I am even more sorry that my feeling sorry for you can't bring it back for you. [ She huffs, then murmurs more to herself: ] I hate useless apologies. [ Or maybe, more, she hates apologies that can't be supported by action -- because she feels that Mithian needs sympathy, though they may reject. And that, in of itsef, gives the words some depth.]
I think you're wrong though.
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Daughter of the grey. Her parent's perpetual argument. Was it because of the thick fog into which she was born, or her father's silver hair? Was she named after the twilight of the world where anything lit by nature was desaturated and dim?
She would never know now, not until her parents walked the earth again. With how they had died, that might be centuries or millennia, if they ever came again at all.]
I lost my continent. My home. My friends. My family. My King, twice. My people who are not rotting in the sea are scattered to the winds, some fled east to the old Greenwood, [That is where Oropher and Thranduil said they were going, anyway,] others seeking the havens which may no longer exist.
What could I possibly be wrong about?
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[She pauses. Even she’s not so much of an ass to pop in with something positive after the litany, the prayer of loss, of pain. It actually renders Kendis silent. It makes their tongue feel heavy and stuck, like peanut butter gluing it to the roof of her mouth.
Her breathing comes out hitched and her nose wrinkles, as she swallows roughly. She’s not crying. Kendis isn’t one to cry – but in this moment they wish they were. They had never wanted to scrape open their heart to someone they barely knew in the past as much as they do now in this moment. Maybe it’s because she’s never known such loss in this life. And maybe it’s because there is an ancient part of her that understands it.
Their breath hitches.
And she doesn’t say anything for a moment –] You can’t die with them. Mithiel. [She swallows roughly.] You can scream, destroy, like – like you can waste away. But – [her breath hitches again] You can’t do that with them. You shouldn’t.
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Mithiel's gaze comes back into focus as she looks at Cel and her totally-not-crying. It is a sad thing, there is little that could be sadder. It had all of the horrors. There had been war, torture, homes destroyed, families ripped apart and people killed. No one and nothing escaped it and this land that had been theirs almost since the beginning of time now sat underwater, slowly creeping further and further down.
She doesn't know what to do, entirely, she has nothing left in her to offer to comfort anyone. She cannot even comfort herself and as an only child she had always been good at that.]
I do not think I could scream. I feel defeated, deflated like a waterskin that has a hole in it. Námo would welcome me if I let go. [She adds the last sentence quietly, as if genuinely thinking about it.]