Cisel sat on the ruin's looking out on the lake as she takes a soft breath in, a tear trickling down her cheek. Her heart felt pained, and she wanted to express to someone why, but she feared pity. So she reached into her satchel, pulling out a handful of wrinkled paper and a piece of charcoal, looking at them for a moment Memories of watching Amy write her thoughts on paper crossed through Cis's mind as she nodded to herself, gripping the charcoal. She knew she could not write every thought down, but maybe some things could be recorded. And so she moved the charcoal across the paper, forming the letters that she could, starting with:
'Life is hard'
She then paused, looking at the sky. Thinking through her past, she remembered her mother, the torture her mother put her through. How could someone have done that to their child? She then thought about Aeonid, she wasn't even blood related to him in anyway, yet she knew he would never hurt her. She trusted him with her life, knowing him to be a father, a brother, a best friend all rolled into one. She knew what made him happy, what hurt him. And although she saw him suffer, she believed him to be the strongest of men she had ever met. Yet he cared for her more than her own mother, so even though so many people had shown Cisel the pain of hatred, she knew him as love. This leading her to write:
'Love happy... Hate hurt'
She looked up again, seeing the moon shine through the trees over her head, the light sparkling in the sky. So beautiful, so clean. Her mind wandered to Agarios, her friend she treasured more than she realized sometimes. Although he was an Elf, and she was told many times Elves could not be trusted, she trusted Agarios. Not as much as Aeonid for sure, for Aeonid was her family, Agarios was merely a friend. But he taught her of light, of the love of Valar. Aeonid told Cisel he did not believe in the 'gods', but Cisel refused to believe that there wasn't something beautiful out there, something of pure love and affection. So Agarios, or more his words, became a light of hope for Cisel, just as the love Aeo showed her.
'Light protects'
The light reflected from the lake beneath the cliff, the water lapping calmly on the rocks. Cisel sighed, turning her gaze across the land as she remembered her fishing experience with her friend Gungur. He had tied a hook to a string, attaching that to a branch. With it, Cisel caught a fish, her first fish. Gungur always made Cisel laugh, made her smile. He was amusement, even down to his dwarfish beard. Although like Agarios, Cisel rarely saw him, when she thought of him she smiled to herself, thinking of the coffee he made her and the goat she helped him bathe. Perhaps there was other sides of the Dwarf Cisel never saw, but she preferred to focus on the good she saw from him. And so she looked to the paper,
'Friends are all different... friends happiness'
Cisel stared at the list on the paper as she frowned, murmuring to herself under her breath. As a kid, she had odd sorts of friends. One named Shadow did not turn out to be happiness to her in the end. She had fallen for him at one point, but he disappeared, leaving her with no knowledge of what happened to him. Now she knew their love was a childish love, the love two young teenagers experience that fades when they grow up. Yet it still hurt her when she looked back on it.
Alex, her true brother, was another friendship that did not leave all happy memories. Although she had memories of playing in the snow, causing mischief, and dreaming about the world with him, she had memories of pain and suffering with him. He killed her mother when the two were young, and went insane. By the time Cisel killed him herself, he was not the same person she grew up with. She never forgave herself after his death, and when the time came for her sister's death, she blamed herself as well. Cisses died after Cisel was locked in the jailhouse for attacking a Watcher. For which Cisel always blamed herself, and it was something not even Aeonid knew of Cisel.
Cisel then sighed, shaking her head as she wrote down on the paper;
'Bad friends make pain.'
She thought of a newer friend she had made, Rasnath. He should be considered evil by their pasts, yet Cisel saw them as good. He hunted with her, and ran with her as she laughed and smiled. Yet he was suppose to be evil. Cisel could not understand how that was suppose to be so.
So many things in her life she found was labeled as good, or as bad. Yet she met Rohirrims, who weren't suppose to be an evil race, commit evil acts, but a Warg, who was suppose to be evil, let her pet behind his ear even when humans had locked him in a cage. As she sat there, she came to a conclusion that people weren't evil, but people weren't good. Things weren't born evil, they just get sculpted by the world. One time Cisel had asked Agarios what Orcs were. He grew angry, and told her they were a result of the hatred of Morgoth. When she inquired further, he snapped at her to drop the subject. She never saw him angry before then, perhaps annoyed, but not angry. She dropped the topic immediately and changed the direction of the conversation to other topics. When she met Rasnath, she asked him what he knew, and he gave her similar responses, though without the anger. Although watching Rasnath and Thrazak, Cisel saw something else. Evil came from hatred, but if you put in love the evil can fade to good.
When Cisel thought upon her past, she realized so much evil happened to her. From her mother to her current life. But she still had love put in, from people like Amy, Aeo, Agarios, Gungur, Bothilda. The love they showed changed her in many ways. And so she wondered what the world would be like if she could go and take the hate out of everyones hearts and show them love. If she could teach the Rohirrics who hate the Dunlanders to love them instead and vice versa. Although she knew it was impossible, the mere thought made her relax as she turned her gaze to the paper again.
'Evil come from hate. Good come from love. No hate, no bad.'
Cisel stared at the words she had written for a moment as she frowns, love couldn't fix every problem though. If it could, she would not be suffering at that moment. She felt something else deep inside. A pain that was so cold and so strong. One that caused tears to flow in her eyes. A pain that could not be taken out, and so she finally wrote on the page:
'Life breaks. Love help, life break. Broken no fix, broken is broken. Don't break others, they don't deserve broken'
Cisel sighed as she pushed the paper and charcoal away, curling up on the stone beneath her as she watched the gentle lap of the lake beneath her. More tears came as she laid there, leaving the paper sitting silently as she hummed softly under her breath to herself. Although it didn't work, the humming at least let her not think, but just lay in silence. She knew she was broken, and she had no clue how to fix it. She only knew how to cover it and hide it, for a smile can hide many holes inside of someone. She just longed for a way to fix it though.
