Not even bloodied hands scraping against rusted iron bars could win the pity of the Valar. Not in this place - no, here, they are obscured from the view of any who could help. She can only make out vague shapes through the blood trickling down into her mouth (or, wait, was it falling from her mouth? It tasted metallic all the same), but there is one figure that her gaze locks on as she is marched through a seemingly endless hall of cells and wicked iron spires.
“Gheomaer,” she breathes out, before realizing that the Eorling was truly there in a cell watching them, and with a sudden mania does she wrench herself away from their wardens to the bars of his cell.
“Gheomaer!” She exclaims again, blood spitting out from her mouth onto the floor as she crumbles on her weak knees. She has only a moment to raise her head to meet his wearied gaze - before she is yanked back to her feet and then thrown across the corridor into a cell across from his.
The resounding clang of her cell door shutting behind her as she falls on her back is a sound that reverberates in her head over, and over, and over, even as she pulls herself to her knees. Even as she looks out between the bars. Even as she grabs onto the iron rungs. It becomes a repeated beat to which she must watch the others march further on without her; single-file, for how narrow the hallway is.
Brannuild first - the Dalewoman with whom she was the most unfamiliar, but who had quickly garnered much of her respect. The Bond-Breaker. Who still walks with her head held high, though battered and bruised, looking between the two cells as if the warrior wishes to stop… but is forced onwards by the Angmarim.
Envandame and Galtharian now. The Ñoldo elleth clutching the younger Silvan in front of her in a tight embrace as he sobs; he cries out in a dialect even unfamiliar to the other of his kin there. In front of him and behind him he is guided, but by his sides he is alone. Envandame looks towards Mallossel with tear-stained cheeks but even her vain attempt at uttering something reassuring is drowned out by the cries of the grieving Silvan. Cries that are punctuated by the harsh orders of yrch or Angmarim before they are ushered out of her sight.
Ithilwë plants his heels firmly in the ground - the least injured of the group, requiring a firm hand in both of his arms to march him forward. A stubborn display of his refusal to move only causes her to look away; it only causes a sickening feeling of guilt to sit in her stomach. She catches the eye of Gheomaer across the corridor. Her stomach churns more when she sees the same expression reflected in his eyes. Failure, failure, failure.
Ithilwë is ushered along after kicks and blows are exchanged. She couldn’t watch. She grabs the bars of her cell weakly once more, holding them to keep her sitting up as the sticky blood on her tunic threatens to weigh her down. She hears fierce shrieking as the group is further plucked apart down the hall. Separated, one by one, and thrust into darkness. Fierce whispers shared across the hall. Sobs ringing out in the silent spaces between. Mallossel slides further down to the floor as she replays the image of them walking past in her head once more.
Two were missing.
One was not coming back.
This was a fool’s mission from the start.
