The night air was thick and damp as Deorla reached the lowlands where Ithilien’s greenery withered into pale reeds and stagnant pools. A ghostly mist rolled over the earth, swallowing the moonlight until only her breath and the faint drip of water could be heard.
She had traveled for hours without rest—north, then east, always keeping the stars of Eärendil behind her. Her cloak clung wet against her armor, and the scent of rot grew stronger with every mile. At last she found a rise of broken stone above the marsh and made her camp there, too weary even to eat.
The stillness was wrong. Even the insects did not sing here. Beyond the thin fog, faint glimmers danced in the black water—lights like pale candles, wavering and whispering, as though they mourned beneath the surface.
Deorla knew the tales.
She knew where she stood.
The Dead Marshes—the place where the ghosts of old wars lay dreaming, where the fallen of men and orc and elf alike lingered beneath the mire. She had passed many cursed grounds before, but this one watched her.
She leaned against her pack, the smell of damp earth heavy in her lungs, her eyes tracing the distant shimmer of ghostly fire. Sleep, she told herself, would not come easy here… and yet it did. Slowly, heavily, she sank into the weight of exhaustion.
The whispers of the dead seemed to follow her down into the dark.
And as her eyes closed, the pale lights flickered closer—
Until they filled her dream.
At first, it was light.
Not the pale, cold gleam of the marshes — but the red, roaring glow of conquest.
Deorla stood upon a field of ruin, armor shining black as obsidian beneath a blood-stained sky. Banners of the Eye rose high and proud, and legions of orcs, men, and beasts alike chanted her name — Herald, Herald of the Unseen War!
She saw the cities she had helped burn, the keeps she had conquered, the rivers turned to smoke. Every victory, every cry of the fallen was her triumph.
In her dream, she smiled.
Then came the shadows.
From the flames stepped faces she had forgotten — or tried to.
Furley was among them, eyes hollow and voice thin as the wind.
Others followed — merchants, soldiers, comrades from the Company of the East Road. They whispered her name with accusation, their forms flickering like smoke.
“Go back to your graves,” she hissed. “You were weak. You chose your fate.”
They did not move.
They watched.
And when their whispers grew to screams, Deorla’s wrath cut through them like steel. With a sweep of her arm — the same gesture that had commanded armies — the dream-wraiths shattered and fell away like dust caught in wind.
Silence returned.
The field was gone.
Now she stood in a great gray plain of ash and fog, the ground cracked beneath her boots. Faint lights glimmered in the distance — the same dead candles that floated above the marshes outside her real body.
And then… she felt warmth.
A flicker of orange light behind her.
When she turned, she saw Firebryn.
Not as she had last seen her — older, weary, half bent by the years — but young, sharp-eyed, and burning with that quiet cunning that had always made her dangerous.
Firebryn smiled faintly.
“Dreaming of glory again, are we?” she said.
But Deorla knew, or rather felt. This was no longer a ghost or a dream. She just felt it.
"And you finally found your peace?"
Firebryn smirked
"I told ya I could do it... The... I mean .. they were kinda tough. But in the end. I won."
There massive silence for what it seems etternity.
Firebryn then just asks
"What you think?"
Deorla trys to hold her emotions in check, but a single tear lets loose and goes down her cheek like a rain drop.
"You're an idiot... You're such an idiot...If you traveled with me..You should refused and come with me!"
Another silence brakes
"If I would've traveled with you, I would be the same person you're now, I would had the same pitiful look on my face. Ya. HELL NO!"
Deorla looses control and just shouts and crys at the same time
"SO YOU'D RATHER ROT? YOU"D RATHER THIS BE IT?! - WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!"
...
Firebryn just replys
"Will you move out of the way? You're blocking it. The sun. It's just so pretty."
