A brief note as the day winds down, one that was far less fraught then I feared it would be.
After taking Garon's ledger to the House of Three Graces for safe keeping, I returned to the hideaway of Addie and Nethrida with provisions, to discover Hadhranel the sentry standing resolute at the stairs to the simple house.
Facing him was yet another "Ranger" who expressed concern that there may be injured women within and filled with a desire to offer medical services unto them. This must be the eighth such "Ranger" this week to come with much the same offering. Either Addie or Nethrida's name and location has been passed around Esteldin as "a pleasant way to pass the time in Breeland", the war is going so well that there are battalions of Rangers with great deals of time on their hands or the enemy has found a way to breed scruffy, mysterious Orcs with Gondorian names.
After thanking Ranger number eight and sending him on his way through whatever "secret woodland trails known to very few" he normally walks, I entered the cottage to find Nethrida still asleep in the bedroom and friend Addie staring into the fire having recently awoken it seemed. Noting her expression, I put the jug of fresh milk I had brought to the side, lest she curdle it. I then attempted to begin a conversation with her, but was met with an icy silence. Truly I have found that there are no women in all of Middle Earth that can ladle so much "cold ire" into a silence as the womenfolk of the Mark. If they could find a way to bring their brooding rage to bear as a weapon against the enemy, all would be saved.
It took some time, but finally, I was able to coax the lady into speech, primarily from her desire to settle some record once and for all, and she directly and honestly answered my most pressing question to her....namely what brought her to Bree. The story was not altogether as I had expected it, from my experience in the Mark and with Cyndwin's girlhood stories, yet it near brought a tear to my eye. Not only for the tragic and unjust content (which is not for me to tell) but her simple, unvarnished sorrow over said events, and her abiding rage. Truly this was a woman who had been given not a moment to mourn great loss and faced the future none the less.
I was heartened that once I know this tale, I was fairly confident that those grim events had no bearing on her current plight, which was good to know and meant that we need not look so far for our true foes.
Friend Addie then took me utterly by surprise...and asked me why I and Xandilif both seemed so disinclined towards most of our elders, the Noldor and others who we have encountered in her presence.
As she had been so honest with me despite her understandable aversion to telling that tale, I felt I owed her the same and tried to give her a picture of our childhood, the abandoned daughters of a Kinslayer with no house or standing to protect them. I struggled to express the mistrust, abuse and scorn we had suffered from an early age due to our ill-starred parentage. I being younger had found many of our elders such as the Lady Arahen and Lady Ahmo to be noble and deserving of my service, but the Banshee, who stood so many blows to protect me, her baby sister, as we grew up, had no such relief. To her, our own people had never been more then a foe and a burden, best to avoid if possible, and certainly not to be trusted.
Friend Addie took all this in, and softened somewhat, but still clearly resented what she felt was my betrayal of the night before, Nethrida and myself thinking she had divulged secrets to the Fool of an Elder. Fortunately, behind me I heard dear Nethrida arising and entering the room.Stepping back I allowed her to come forward and confront Addie about the night before, no longer feeling comfortable intruding between them. A moment of crackling tension, then somehow, against all hope, my sweet Nethrida, my warrior, found the words that would soften Addie's heart. She explained that she knew very well that Addie was capable of tremendous sacrifice for her friends, and she feared she had made such a sacrifice to save Nethrida from returning to that order of which the Fool was chief.
These words finally broke the wall friend Addie had built, and the two sisters were again at peace, without blood shed as would have been the case between myself and the Banshee. My soul rejoiced at the passing of the shadow between them.
We spent some small amount of time then eating the repast I had brought, and I cleansed and redressed their wounds, which were healing wonderfully. Truly the healer Inwis is a wonder. My meager skills at such care must have been sufficient to the moment, for friend Addie asked if ALL of my people had healing powers, which caused me to laugh. I explained I knew no such craft being just a soldier, and that all such skills I had learned on campaign, dressing my own and other's wounds. In the field with no healer to be had, one learned to do what was required to stay in the fight, or die. They both could well understand this from their own experience.
After Addie had drifted to sleep, now back in her bed rather then on the bench from the night before, Nethrida and I repaired to the fireside, speaking and comforting one another long into the night. I am filled with joy over how many genuine smiles my dear one now graces me with. When first we met, her grief was like a wall of iron around her heart, so powerful that even her long time friends such as Addie and the Lady Ahmo despaired of ever seeing it fall. I however, tenderly and with the patience she so richly deserves, have managed to draw her out of the darkness, at least to a degree, step by faltering step. I thank Elbereth for that, and I see the same gleam in the eyes of Nethrida now that I have seen flashes of in Addie and so entrances me in my beloved Cyndwin, or in brave Fille, or mischievous Hawke...that of a noble spirit longing to make their mark on the world and support those they love however they can, despite the pains they have suffered...and it is so very beautiful.
This force, this powerful tide surging through the late born, is the last shreds of lofty Numenor. This will to sacrifice for others and to risk all in the name of love and a future of peace, is why I am am filled with hope, no matter the horrors I have seen, that the age coming will bring better days. The Days of the King to come will truly be a golden age, if those I love are any indication of the people who will guide it on its path. I am shown clearly that my choice to remain here, to not sail to the West, is the right one.
I cannot wait to see what my beloveds make of the world that my kind so badly failed.
