All Who Wander Are Not Lost

Chapter 9

And that was where most of the siblings sat, helping their father heal their mother as best they could. It was after nearly after months that the four began to despair of their mother ever really returning to them. The Orcs had truly done their job right, snuffing the light within their mother to barily a flicker. She had become empty, like a shell.
The twins anger continued to grow, and many times when there was word that an orc pack had been sighted, no matter how large or small, the disappear into the shadows and no one would see them for a few days. They would come back covered in the black blood, hair disheveled and clothes a mess, the animosity in their eyes dimmed for them moment, but never fully quenched by their lust for the blood of their mother's abductors.
Arwen had taken to watching over her mother, telling her of the things that were going on and the weather. She refused to speak of her mother's capture, hoping that by ignoring it that it might fade and be as if it had never been. She tried to continue where she had left off, but everyone could see how hard it was for the young she-elf to admit that her mother was not the same, that who she had been was never going to return. She merely turned a blind eye.
Elrond, try as he might, could only heal her body, but her mind and spirit never truly recovered from the torment and poisoned wound that she had received while among her captures. Many times she would tell him that she had no wish to stay in Middle-earth any longer, but he would persuade her to wait, to see if she would change her mind. She didn't.
Thennil took the change of her mother hardest, knowing that if she had been sooner, that if she had been faster or had decided to meet her mother when she had invited her to join the escort before leaving Lothlorien, that none of this would have happened. She blamed herself for her deterioration. Her family would find her staring off into the distance, a blank haunted look in her eyes. She should have reacted sooner.

"Thennil, please, I need you back to yourself," Elrond begged her one evening when he found her languishly standing on a bridge overlooking the valley with a vacant expression. "I can't have you fall into despair like your mother, my heart cannot take anymore."
She creaped back out of her mind, and turned to her father, tears in her voice, "It was my fault, I felt it in my fea, I knew that something had gone wrong, but I waited till the last minute. I could have saved her, and all of those who died trying to keep her safe. They would all still be alive an enjoying the stars if I had but acted sooner!"

"You did what you could! You used the wisdom that you had and made a decision, do not fault yourself for making what ou think was the wrong one," he cried, grabbing her by the shoulders and giving her a shake, "If you had gone after them sooner I'm sure that I would not be losing only your mother! My heart could not bear to lose two of those that I love at the same time, Thennil, I fear that I would fade."

Hearing her father's admission, her heart stopped, and she asked in a hoarse whisper, barely believing her ears,"You have thought that you might fade?"

He nodded, eyes showing his true age, heavy with grief, "But I have not. I have you and your siblings to live for, you are my hope, the star that shines bright in the morning and evening. I cannot lose you both! Do not leave me, daughter!"

Trembling at his words, she threw herself into his arms, reaching up to brush the few tears that he hd not managed to reign in away with her slender fingers. "I will not fade, Ada, though I don't know how much longer I can go on watching Naneth suffer. You must let her go, or else she is going to resent you ad what you have done for her."

Her father closed his eyes, knowing that she spoke the truth, "I had hoped that I could heal her enough that her fea would become like it once was, she has become so empty that it breaks my heart. I have tried everything, but some things cannot be mended by elven hands."

"She longs for the shores of Valor," she murmured, looking to the West.

"Aye, she does, and I have been trying to change her mind. I knew all along thought that I would not be able to hold out on her long. I have never been able to withhold anything from her that she asked for, and so it shall be the same for this."