┃╳ Forge Maiden

          ❝Bullroarer.❞ Is all she says in the aftermath of an impressive tale. She lets the manly title (thinking it not a true name), roll off her tongue with a grey wisp of smoke inhaled from her pipe. ❝Funny. I never thought of hobbits as much more than gardeners, but the stories continually prove me wrong,❞ and her former employer as well. ❝Why was it you spent so much time around these little folk?❞

NAME  /  ALIAS.  alex BIRTHDAY.  july 30th ZODIAC  SIGN.  leo HEIGHT.  5′3″ HOBBIES.  writing. swimming. reading fanfiction FAVORITE  COLORS.  purple and red FAVORITE  BOOKS. The Silmarillion and Good Omens LAST  SONG  LISTENED  TO.   Khululiwe Sithole & Lebo M. - Lea Halalela LAST  FILM  WATCHED. Alpha

INSPIRATION  FOR  MUSE.   oh boi this would get way too long... let’s just say I love the avari elves and Naeriel has always been meant to be a way to give them a little bit of well deserved spotlight. Plus I wanted an elf who was bffs with hobbits

DREAM  JOB.  Writer

MEANING  BEHIND  YOUR  URL.    mornedhel = dark elf

TAGGED BY.    thank you @elenhest

“Climbing.  Yes- no trouble.”  

The thought made her feel slightly nauseous– but Tauriel had only been in the Guard for a few years yet.  If she were to show weakness, or an inability to work through pain, the others would never fully trust her.  

“…is that what is required, right now?”  

“Baw… I am not pretending.  I am fine, Naeriel,” she said, quickly standing to her full height and trying desperately to ignore how badly her head swam as she did.  

“Let us move on.”  

“So I see,”

Starter Call! || Accepting

“ That was an excellent shot. ” The voice that cut through the aftermath was a jovial one, a young apostate leaning on his staff with seemingly no concerns about the bodies now sprouting arrows at his feet. “ I was ready to offer my aid, but now I see you didn’t need it. Well fought. ”

                           @mornedhel

A corner of her thin lips slant upward, briefly revealing the stained whites underneath. A chuckle is forthcoming. ❝Embellishment is the sign of a good storyteller, is it not?❞ Another inhale is taken from the gold tip of her long thin pipe, filling her lungs with the fragrant smoke before adding it to the air’s haze above them. It felt good to be freely smoking with another elf for the habit is not widespread among them. ❝Tell me more.❞

Hey, it’s your secret santa! I really liked your autoplay list and decided to go with a musical gift, I hope you like it and that it suits Naeriel ;w;

The rules are simple, you do not need to be tagged to fill out the questions, but once you have you must reblog and tag 10 of your followers to spread the love. You can fill it out as many times as your heart desires (we all know muses can change with their character development.)

10 QUESTIONS: 1. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE WORD? ❝Fire. Embers. Flame. Anything that brings to mind the fires of the forge roaring under my ministrations, steel surrendering its strength into my hands, allowing me to mold it as I see fit, turn it into a weapon that will later cut foes without end.❞

2. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE WORD? ❝The Sea. A treacherous expanse of water, both hated and alluring, an entity in itself that stole so much from me, family, kin and yet one that I will one day have to pass should I ever want to see them again. A prison and a trap, all wrapped in a beautiful lie. ❞

3. WHAT TURNS YOU ON? ❝Questions, genuine and filled with curiosity, a desire to know more about the past without witnessing it through the prism of legends and fables of present times. Trust, offered freely, the acceptance of my life, as tremulous and unsettles as it might be, fraught with both danger and a wanderlust hard to settle . Nights spend together in the canopy of the tress, witnessing the beauty of the stars.❞

4. WHAT TURNS YOU OFF? ❝Distrust and pride. Eyes watching me with superiority, scoffing at my heritage, at all that I hold dear. Derision plain in every word as a conversation turns to sharp words and bitter remarks. To be seen as the guilty party, even though no side is without its faults. ❞

5. WHAT SOUND DO YOU LOVE? ❝Hammer on steel. The roar of the forge, fire proud, yet tamed, if only for the moment, willing to share its power with another. The trills of the birds in the trees and the rustle of the leaves as the wind passes through them. The sounds of nature coming to life come Spring.❞

6. WHAT SOUND DO YOU HATE? ❝The silence of death.❞

7. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CURSE WORD? ❝Rhaich! Which has the very unimaginative meaning ‘curses’. It is the curse word I use most often. ❞

8. WHAT PROFESSION OTHER THAN YOURS WOULD YOU LIKE TO ATTEMPT? ❝There is nothing else I would like to attempt. Forging is in my soul and fire in my veins. Anything else would simply mean ignoring that which calls truest to my heart. ❞

9. WHAT PROFESSION WOULD YOU NOT LIKE TO DO? ❝A herbalist or a cook. Least said about this, the best.❞

10. IF HEAVEN EXISTS, WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR GOD(S) SAY WHEN YOU ARRIVE AT THE PEARLY GATES? ❝I hold little desire to converse with either the Valar or Eru himself. There is too much suffering in my past, too much anguish gathered over millenniums that I fear my words would be most unkind.❞

BONUS QUESTIONS: 1. SOMETHING MOST PEOPLE DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU? ❝I enjoy singing, though I do not do so very often, because I know in comparison with my kin, I have a very plain voice..❞

2. SEXUAL PREFERENCE? ❝And what use would such an information be to you?❞

3. WHAT POSITION DO YOU SLEEP IN? ❝On my back, head elevated slightly with the use of a pillow and arms stretched at my sides.❞

4. WHAT IF SOMEONE TOLD YOU…YOU HAD TO LOSE, JUST THIS ONE TIME? ❝I’d tell him to have a look over my past. I have lost more than most can ever comprehend. Nor would I wish such knowledge upon them. Ignorance is bliss in such a situation.❞

5. GREATEST FEAR? ❝It has already come to pass.❞

6. IF YOU COULD LEAVE ONE THING TO BE REMEMBERED BY, WHAT WOULD IT BE? ❝I do not wish to be remembered by history. If anything, I wish it forgot completely about me. The one thing I could leave as legacy is the one secret I will take to my grave.❞

“It’s your fault” he says and she cannot find the words she wishes to toss back, words that cut as deep as the ones he hurls at her. ‘It’s yours,’ she wishes to snap at him, all brittle words and righteous anger, the sorrow in her heart so much deeper than his.’Your fault for coming into war here starry eyed with delusions of glory. Your fault for believing a battle is glamorous and that death is not there, lingering at every corner, waiting to take us all.’ She wishes to tell him that every war demands sacrifices, wishes to teach him, even if too late, that the price is often too high to pay.

But the words fall short and there is not enough power left in her being to fight against his vitriol. She tries to make him see reason, tries to make him understand it had been Lóhel’s choice, who had known war and had known death as opposed to him. Lohel’s choice,  who had seen Doriath crumble around her, who had been forced to pick a sword and take lives despite being an artist, who had known exactly what she would find on the battlefield, be it blood, PAIN or death.

She says all this and more, asks him to respect his love’s sacrifice, but the pain is too raw and the anger too deep. The war is won and the enemy defeated so he cannot lash at them; he lashes at her instead, the easiest target to hurl all his heart’s ache at. Each word is a poisonous dart, each tearing open a lingering wound on her already scarred soul.

“NAERIEL.” He says with derision, earning a flinch from her, each syllable drawn out as if tasting a particularly vile concoction. “How apt a name your mother chose for you, aunt mine. Was your naneth a foreseer to choose such a name or what is merely rancor for you claiming her very life? Regardless, it truly seems sorrow has taken you as one of her own. You dole it out to others with no restraint whatsoever, too caught up in your own grief to stop and think whether the rest of us deserve to feel the same.”

There is naught she can do to deflect his blows and part of her does not even wish to. For though her nephew is hurt and pained, his words are half truths that she knows in her heart as well. So she listens, allows him to finish his condemnation, face closing off in face of his attack until no emotions shine anymore, a facade as rigid as stone taking the place of her usual earnestness. She allows him this moment of victory over a foe he can fell with words, for she knows, come morning she will be gone and he will be left with his sorrow.

“You are poison, Naeriel.” And how it hurts to hear this name from him when ever she had been Iúleth, the name she still held tied with the innocence of her youth and never Naeriel who had seen and lived through too much. “You, with wanderlust burning in your veins, with your inability to stand still. You come and go as you please and others follow in your footsteps. But whereas you survive, they do NOT.”

The words seem to be the ones that cut his strings for his accuses fall silent and harsh sobs replace them. “Leave,” he demands through his tears and she acquiesces, putting as much distance between herself and her grieving nephew.

Her weapons are still bloodied, her body littered with wounds, but she does not seek healing, instead takes her leave the following moment, no longer able to remain next to the plains where so many had fallen. And in her hand she clutches the last mementos of two people dear to her who had also lost their lives during the final onslaught: Duvenor’s knife and Aldor’s leather bracelet; uncle and dear friend both felled on the battlefield. Her last link to Nan Elmoth and the only one of the race of men to whom she had ever felt kinship.

No, Brethil had not been the only one to lose too much that day. He had not been the only one to make too much of a sacrifice… but she cannot fault him for their deaths, while he can fault her for Lohel’s.

There have been few times in his long life, few, when Dûion of the avari had been as… frightened as he was during the Battle under the Trees. He, the direct descendant of those who awoke first at Kuiwênêni, the blood of those who dwelt in the night since its beginning, had fought in the wars of the east, battled foes the west would have never even dreamed of. 

Yet, he had been frightened yes, when among battle cries and shouts of pain, he had seen her, his heart, having her skin pierced and blood rushing out again and again. When he had seen her collapsing to the ground, flaming branches touching her hardened skin, her cries of pain, her cries of despair. He, himself had not escaped that battle unscathed. Among his right arm and right part of his chest, now tended and bandaged, lied several burns, his skin red and painful to the movement, to the touch. His left foot had gained a deep cut. Untreated, it would have festered, even led to him limping. But Dûion cared not. 

He cared not, not when his khōm, his melā, lied restless, something in her eyes telling him that this battle left her with more than bodily wounds. The avar fixated her with an openly concerned gaze. 

“Ndilāen.” My love…  He called. 

His voice startled her from the dark path her thoughts had taken, body unconsciously turning towards the sound of his voice. A soft look passed over her features, sadness and misery still lingering in pain filled eyes, though pushed deeper down, a futile effort to not worry him though Naeriel knew full well how pointless it all was.

She hid her hands in the folds of her shawl, shame at the intermittent tremors wracking them mingling with the despair over the constant ache that would not leave. As she was, clad in a plain green gown, with an ivory shawl cast carelessly over her shoulders and completely stripped of her weapons, the forge maiden seemed smaller, lesser, a pale echo of who she had been before the war. It suited her ill, make her thoughts turn to even darker paths, and yet she had vowed not to touch her weapons until she was not fit to carry them properly.