Narali sat near the edge of the northern camp, where the watchfires burned low and steady rather than bright. Voices carried in quiet tones across the tents—healers finishing their work, guards changing posts, the soft murmur of those who had begun to remember what safety felt like. It was as safe a place as could be made in this land, and there were kind hands at work throughout it, shaping order out of ruin. Kibi lay close at her side, a constant weight against the long pull of memory and voices she would rather forget. With the ash settling slow through the dim light, she drew out her things and began to write.
Ronhus,
I write to you from the northern camp in Dol Amarth. It is a large place, set with more order than I expected to find here. There are guards, and healers, and folk who have chosen to remain and make something steadier out of what they have been given. You would not think to find such things here, but they endure.
Beyond the camp, the land remains as it ever was. The air hangs thick with ash and bitter smoke, and the ground itself seems tired of bearing what has been done upon it. The white spires still stand—whole, unbroken—but they no longer gleam. The marble has taken on a dull cast beneath the constant fall of soot, its brightness dimmed as though the light itself has grown weary of reaching it.
Broken ridges to the east, lie cradling the towers here, Lugrash, and of course Barad-dûr it’s iron spires pierce the angry gloom. They catch what little light there is and turn it hard and colorless, like something sharpened rather than illuminated. It does not need to be near to be felt.
Oroduin stands at the center of it all. It breathes—slow and relentless—casting ash and bitter fumes into an already poisoned sky. Even here, the ground carries a faint warmth, as though the world itself remembers the forge that broke it.
There is a place called Lugrash not far from here. The stone was once white marble, stained by the volcanic ash and left to ruin. The wind carries sound strangely through it, as if the land tries to speak in a voice it no longer knows how to use. It is to close to what Moria was for me…Whispers of things I would rather forget. I do not stay there long.
There are others here now—Stout-axes newly come out of shadow. One, Skaprock, looks at me as though I have stepped out of a tale he does not yet believe. He cannot understand why I would return. I have not tried to answer I have no words to explain what I have done or been or heard, since I escaped. Would he even believe me anyway?
I have only given him my hands where they are needed. Gimli works beside us, steady as the mountain he was shaped by, and between us we do what we can to set these folk on a road that leads away from this place.
I have not gone back to Barad-dûr. It remains where it always was, on the edge of sight and thought, but I do not answer it. Yet.
You would ask me why I came back. So I will answer you plainly.
I chose it. I needed to understand it not from a view of a frightened woman, sheltered and ignorant of the world and my strengths, by years of captivity
No chain brought me here. No voice drove me. She did not drive me here. I walked back into this land by my own will, and I remain by that same choosing. What was taken from me once is not taken now. I decide where I stand. I decide what I do. There is work here that I can do, and I will see it done. And I will leave knowing I can exist without the haunting memories of her or all that happened. I need to know I can.
You told me once to set my feet and not be moved by what howls around me. I have not forgotten.
Do not worry after me. I say this but know you likely do…. I am thankful for that worry but it is needless.
When the air grows heavy and the past presses nearer than I would like, I do not stand alone in it. Kibi keeps close to me, as constant as breath, and that steadiness is enough to hold me where I am.
And there are moments when memory comes without shadow. I hear my brothers sometimes as they were—teasing, certain I would rise to meet them. I remember my father carving a hearthstone for a friend, taking care with every line as though the gift mattered as much as the craft itself. Those things remain mine.
Some memories are not meant for paper.
I walk this place with clear sight and steady step. I know what it is, and I know what I am within it. I survived whatever Moria was. I will survive this too.
Keep well, Ronhus. Know the best of what happened to me was in part because of you.
—Narali
When the last line was set, Narali let the page rest a moment beneath her hand before folding it with care. Around her, the camp had settled further into quiet, the watchfires burning low and steady as the ash drifted down through the dark. Kibi shifted closer, a warm and grounding presence against her side. Narali drew her cloak about her shoulders and leaned back against her pack, closing her eyes.
Sleep would come, or it would not. Tomorrow, she would rise and make for the White Tower, to learn if there were others yet who might be led out of shadow.
For now, she allowed herself stillness.
