The Host Palantine

“Did you love him?”

“I do love him.”

*

“Had you much chance to gaze upon these falls in peace as of late?” Mylher asks, approaching the elder elleth as she watches the falls of Imladris crash down in dazzling disarray. Mallossel turns her head for a moment to look at Mylher before her eyes return to the water. 

“I’m… sorry, hiril. I don’t understand,” Ithilwe says as he looks to her with eyes lost in confusion and grief. “You did not die. You are in front of me here, alive, breathing.”

Rings like chains wrap around fingers too soft to know the hardship of love and loyalty; of war and betrayal. She is dressed in a gown of white; lilies adorn hair too clean to have ever been stained with blood and gore. She is smiling. She is beautiful. It is her wedding day.

There is no answer to why we are the way we are. We eat dinner with swords for knives and we sing laments for brothers that we drown out with blood like wine. ‘It’s nature’, he says, telling me that I was a warrior from the day I was born, that I was brought forth from my mother screaming my cries of war and my father named me something gentle in hopes of deterring that blood-bath.

With a gasp, she pulls herself free of the water. To stand under the falls behind the East Porch, water chilled by autumnal winds, was enough to clear her mind of anything.

My soldier.

-Gondolin, F.A.-

Mallossel furrows her brows and looks away from him. "I understand. But I would do what I did again if it meant you were safe."

Blameless.

.Blameless