The scrape of metal against the stone floors of Felegoth leaves a shrieking sound in its wake. It draws the attention of all those who watch the sorrowful march of the younger sister through the halls. The rhythmic clink of the steel against the steps is the beat to which she sets her footfalls, trudging through the long halls of wood, and stone, and eyes that look on in silent pity. Pitiable is she that walks alone now. Mornwi pays no mind to the onlookers — the path she walked is marked by the hard mud that flakes off of her boots and trousers, and the path ahead is marked by the waning of the sunlight in the halls, darkening more with every step into the depths to seek out what is left of her family. Clink. Clink. Clink.
It is all she can hear. The sword hanging limply in her grip, dragging along the ground as she walks. She puts out her free hand to run along the smooth, curved walls of the staircase as it twists, and turns, and taunts her feet; she trusts that she would be able to catch herself if she fell. Clink. Clink. Clink. The carved wood is cold under her fingers as if it is no longer part of the tree that they lived beneath but is instead just another dead thing in the ground. There is nothing to catch herself on if she falls. She wonders if she were to fall in silence if there were still eyes watching her with pity. She wonders if the sword would lay over her, too. Mornwi takes her hand off of the wall. Clink. Clink. Cli-
She trips over the last step. Her vision is so blurred; be it by mud, or tears, or sweat - she knows not - but she was preparing for another step to come. She was wrong. Mornwi stumbles forward and crashes onto the cold stone floor, sprawling at the base of the stairs. The same way that baby’s breath sprawls across the roots of a tree hiding a grave. Her sister’s sword slides just ahead of her. It is just out of reach as she extends her arm. Slender fingers fall short of grabbing the leather-bound hilt. For a moment she considers lying there. For a moment she considers the corpse in the forest that lay just out of reach of a beautifully crafted bow. She does not have the right to lie here like a dead woman. She does not have the right to move, either, for she failed to do so when it was needed of her most. Her vision blurs again.
Fists clenched, she draws her knees up and curls in on herself. Another soundless sob. Another tree falls. Someone listens. Someone sees. Footsteps echo down the long hall towards her, but she cannot bring herself to look up and face whoever it is that has come to see her in her moment of misery. For she knows that whoever it is must be stronger than her, greater than her, braver than her, to approach someone in a moment of weakness. To offer aid even though they may not know how to. What is she to deserve it? What is she to not be left for dead as well? Her foe was no mighty orc, but a trip over the staircase. And here she lies broken all the same. Mornwi grits her teeth. She has no right to lie here as her sister did.
The soft scrape of metal draws her attention. A shuddering breath passes her lips. Her body shakes, quivers, but she slowly turns her head to look. There, in the darkness of Felegoth, cast alight only by the dim shine of the sun that creeps in through the shafts of the staircase, stands her father. The once-proud Silvan, a Braver of Dol Guldur, looks as ill as he did on the day many weeks past when he was dying of poison. He is dying of another type now, this one more deadly; this one with no quick antidote to be found by a helpful heart. He is dying of grief. He holds the sword in his hands, his tired eyes examining every inscription, every scrape in the steel, every stain from where water and dirt and blood had lingered on it. And when he is done, and he sets it aside in an empty sheath, he looks to his daughter. They are both dying of grief.
He stumbles forward and kneels beside her. With trembling arms he reaches out and draws Mornwi to him, holding her close. He holds her to his chest, burying a hand in her hair as he sobs. Again, unlike herself, his grief is not silent. It is quiet, and it wracks his entire form as he weeps over her shoulder, but it is not silent and hidden in the gaps between the leaves. Every time her father takes in a shaky breath to speak, it escapes him, and fresh mourning overtakes him in the darkness. As the sun turns far above them in the sky, the light slowly diminishes from the base of the staircase. It slowly leaves his face — the warmth and the light, it leaves them alone to die in their grief. Mornwi stares out over his shoulder to her mother, who has not taken a step out of the deep shadows. Nearly indistinguishable from the shadows is the matron in her black robes. Her mother is dying too.
“We thought that you had both fallen,” he breathes out eventually, his words barely a whisper across her back. The words dance along her spine and race up the steps into the fading of the light, escaping with the sun as it sets over the mountains and forests of the world above. “He is gone now, but, he said… he said that she had fallen, and… and that he could not find you. ” The accusation, although left unsaid and not implied in the least, pierces straight through her. It leaves her still in his arms, her gaze locked with that of her mother who watches from the shadows. She knows this scene. She is watching it from the other side. Both sisters pierced through with something unimaginable, something they would never wish on the other. Someone staring back at them in the darkness and wondering if any amount of time or healing can put anything back together again. There is no rain now. There are no trees to hide behind. There are only shadows, and guilt, and the weight of knowing that she could have done something if she had only the courage to step forward.
Her mother takes a step forward. Another. Then a third, all in silence. Mornwi’s eyes never break from holding her gaze. The elder elleth lowers to the floor as well, reaching out and placing a hand on the cheek of her daughter. No words are passed between them. None have to be, and her mother strokes away mud and tears from her face. There the three of them remain in the dying light, like embers that fly up and fade out into the sky. There they remain, dying in their grief.
