The time to leave Rivendell was nigh, and as before, Cerrynt was of two minds about it. The Valley of Imladris was not only beautiful, not only restful, but also welcoming. Now, Cesistya was not her only friend-Elf; she had had warm meetings and conversations with many more, such as Cesistya's scholarly friend Runa, and the keeper of runes Cerebthos, and the brave but troubled husbands Amathlan and Ithilwe, and the warrior Maerhiniath who taught her axe-play and learned from her, and Belrossiel who shared songs, and another minstrel called Nimorn who showed her flute-fingering techniques, and an encouraging Elf named Raedorion. Who would have thought she might one day know more Elves than Kymru, even than Men? She had even met a few Dwarf merchants, one of which traded silver pennies for a silver flute from Dale, much smaller and with a more pure tone than the wooden flute of Bree (though with the same fingering, which she struggled to master).
She had even met the brenin of Imladris, Elrond, who was also a derudh who could hear the voices of the river spirits. She'd been so anxious about meeting him, and in a way she hadn't expected, it had proven imbalancing and frightening and painful -- not because he was unwelcoming, but because the words of the river spirits he had passed to her were unsettling, and she knew not what they might mean. "The river misses you," he had said.
The river misses you.
And the river had also told him, told her, that her clan was, as she feared, scattered. Her father and sisters might well yet be alive, forced into service in other clans, probably separated; or they might be dead. But either way, Dwrgi-lûth was no more. Her failure to defeat Trindân and become the clan's champion had led to just the tragedy she feared most. And the thought of this had haunted her, all the more when Cesistya prodded at her about how Trindân was not there and could not trouble her -- all because she'd mentioned that none of the Kymru would likely want her for a wife, due to her ugly broken nose and her lack of skill in hearth-craft, not because of Trindân. She'd been reduced to anger and tears in front of everyone in the Hall of Fire, and her determination to only speak Westron, to get better at it, had collapsed as well. And she was forced to admit and explain how she had become, unavoidably, an oath-breaker, a stain that her soul would bear until (and perhaps after) death.
She'd left the Hall of Fire in humiliation and despair, and spent a sleepless night perched atop a waterfall, frozen with fear she might have lost her best friend. She passed the next day in fasting. Cesistya had been again kind and encouraging that night, though she bore sad news -- Amathlan had left a letter saying that he and Ithilwë, who they had hoped to share the road with as far as Bree before they went on for some mysterious destination in the south, had already left without a chance to say farewell.
And so Imladris felt at once the most welcoming place she'd ever been, and yet, no shelter at all from the hurts that she carried within. Isolation, loneliness, the crushing weight of failing her clan and family (now a certainty), not knowing if she might ever find some new purpose that would somehow redeem all her defeats, make them seem like a particularly hard road to some necessary outcome instead of a simple tragedy of misbegotten missteps. Raedorion had suggested she might re-gather her clan, and the very idea both made her want to laugh -- how could one girl who couldn't even defeat Trindân, somehow defeat all the warriors of all the clans that may have taken the Dwrgi-lûth? -- and again cry, for that very impossibility made stark how empty of purpose she was.
She needed to spend her last day in the valley in preparing -- trading for food in the market, catching and smoking fish, visiting her horse to be sure she would be ready for the journey, figuring out how to carry her shiny new Elf-bow and Dale-flute along with all that she'd brought. She wanted to be well-rested so that, when Cesistya would show her the signs of troll and bear and wolf in the woods outside the valley, she would learn it well so she would know how to take this path in safety (or even guide others) in future. But she could not help but sit again at the highest perch above the highest waterfall instead, listening to the roaring of the river, wishing (and fearing) that she might hear what Elrond could hear in its voice.
Or did she wish she could yell back at it in that voice? "Do not miss me," she might shout to the river. "I have only failed you and would only fail you again." But the river only roared, and tumbled, and said nothing, and ignored her, and silently added her tears to its current.
