Death Is A Lie

Talion

She looks away. Her eyes are hard set and crystalline.

"I guess we all have our hurts, do we not? Yours are deeper." She looks at me again, and I see determination in the depths of her blue eyes. "My mother is Lady Marwen, queen of the shore. This you know. What I did not tell you is that she is very ill. My mother is dying, and she is sacrificing her sanity for the safety of the people."

"I am sorry." I say gruffly.

"No, you pity me. As I did you whilst you told your story of woe. I never knew my real parents, as my mother was raiding ships when she found me abandoned as a babe. She was the fiercest warrior amongst our people, and though that title has now fallen to me, I fear having no family. Having her is the last thing giving me hope, though to my men I will never lose hope."

"You are brave, Lithariel. Braver than I was. We could have left the black gate, found a good home, but I wanted for Dirhael to grow up as a ranger, like myself. Ioreth urged me to leave, ever did I ignore that council. To our doom and death I led her through my own cowardice and fear of the outside world. You stay for your men when you know you cannot leave." I look at her intensely. "You have the bravery I wish I had."

"No Talion." She says quietly, her sharp features contorting into pain. "It is not I that is brave. I appear unfaltering to my men to keep their morale up, but I know what is to come of our home. Ash and dust and death. If I was braver, perhaps I could've saved those men you fought with earlier, or revealed myself earlier. Perhaps it is courage that keeps you here. You have lost everything, yet you continue to fight. I do not know if I could do such a thing. Do not lose hope when hope is all you have." She yawns loudly. "I must rest. Talion, do not forget the question: What truly keeps you in Mordor? What are you fighting for?"

"Goodnight Lithariel." I say and turn to watch the ever changing skies. Pallid and stormy. Celebrimbor whispers in my ear yet again.

She is admirable Talion, but do not forget what we need to do. This path we walk alone.

"Maybe before. She asked me the same question. Before I wanted to die and join my family, but now I want to live. Now I want to save the people in Mordor, the outcasts, the people of Núrn, and those to come that will suffer greatly from the war machine. Your words hold great wisdom, but I am not like you Celebrimbor. You are an Elda, you feel not emotions openly, and have a tight leash on them. But I am a man, and we tend to feel emotions and act on them. Whether it is wise or not, I will follow my heart, wherever it may lead me."

So be it. You have sealed our doom.

I laugh. "Our doom was already decided, many years ago. So I do not fear it."

Neither did Túrin Húrinion. But he fell to it nonetheless.

"I shan't think about things that happened tens of thousands of years ago. Even if you lived through them, I do not care. They will not come to pass, the events predicted in our fate. Only the god Mandos can say that."