The Writhen Pool by pandemonium_213

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Chapter 9: To the Brink

Mélamirë seeks an end to her pain and a means to prevent the risk that she might turn to evil herself.

Warning: Heads up for graphic suicidal ideation.

Acknowledgments in End Notes.

No more than the breadth of a single stride lay between the tips of her bare toes and the edge of the precipice. Mélamírë tightened her shoulders as she prepared her body for the fateful moment of decision. One stride and she would take flight, plummeting down to obliterate the anguish that consumed her. Yet she hesitated, cautiously leaning forward to peer at the jumble of boulders some sixty feet below while her feet pressed hard against rough stone, and with a will of their own, her toes curled, as if trying to dig into the rock to root her on the cliff's edge.

 

A gust of wind cut through the heavy air, heralding the swift approach of the thunderstorm from the West. The wind raked claw-like across her naked skin. For a moment, she regretted the impulse that made her discard her clothing and boots, now piled against the boulder where she had so often sat when she came here alone to collect her thoughts, to this place that no one else knew she visited. No, it was fitting that she had stripped off her garments.

 

Naked I came into this world, and naked I shall leave it.

 

She shivered when the wind struck her again, and she struggled to suppress her heightened senses, but the stones still sang their sonorous dirge, with voices so deep and slow that they were beyond the edge of hearing. Instead, their song found expression as a vibration in her gut, augmented by her pounding heart.

 

She fixed her sight on roiling clouds of the storm that churned over the valley of the Gwathló, rushing toward where she stood in the foothills of the Hithaeglir. Lightning forked across the western sky, and thunder rumbled.

 

Manwë Súlimo knows, she thought. He knows what Sauron has done. He knows who I am. At the same time, she imagined the exasperated voice of her father contradicting her, as he always did when she voiced fear or wonder of the gods: Such superstitious nonsense!

 

The storm likely was nothing more than a natural phenomenon, she thought, worthy of itself in its power and splendor, and believing that it was anything else was probably a trick of her mind. Yet, it was hard not to think that the Elder King was angered as the wind found its strength. It blew forcefully around the rocks and rattled the leaves of oak and mountain ash. It hissed through the fir trees until the hissing became a snake's voice that whispered in her ear — a silky and horribly familiar voice. She had heard its cold sibilance once before, at the beginning of her life, when Mother nearly bled to death while giving birth to her, when she nearly died herself, if it had not been for Father...

 

You never should have existed, the snake-voice intoned, frigid with judgment.

 

I know.

 

Come to me then. Come to me and find peace. Be free of your pain. You can harm no one in my halls.

 

Inch by inch, she edged closer to the brink of the precipice. A half-stride now and it all would be over. Then a grisly thought occurred to her: if she jumped, she might only break her legs and arms or damage an inner organ that would bleed out within her body, and she might then linger before death took her. A broken neck and a cracked skull, on the other hand, would be swift and sure. She thought of the huge red rock by the swimming hole that she and Father so often visited after they went fishing, how she would dive from that rock into the amber water.

 

Yes, I must dive rather than jump.

 

The snake-voice whispered again: it promised oblivion and respite from the anguish that seared her now. She steeled her resolve to forsake the agony of all the lies, to quench her overwhelming fear that she harbored something within that gave her the power to become like him. She must see this through and seek the hard truth on the stones below.

 

Still, she hesitated. She wondered what it was like for the dead in the Halls of Mandos. Did the fëar of Firstborn flutter about in the gloom like butterflies or bats? Or did they rest in the silent halls, brooding upon their past, lamenting their choices? No matter. Whatever happened, she would remove herself from the potential of furthering evil in the world.

 

Her legs tensed, ready to spring forward and propel her body head first over the cliff's edge. Take the leap, just take it, she told herself, and it will be done. Yet her muscles refused to obey, somehow disconnected from her will, as if her body denied her intent to leap from the cliff.

 

She struggled to lift her heel, but the wind slammed against her with such fury that she was forced to take a step backward. At the same instant, lightning struck a dead tree nearby, sending a fountain of white sparks showering down over the hill; the clap of thunder deafened her, and flames leapt from the dead wood. Something hard and cold stung her face, then another sting and another. Hail.

 

Denying the storm, she lowered her face to shield her eyes, and once again, edged her right foot forward, willing her reluctant legs to be ready to spring, but the rains came, pummeling her body, forcing her to take two steps back. The snake-voice hissed with urgency, Come! Come! But the rain's chorus drowned out that of the snake: Stay, stay!

 

Her arms and legs trembled, from the cold or out of frustration, she could not be sure. She tasted the salt of her tears on her lips, diluted by the rain. No! I must do this! She had to flee from what she might become, and she had to end her agony.

 

The rain and wind joined to swirl around her when she stepped to the very edge of the cliff. The rocks below were veiled in mist, but she knew they lay there, humming their dolorous song. Then from behind, she heard something else: a human voice.

 

"Master! Please, come back...Please!"

 

Thornangor! How had he known that she was here?

 

Then another voice, deeper, steady, but tinged with desperation. "Mélamírë! Do not do this!"

 

She turned, enough that she could see Sámaril and her apprentice, but not so much that she could not make her leap in an instant.

 

"You are both clever to have found me." She had to yell over the roar of rain and wind. "But are you clever enough to answer me this? Do you think, should I step over the edge, that Ulmo shall change me into a bird and bear me away? Or do you think that he will let me, who does not bear a holy jewel, but instead the blood of a monster, dash my life to pieces on the stones below?"

 

Thorno stood mute, his hair plastered against his neck and face, clothes drenched and visibly shaking, but Sámaril remained composed and took two slow strides forward through the driving rain.

 

"I think that Ulmo would want neither," he said. "I think that he would wish you to remain here in the world with those who admire you, who respect you, with those who love you."

 

"Love me? How can anyone in their right mind risk loving me?"

 

"Your mother..."

 

"Mother?" Mélamírë laughed, a bitter, humorless sound, as she recalled her shock when Culinen confessed that she had known who her husband was. "She loves him more than she does me."

 

"No!" Sámaril shouted against the rain. "She loves you. She loves you more than her own life. Istyar Tyelperinquar loves you. Thornangor loves you. I love you. We are all worried sick. Please come back with us."

 

"I cannot. His blood flows in my veins. You know how evil he is. I must spare you from this." Lightning flashed again, whitening the curtain of rain.

 

"Spare us from what?" He shouted over the thunder. "You are not evil! Do not say such things of yourself!" His face softened with sorrow and empathy as he held out his hand to her in supplication. "He betrayed me, too. We share the pain of that betrayal, Mélamírë. Please come to me, and we may talk about how he wronged us."

 

"No...I cannot bear to face you, to face anyone. I must leave." She closed her eyes against the onslaught of the rain and wind that lashed at her.

 

"Please come to me," Sámaril said, his voice closer. "You are not alone."

 

"I cannot!" She spun around quickly, her foot leaving the rock to take that last stride when a strong hand grabbed her arm, yanking her backward, and pulled her tightly against him. She crumpled in Sámaril's embrace.  He stroked her soaked hair and murmured, "You are not alone," while the wind dwindled to a soft breeze, and the rain gentled to weep with them.

 

~*~

 

She remembered only scraps of what happened after that, some memories clear, others blurred: Thornangor's cloak thrown around her; Sámaril leading her down the trail, half-carrying her as she stumbled; being lifted into a dim, dry place — the back of a covered wain, she guessed — and wrapped in a dry wool blanket. She heard Tyelpo's barked commands, the patter of raindrops on the canvas above, and the neighing of restive horses. The wagon lurched forward over the rough road, every bump jolting her chilled bones. She remembered hearing her mother's voice, the gentle touch of those familiar hands, then the rough scrape of Tyelpo's fingers against her cheek, and his kiss on her forehead before she fell into a black swoon.

 

Awaking now, she lay still on something soft, enveloped by warmth. She was in her own bed. Opening her eyes, she saw sunlight streaming through the crack between the draperies, and beyond, a streak of clear blue sky. A savory odor tickled her nose, making her mouth water: porridge with milk, still warm, growing cold. Rolling over, she stared at a tray with a bowl, a glass, and a carafe of water on a small table that had been set up near her bed, and closer yet, a chair, right by her bedside. No one was there, but Mother's fragrance lingered in the room. She must have sat in that chair all night, but had stepped out. Mélamírë strained her ears and heard worried whispers — Mother and Tyelpo — on the other side of the door.

 

Her belly rumbled again, and for a moment, she considered pushing herself up to sit and call out for Culinen. Before she could muster what little strength she had to do this, the reason for her precarious state flooded into her awareness, and anguish weighed upon her like a cairn of iron, pushing her back into the bed. The light in the room dimmed as all her fear and sorrow returned. They might have thwarted her at the cliff, but they could not stop her here. She closed her eyes, silenced her rebellious stomach, and began the descent into a silent, grey place deep within herself, where no one could hurt her and where she could harm no one.

 

~*~

 

It took every bit of her will to hold her hand steady and keep her voice measured while she held the spoon to her daughter's lips.

 

"Just a sip, my dear. A little sip, that is all I ask. Please try."

 

Just as it had been every day for the past month and a half, Mélamírë's eyes remained shut and her lips closed. Culinen withdrew the spoon and placed it back in the bowl of broth, and gently lowered her daughter's head and shoulders back on the pillows. She reached to take the young woman's pallid hand, cold and clammy to the touch.

 

She was losing her. For all her healing arts, for all her understanding of how the human body functioned, and for all her deep knowledge of the intricacies of life, she could not reach her own child. The elvish body could survive without food for as long as three months, sometimes longer, before death came creeping. The clysters of beef broth and egg yolks that Culinen mixed for the nurse to administer might extend Mélamírë's life further, but such measures might also be a cruelty. Culinen crushed that thought whenever it nagged at her.

 

The sole consolation was that her child, even in her stupor, could still be persuaded to drink water, and that gave Culinen a measure of hope. So she persisted in her attempts to feed her every day, but Mélamírë's already slender body became gaunter by the week, and the bones of her skull pressed against the thin skin of her face.

 

Day after day, Culinen affected a mask of calm affection and efficient concern, as she gave the nurses instructions to see to her daughter's care, and sat by her bedside, but within, she howled with rage and grief, berating the husband who had deserted her and betrayed them all. She wanted to pick up Mélamírë and shake her back to life, to scream at her and drown out the seductive call of the Doomsman, but the most severe castigations she reserved for herself and the choices she made that led to this.

 

As clear as the spring morning when it had happened, she remembered opening the door to greet the lanky dark-haired man standing at the threshold, asking for Tyelperinquar. How startled he had been, even confused, to find her answering, and then the way his face changed, that charming smile, how he looked her over with naked appreciation, so much so that she had put her hand to her chest to clasp her dressing gown over her breasts, and he moved his cloak in front of his belt to hide his response to her, and how her heart had raced. She should have shut the door on him then and there or called to a servant to escort him to the House of the Mírdain. But no. She had chosen to invite him inside, while she, giddy as a moon-struck maiden, threw on a dress so that she could take him to Tyelperinquar herself.

 

What a fool she was, to allow this man, no, this creature, into her life, to let him woo her with his fine mind, his marvelous gifts, with his kisses and caresses. How vain and stupid she was to have tossed aside Elrond's letter of warning, dismissing it as the words of one spurned in favor of another. How callow she had been to allow her pride to swell when she discovered that a Fay of Aulë had taken her to wife, how she too quickly accepted his reason for not wishing others to know that he was of the Ainur. How weak she had been, succumbing to his love-making that made her crave him with a hunger that could never quite be sated. How reprehensible it was, after he revealed his true nature to her, that she did not warn Tyelperinquar, but instead convinced herself, in her folly and her pride, that she had tamed Gorthaur, that she had reformed him.

 

She wanted to scream. I hate him. I love him.

 

And yet, would she have made any other choice? If she wished Aulendil had never manifested in her life, then she wished her daughter away. Her beloved little girl, who was seeking the path toward death, and now walked in its borderlands. Culinen stroked her child's forehead, and felt the last bit of her stubborn pride slip away. She could not heal Mélamírë, but she knew who might.

 

Chapter End Notes

Many thanks to Ignoble Bard, Oshun, Randy O, Russandol, and Scarlet for their exacting critique and encouragement.

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