Service to the Dead by heget

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Chapter 2

The following chapter contains linked footnotes for dialogue. A pet peeve of mine is long strings of untranslated dialogue in a different language than the one that the fic is written in, as sacrilegious as it is for a Tolkien fan to admit. My exceptions are the odd vocabulary term and sometimes poetry or as a bonus in footnotes. However late in this chapter, two characters speak several sentences of what the pov character cannot in-universe translate, so I've included the dialogue in the footnotes.

A dead man should not suffer from saddle sores. The universe was absurd and targeted its cruelty upon Gorlim. This was fact undeniable. His lower calves ached from the rubbing against the sides of the horse, his inner thighs and buttocks hurt, he kept accidentally banging his forehead against the back cuirass of Aegnor’s armor, and he knew the second that he dismounted he would not be able to stand straight. “I would beg thee to kill me to save me this misery, even if we both knew it would not work,” Gorlim whispered to his fogged reflection. The shape and patterns of Aegnor’s strange armor did not move as Gorlim watched, but the contours were different each time that Gorlim tried to map them, the surface broken by new swirls or scales that distorted the reflections, new spikes and horns on the pauldrons that he could not track. He could not comprehend how that worked, or how the horse’s steady two-beat trot switched time signatures without changing pace. He was counting the beats by old songs that he had memorized, and found it aligned best to the irregular complex rhythms of Haladim songs that Dairuin’s father had taught to him long ago. But the horse moved at a brisk trot, never a canter to explain the three-beats. Gorlim had no stomach in which to grow nauseous or else he thought the eldritch dilemmas upon which he rode could make it possible.

Aegnor noticed that he had spoken, turning in the saddle to glance back at Gorlim, the faceplate of his helmet raised to expose his face. “Are thee well?”

“Aye, M’lord,” Gorlim muttered, trying to hold back wincing from the pain of being astride a horse for several hours after years without. 

The mortal wraith did not meet Aegnor’s eyes, or else he would have seen the doubt in those elven eyes that accurately judged that Gorlim lied of his discomfort. Aegnor took his reply unopposed but still challenged him on a new stride. “Speak informal to me, or in Taliska or Sindarin as is most comfortable to thee. I am no longer thy lord.”

“I think it would be uncomfortable for me to address you informally, M’lord.”

“Thy father did.”

Gorlim, mindful of his shame, retorted, “And I am not him.”

“Nay,” said Aegnor, “Thou are taller.” The elven lord made an all too human sigh. “But if it sets you at ease... Fain, as long as you speak to me, my heart shall be gladdened by the company. The other Houseless rarely converse with me long, and I bandy words not with my enemies.”

Gorlim wondered if Aegnor in his loneliness held long conversations with the horse. In his isolation the wraith had attempted communications with random wildlife, so he did not think of the possibility as outside the realm of probability nor would he have disparaged Aegnor for it. And for all he knew, whatever the strange horse that Aegnor rode upon, if horse it was, was capable of speech. “What ...what would you wish for me to say?”

Aegnor did not immediately reply, and awkwardness grew the longer that the pause stretched. As Gorlim waited, Aegnor nudged the horse to weave around a solitary oak, the claw marks of a bear maring the bark in several clear pale lines. The sign worried Gorlim, for deep into winter all bears should be hibernating. The pale lines were an ill omen of possible danger towards Beren. Too preoccupied fretting for his friend, Gorlim almost missed Aegnor’s next words. “Dismount.”

“What?”

“Dismount, Gorlim. Quickly and silently,” Aegnor said brusquely, already sliding down from the saddle.

Gorlim half-fell, his legs and bottom sore and somehow more so for impacting the earth that he could no longer feel. Air that no longer existed in his lungs still punched out of his chest from the sudden fall against the ground, for fall it was instead of coordinated dismount. It had been the urgent fear in Aegnor’s voice that had prompted Gorlim to throw himself off the horse, inelegant and unsilent though the results were, and the mortal ghost stared up at the elven one. Aegnor stood behind the shielding bulk of his steed, sword unsheathed, his taut pose that of a hunting hound catching the scent of a wolf. Gorlim knew that pose. Four and three-quarter years an outlaw hunting orcs and other minions of Morgoth, hiding from their patrols and reprisals, ambushing them whenever possible, had taught Gorlim that pose and that tension’s taste. It was easy to imagine Aegnor with the twitching ears of Eilinel’s cat, the slightest quiver of tiny triangles, as it had looked when it heard a noise of either mouse or unfriendly dog. That was the question, whether it was prey or foe that Aegnor listened for. 

Gorlim, unarmed, hated the sensation of helplessness. Could he fight as a wraith? What enemies did the dead have? Aegnor had spoken of them. Sauron was one; Gorlim remembered that. No, let me not be helpless again before him.

Aegnor sighed; tension flooded out of him like water through a frozen river once spring’s full might hit. “Forgive me. I thought the shade was closer than it is. The trail is cold once more.” He sheathed his sword and slumped to the ground, losing some of that elven grace in the process. 

Gorlim pulled himself up into a seated position to mirror Aegnor. No snow or leaf debris crunched under him as he moved, which was more disconcerting than it should have been, for when he had been alive Gorlim would have begged for such silence in his movements as to hide himself from prey and foe. Even seated, the elven shade was larger than Gorlim, but it was hard to feel distant from a man when he sat across from one with legs stretched out and elbows plopped on bent knees. Aegnor looked tired. Long years as outlaws with barely any support to fight an overwhelming army - Gorlim understood that weariness and marveled at Aegnor’s loneliness.

Even the horse had changed. It emitted a radiance felt more than seen, and when Aegnor had dismounted, that inner light felt like sharp rays of sunlight at its harshest point of day piercing through the brittle shell of a horse-like shape, but when Aegnor relaxed the internal light turned soft and heavy and sank to the bottom of that horse outline like motes made of fuzzy cattail down. The light in Aegnor’s eyes was like that, too, brighter than even the way the elves’ brightness was, strange and holy in the same way as the white lines of afterimages of living things. The vision of the dead, Gorlim was starting to label all this. It made him queasy and fearful of what he would become if he remained a wraith.

“Describe for me your Eilinel.”

“M’lord?”

“A man delights most in talking of his wife and family. Thou need not sing her praises. Tell me a small story of her, a habit that she had or a feature of her appearance. Something that she did that brought you small grief, or the tale of how you met.” Aegnor’s face showed an earnest eagerness but not an uncomfortable hunger; he wanted conversation to relieve their boredom but would accept Gorlim’s refusal, and Gorlim did not doubt for an instant that Aegnor would be anything less than an appreciative audience. Beren had been a good listener too, one of the first traits that drew Gorlim to his friend. And to speak of Eilinel would bring Gorlim joy, to share the woman that he loved instead of tragedy that befell from her absence.

He fumbled for what feature to start with, which memory would work best for an introduction, then spouted the first image that came to mind. “She embroidered. I remember the last- no, it wasn’t the last project she worked on- this shirt. It was a deep green, and Eilinel was stitching this row of yellow flowers all around the front. Our designs, those flowers, not the fancy elven work that looks like the real thing, nothing so marvelous. I remember the thread though, the exact shade of yellow. And Eilinel,” Gorlim laughed, “she was near-sighted. She could make stitches the width of the leg of an ant, so fine, but anything further than the length of her arm began to blur for her. So she would hold her needlework and letters up to her face, so close that her nose almost touched. Would nearly singe her eyebrows off cooking, My Eilinel, staring at the cauldron a breath away so that she could tell if the consistency was right. Needed me to describe objects or people in the distance for her. And she would squint. It made her face charming, the tiny furrow between her brows.”

Aegnor nodded and smiled. “I see the expression.”

Gorlim realized he had been mimicking his wife’s face and laughed at himself. “Yes, well, it also meant she would always lean in close to me so she could see. I ...liked that,” Gorlim trailed off. “On her, it was attractive.”

“Gap between her front teeth,” Aegnor said suddenly, “she hated it.”

“Hmm?”

Aegnor shook his head. “You were telling me of your Eilinel.”

Gap teeth. Gorlim stopped and stared hard at the elf. If his company were a fellow man of the Bëorians, one of his companions sworn to Barahir or even Lord Barahir himself, Gorlim would dare the question that sat against his teeth. “Speak informal to me, or in Taliska or Sindarin as is most comfortable to thee. I am no longer thy lord.” Aegnor had said to him, and denouncing caution, Gorlim decided to test this.

“Tell me of the woman thou spoke of, this Gap Teeth, and I shall speak more of mine.”

Aegnor tightened the muscles of his face and body, drawing in upon himself to liken more to a cold and immobile statute of a man, his ageless face proud and stern and unwelcoming. His legs retreated and his back stiffened, no longer the comfortable companionship of two men sitting together on the ground. His eyes lost their warmth, and his voice, when he finally spoke, was steel bite. “No. Thou shalt never ask again.”

Once more Gorlim felt that hint of fear for the armored elven spirit. The mystery compelled him, however. For Aegnor’s mien and mood to turn so swiftly - to shield himself, aye, pain that was. Horrible, familiar pain. Gorlim’s fear melted into empathy. “We’ll drop it,” Gorlim said, the same way that his mother had stated that phrase when she meant that the subject would be returned to when it was most inconvenient for her son. Bright eyes glared at Gorlim. Ah, another soul familiar with that unspoken ‘for now’. Fishing for a new conversation topic, Gorlim cast his bait upon the horse standing next to them. “What is its name?”

Aegnor’s blink was the cracking of ice, and the cold mask fell away once more.

“The horse’s name is He Carries Consequences. It sounds sharper in the Valarin language, but the connotations of its meaning are... less dire and more metaphysical.”

“Your last word bestired not a single dram of understanding.”

“Philosophy. You needs be either a Vala, my brother, or very drunk to understand it.”

The laugh that escaped Gorlim’s throat was like a fox wiggling free of a chicken coop, and Aegnor’s laughter soon joined. 

“Dost thou sing?” Aegnor asked, once their laughter was sated.

“Aye,” Gorlim answered. “Was once my joy, and to learn songs. Taught my best friend, Beren, how to sing. We have no accompanying instruments, however, and I cannot pluck a reed to carve a pipe or string to craft one. Unless you brought one, M’lord?”

“No,” Aegnor said, “though I preferred the flute and pipe or the various lutes if called to play, as my eldest brother likes the harp. Angrod was best at the pipes; he loved your mortal ones involving sewn bladders and multiple reeds. Pretty instrument, though an acquired taste, and ill suited for the interior of castle halls. Horrified Cousin Fingon with it once.”

Gorlim imagined the scene and winced. “Shall I sing anyways?”

“If thou wish. It would please me, but you face no obligation. I ask not as your lord.” 

Gorlim cleared his throat and dropped his voice into the low sonorous chant of Eilinel’s favorite songs. She had liked best the contemplative songs and the old ones where half the words had no meaning anymore. The tones were low and dark, and yet Gorlim could feel his voice soaring out, able to resonate to the tarns and high valleys. Ragnar complained that Gorlim only sang dirges -false accusations with a seed of truth. At first he hummed, searching for the notes. Surrounded by snow, the dead man found his thoughts springing to a melancholic old Bëorian song whose overwhelming apropos had him hesitant to sing it. But Aegnor’s eagerness beckoned, so Gorlim sang, attempting to ignore lyrics that stung deeper. “Winter wakes all my care, for now these leaves grow bare. Often I sigh and mourn this with pressing keen,” Gorlim licked his lips, fumbling for the tune, “when this world’s joy I have thought, and how all its bounty goes to naught. Now it is, now it is not - as though it hath never been.” Gorlim repeated those short three lines, nervously checking Aegnor’s face for reactions. This was the section of the song that was the same in all dialects of Taliska, the part that Gorlim remembered singing as a skipping song and counting rhymes as a young child. Is and not and hath never been, which hand held the pebble, which straw to draw to pick patrols. “Many men say this, and it is so, say this and is so: we shall all die, though we like it ill. All that which grows green, now it fades to be seen. For I don’t know where I shall go when saying my farewell, nor how long among the green earth I shall dwell.”

Aegnor laughed at the last lines, but it was a rueful, gentle sound of compassion instead of raucous amusement. “Thou, my most peculiar case, are more uncertain than most, and shall linger until thy boon friend Beren says his farewell. And aye, that cruel uncertainty of your mortal spirits. To the Halls I shall ferry thee both - but thou both shall abandon me. My brother’s philosophy and my Lord Námo’s hope is that there is a chance for reunion once more.” Aegnor’s face dipped into a miserable snarl, his eyes shadowed by lash and tilt of jaw. “I have no hope for it, no faith. Mandos has certainty within the bonds of Arda, the ability to far-see and proclaim fates. But beyond the bonds?” Aegnor growled, “‘tis naught.”

Present before this anger, Gorlim almost regretted the choice of song. Strange he found it, though, for an immortal to loathe mortality and all that it entailed as his people did. Gorlim was the one facing it, and yet his fears focused not on the nebulous fate awaiting him but on how an existence trapped as a wraith would change him, a fear that he could lose all memory or sense of self or begin to see the world only through the bright vibrating lines of the movement of living things.

But the elf had been born in a land of endless summer, where the green of grass never faded. That old song must be as incomprehensible to grasp as the shapes of Aegnor’s armor were for Gorlim to outline.

They needed a new song.

Gorlim began to sing the first line of a frivolous song about linden trees, but the horse interrupted him by violently stepping back with ears pinned to its skull, tail lashing back and forth. Gorlim yelped and dove out of its path, unwilling to experiment with the sensation of being both dead and trampled by a war steed. Aegnor cursed and leapt up, unsheathing his sword. “Lured him,” he proclaimed, reaching for the horse’s headstall to steady the animal and lift into the saddle once the stirrups stopped swinging. “Stay, Gorlim! And stay quiet.” Before Aegnor vaulted into the saddle, his quarry appeared, and Aegnor released the horse, deciding to face it on foot. The horse with the Valarin name of He Carries Consequences -and Gorlim was itching to learn if the original Valarin version of that name had more or less syllables than the translation- snorted and sidestepped until it stood between Aegnor and Gorlim. Gorlim did not immediately realize that the horse was attempting to shield Gorlim from sight. Hunched on the ground, he could peer between the animal’s legs to see whom Aegnor now faced with an unbarred steel sword.

Gorlim had adjusted to discerning movement of objects by the bright lines left in its wake, an adjustment that made the dim figure moving towards them difficult for him to catch until his mind reevaluated what he saw.

Another ghost ran towards them -though flew was perhaps a more apt description- and the  body outline grew more bright and solid as it approached, drifting down from the leafless trees until the new ghost stood upon the mix of old snow and forest debris. The movement had been swift but jerky, like that of a spider, then it paused as if finally beholding Aegnor’s shape and armor and the bright line of a sword held ready. At first the figure had been a dim amorphous shadow among the branches, a man-shaped outline of mists and diluted colors. Now the ghost stood on the earth before them, almost solid and fully-colored for a denizen of this strange death reflection of the world. For months Gorlim encountered no other ghosts or wraiths, and in a short time he had intercepted the paths of two. The newcomer’s eyes were glowing lanterns, marsh light green. Gorlim wondered if that was where the warning stories originated. It lurched towards Aegnor and the horse after its pause, shouting something that Gorlim thought might be a question or request. Linda, Gorlim thought the word was, or something approximating that sound. Another word almost discernible was Adan, which Gorlim knew was one of the elven terms for mortal men. The voice croaked as it repeated its question or demand, sounding like the mimicry voice of crows or ravens instead of that from the throat of man or elf. Shrill it became, like a badly tuned lute. The wrongness repulsed Gorlim, and he pressed his prone body snugly against the earth, tilting just his head to peer up and through the horse’s fetlocks to see the figures across from him. The terrible angle was slightly nostalgic; many times he and the other men of Barahir’s group had lain undetected in the underground to observe passing orcs. Without being told, Gorlim knew that he did not wish this new ghost to notice him.

“Houseless Spirit, Heed me!” Aegnor commanded, and Gorlim felt a change in air pressure and for a bright half-second tasted acid on his tongue. The effect of Aegnor’s shout was even stronger upon the spirit that Aegnor identified as one of the Houseless, a dead elven soul that lingered when it should not. It flinched and moved as if it wished to flee but was trapped in some invisible spider’s web. The newcomer shouted back at Aegnor, and Aegnor repeated his command in words that felt as sharp as razors and tasted like bottled lightning. The last film of mist fell away from the figure, revealing an elven man in soot-darkened armor. From Gorlim’s supine angle, the oddity of the ghost’s missing boots was clearly visible. The stockings were coal black. An empty quiver hung from his belt but no bow or sword.

Aegnor shouted a name too quickly for Gorlim to catch. The Houseless phantom wore familiar armor, the mix of dwarven chainmail and small metal plates that the Noldor preferred, with an unadorned helmet, which meant he had been a lowly foot soldier. Someone who served under Aegnor and had died during the Dagor Bragollach, no doubt. Or maybe another victim of that battle, one of the riders under High King Fingolfin and his son Prince Fingon, who having died up in the flower fields of the far north had drifted down to Dorthonion. The phantom had no discerning feature upon his armor, and without cavalry footwear Gorlim would not know, for he could not distinguish the minute details of Noldor soldiery the way that he could recognize from which valley a warrior of the Bëorians hailed by what accouterments they brought. Aegnor recognized who he was, and he was the one that needed to.

“Please don’t step on me,” Gorlim whispered to Horse of Consequences as he wiggled forward to see what was going on and if the Houseless would bolt forward once more or try to flee.

Gorlim knew the elvish language, and aside from some syllables and almost-words, what Aegnor said to the other wraith and what that elven ghost replied with -all that orderly sound-  was naught but gibberish to him. The jackdaw of birds held no more sense than their words. Gorlim floundered in his role as audience to their scene. Had it been a physical fight, at least, he could understand the back and forth of parry and strikes, perhaps even participate, though he had no weapon. But though Aegnor held his sword in a plow guard, the former lord of Dorthonion made no move to lunge at the other elven ghost. 

The other elven phantom shouted at Aegnor, his words emphatic and loud, almost feverish in how he pleaded and screamed.  Gorlim’s ears deceived him into thinking he could derive meaning and he could parse that at least one statement was a negative declarative if little else[1], but the strength of emotion sang clear as a finely tuned reed pipe. The Houseless cried, tears dripping from those green marsh-light eyes, slowly dimming to a more natural brightness.  

Aegnor snapped several long sentences in return, each growing louder and longer until he shouted three short syllables that almost sounded like the first part of the word for a ghost but tasted of acid and lightning, another command.[2} Upon those final words the Houseless phantom fell to his knees in a fearful cringe, covering his ears.

The phantom wept, and Aegnor lowered his sword. Slowly he approached, as if to soothe a spooked horse, and laid a hand upon the other ghost’s helm. “Go,” Aegnor said in clear Sindarin. “Go to the Doomsman and find restoration.”

Though Gorlim could not feel it, nor did any vibration lines acknowledge its force upon the surroundings, a strong wind blew, the noise whistling by Gorlim’s ears. The westbound wind targeted the kneeling ghost; Gorlim was incidental. Like the words of what Gorlim deduced was Valarin, the wind temporarily restored a sense, scent instead of taste. Myrtle, Gorlim thought, and some other unrecognizable flower, and he stood up and dashed around the horse, reaching for the kneeling phantom. The wind picked up the once more dim and translucent ghost, floating away like mist or dandelion tuffs. Gorlim gasped, but Aegnor shook his head and called back, “Fear not. He has gone to the Halls of Awaiting as his spirit should have when first he died. Already before Mandos doth he now stand, and the Valië Nienna shall in kindness deal with his tears.” Aegnor sighed and trudged back to his two companions, shoulders no longer stiffened by the demands of command. “Forgive me, Loyal Gorlim; my intention was not to use thee as bait, but thy mortal song drew the Houseless spirit, a lonely ghost craving not only companionship but the sensations of the living. That is the danger, when those yearnings turn to envy. That envy will draw the Houseless to attack the living, a most evil deed, that which I am here to thwart.”

Gorlim deduced as much about both Houseless in general and their recently departed encounter. “I thought I was bait.”

Contrite, Aegnor sheathed his sword. “Fie. Your song was, though my first and strongest motive in requesting that you sing -and your voice is pleasant and pure- was but for the beauty and enjoyment of it. But yes, I calculated that the song might draw our quarry out, but not that he would approach so near or so swiftly. The plan was to have you hide a good distance back. I misliked how close he came. The Houseless should be little danger to thee, as thou art already dead, but I was loathe to chance it. And thank thee for staying back and not revealing thyself. I feared that thee might attempt something foolish.”

Just how reckless did Aegnor think him to be? “Please, I’m not Beren,” he scoffed.

Aegnor laughed, this time a sound halfway between the two that Gorlim was now familiar. “Thank the stars that we intercepted Vóryestaro before your living friend. I do not think that Vóryestaro would have attacked Beren, but the son of the last Lord of Ladros has enough enemies to face with Sauron at his heels. Thou do know that thy individual deaths are worth to Morgoth the same as killing High King Fingon himself, that the Black Foe counted each of thee outlaws of Barahir as an equally dangerous foe?” Aegnor’s expression could not hold any more possible pride, and he fondly patted nonexistent dirt and snow off of Gorlim’s shoulders. “My brave-hearted Men of Bëor. My fate was worth the knowledge of you and your fealty.” 

Gorlim blushed. Even if he no longer felt worthy of the praise, to know how earnestly beloved his people had been by one of their former feudal lords, it was like a bellyful of rich soup and Eilinel’s arms across his shoulders. To move the conversation away and to sate his curiosity, he asked, “What was that tongue which you spoke?”

“Quenya. Our mother-tongue - his. If I am to be precise, my mother-tongue was a variant of Quenya spoken by my mother’s people - but it is the language of the elves spoken on the other side of the sea. The banned one, for the act of betrayal and kin-slaying.”

“I remember,” Gorlim said softly. “That was one of the few words that I caught, amarto, that you both kept repeating. It means the same as amarth, yes? Fate, doom.”

“Yes,” Aegnor replied, his single syllable of answer more an exhale than speech.

“We called ourselves outlaws, you know, when we stayed behind to patrol Dorthonion. And it was true because Morgoth now ruled our homeland. But we didn’t think him king of it, not in our hearts. The true ruler of Dorthonion was Barahir, Lord of the Bëorians, and King Finrod above him. But we also had outlaws, true outlaws to the Bëor. Those were men that committed acts of theft or murder against their neighbors, who accepted guest right and then did harm to their hosts. Then such men were counted outlaws, banned and hunted, and never accepted back into any community, at least not in any story I remember. Thieves and murderers and traitors were to be denied burial.” Gorlim thought of Beren’s desperate search for his body to bury him with the others, of his friend’s incredible kindness. “That definition of outlaw was the Kinslayers, though, and why that ghost was so afraid. You elves were so much more forgiving and noble than us, I thought, when I heard the stories of what happened before Bëor met King Finrod.”

Aegnor said no reply.

“Your Valar are kind, too. To parole Morgoth as they did, even if the repentance was false. And to take back the ghosts and send you to fetch them, even those that broke their laws.”

“They are your Valar, too,” Aegnor grumbled. “And aye, I will send whichever spirit I can convince to go, even those of orcs if I could, to the Halls of Mandos so that they may be healed and reborn.”

“Have thou? Ghosts of orcs? Have any been freed?”

“Not yet,” Aegnor admitted in a soft sad tone. “I have tried, but none can listen.” He paused. “You addressed me informally just now.”

“I did no such thing, M’lord.”

Chapter End Notes

The poem that Gorlim paraphrased is one of the oldest surviving poetry of Middle English, "Wynter wakeneth al my care".

Bagpipes are a widespread and ancient form of instrument.

For those curious, Tool is my primary playlist inspiration for this fic, so Maynard James Keenan is a rough approximation for Gorlim's singing voice, if the Edain of the First Age had prog metal.

Valarin sounds harsh to elven ears, and Taliska is the collective name for the language of the Bëorians and a closely related but distinct dialect spoken by the People of Hador. This chapter is where the gratuitous tomfoolery with second-person singular pronouns kicks into high gear.

 

The Quenya dialogue that Gorlim naturally would not know:

 

1 "I cannot return. The Doom keeps me. How can I face my neighbors, having partaken in the Kinslaying, having followed Findecáno, with hands still stained with their life-blood? I am Doomed; I do not deserve to return. Send me not to the Doomsman, I beg! The song, the mortal song, where is it? Send me not from the Hithershore! Aie, the Doom!" [return to text]

2 “You must go to the Halls of Awaiting. The Doom does not disbar you. You must go. The Hithershore is not yours to linger. It is your shame and cowardice that keeps you here, as was also foretold. You fear the consequences of your choice; you fear the censure and to admit self-truth - but there will be no healing otherwise for you or any others. No shrift awaits unless you go. Your neighbors and your victims gain no more by your lingering on these shores than they would by your entrance to those Halls to which is your proper fate. If your regret is not false vanity, you will not stay. If you stay, you shall become something crueler, something worse than the Kinslayer who followed out of loyalty to misguided leadership. I have seen what Houseless become, when envy of the living sinks in. Or even lesser you might become, a frail dim thing that has no ears in which to hear the loveliness of song, and that fate I shall not allow you either. Hie thee away!” 

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