Silence
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Doriath was silent. Even the Esgalduin’s music was choked; only a trickle of water ran down the riverbed, where once it had been full and clear and glittering with starlight, its song an echo of Melian’s own voice. Where once niphredil covered the ground like soft fragrant snow, there was only barren dirt, bereft even of animal tracks. There were no more animals to leave them. The deer had fled and the rabbits had vanished, and the foxes too, and the birds had long ago flown away, never to return. The trees stood tall and bare, dead and still, their voices forever silenced. Only the earth was left to remember and to grieve those who had lived there, who had delved into the hill, who had sung in the trees and splashed in the river.
Menegroth did not lay in ruin. Morgoth’s armies had never crossed the Girdle, even after Melian had gone and left only tattered remnants of enchantment behind. But war raged in the north, and the Sea was creeping inexorably closer, and soon the once lush and lovely woods of Neldoreth and Region, and the thousand caves of Menegroth so lovingly delved so long ago would join Gondolin and Nargothrond, and the Falas, and all the rest of Beleriand deep beneath the waves. Then only Ulmo would be able to come to see what remained of the splendor of Thingol’s court.
Nellas stood before the gaping mouth of Menegroth. Its gates stood open; faint rusty stains on the stones told of the horrors that had taken place within. She did not enter—she liked such places even less than she had before. Now there was no kindly king to make tease a smile out of her in spite of her unease. There were no friends waiting to greet her. Only blood and ash and bones—and the darkness could keep those to itself.
The wind blew in from the west, carrying with it both the salty scent of the sea, and the reek of foul burnings. Nellas shuddered, and pulled her cloak more tightly about her. She crouched and left a small wreath of beechen leaves before the doors. “Fare well!” she called, to the stones and the soil, soon to be lost forever. “Fare well, dearest home of my heart!”
She turned then and departed, and did not look back.
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