[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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no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
[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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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?
no subject
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.
no subject
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?
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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?
no subject
[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.
no subject
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.]