"This is a dream. I am dreaming. It looks and sounds real, yes, but it CAN
NOT be real! I will wake up soon enough and resume my life from where I
left off".
"Irulan" came a soft voice from nearby. "You have to be strong my daughter". Lady Amargath was standing next to her, her hand on Irulan's shoulder, softly squeezing it.
"This is a dream" thought Irulan again, "I am but only asleep".
"It is for your own good" said her father's voice, softer now. "Please Irulan, you must see.........."
"No" she whispered. Lady Amargath stiffened beside her slightly. A silence stretched out. "Dream or no" she thought, "I will not bend".
"No" she said out loud again and looked up to her father. King Kanduin was sitting on his throne. His long blonde hair was flowing from beneath the slender crown he had on. He looked tired and sad. And yet, determined as ever. He looked a long time at Irulan, who just stared back with a stubbornness that proved that they were kin. He sighed again. "Irulan, please my daughter............"
"I said NO" she snapped. Amargath quickly removed her hand and walked up to the throne. She looked like she wanted to go and hide behind her husband, but after reaching him, she merely turned around and stood there, looking at her daughter with sad eyes.
"Irulan" rose the voice of Kanduin, and she could feel the temper and anger underneath it. Yet, she was not going to, COULD not back down.
"I will never EVER in a thousand years and for ANY price marry HIM!" she interrupted him again. And against all odds, finally found the ability to move again. She took a step towards the throne. "It is FINAL!" she hissed.
Kanduin was barely holding back. He knew that this would be difficult, yet he was the KING, damn it! And daughter or no, she would bend to his will. How was he supposed to rule a kingdom when he could not rule his own family? "That is ENOUGH" he thundered back. Amargath jumped beside him ever so slightly. "You will do what you are told! You have obviously lived too long pretending to be someone else and have forgotten that you are the daughter of a KING! That you have responsibilities to your kingdom and your throne! That shall change from this very moment on!"
"That is EXACTLY why I refuse!" Irulan screamed back. She felt her anger tearing up her heart and pushing up tears to her eyes. Yet she would not cry! She would not cry! "It is in my kingdom's interest that I never marry that wrenched, disgusting............."
"Irulan!" snapped her father.
".......... low, wormy.................."
"I am telling you to stop, girl!"
"........... distorted..."
"I said stop!" ye yelled
".... DISGRACE of a man called ENDOR!" she finished and it sounded like the whole kingdom must have heard that last part. Her eyes were pools of hatred. She had clenched her fists and her nails were biting into her palms. Her face was an obvious shade of crimson, getting deeper by the moment.
"NO! NO! NO! NO!" she yelled again and ran out of the throne room, for she felt like nothing, not the whole will-power of the world could stop the tears running down her cheeks now.
"Come back this minute!" she heard her father yelling after her, but it was too late. The dream had ended. She had woken up to bitter reality.
***
It is the fate of all. And yet more so for a woman. And even more so for a woman in Middle Earth. And it was catching up with her. She had always longed for more freedom and felt trapped in her life as a princess. Yet we never know how worse it could actually be until we lose whatever little we have. So Irulan realized how stupid she had been. She had been complaining, dissatisfied, constantly wishing for some other life. Yet she had been blessed with a freedom granted to very few people that shared her position. She had believed to be caged, but all that time the cage's door had been open for her to fly out and back in any time she wished. Now that a mighty, cruel hand had closed it, she knew what it REALLY meant to be trapped.
It was inevitable, really. She had been only fooling herself all this time. Learning combat skills, running off to adventures, disguising herself as a man and choosing a way of entertainment that was forbidden for her gender... All that had made her feel like she was in control. And yet, she was not. She never really had been. She had been a puppet on strings, given somewhat longer strings to move about more easily, that's all. Now the puppet master had other plans for her and he was pulling mercilessly. There was no way out for her. She would dance as he pleased.
Unless.....
Irulan looked up to Chemarit's grave. It was twilight, almost dark now. But she could make out the block of stone clearly enough. "HERE LIES A MAN FREE OF JUDGMENT" was inscribed upon it. She had written it herself. "Indeed" she whispered, "the ONLY man free of judgment. And he is no longer by my side".
She looked up to the starry sky. It was still summer time and yet she could smell the autumn in the air. She remembered that there was another obnox race in the city today. But she would not attend it. She would never attend another obnox race again. A light, warm breeze came up and rustled her hair. She leaned a bit further on her staff and looked down at the grave again.
"Master" she whispered, "what shall I do? Must I lose everything and everyone to become myself?" The grave did not answer. Only the sound of crickets and frogs could be heard faintly in the distance. Irulan sighed. "How much must I sacrifice for the freedom of my soul?" She stood there a long time, thinking, listening, remembering. She stood until the moon came up and bore through the darkness that was settling in all around her. She stood until the warm breezes became chilly winds. Finally she said "I am ready to bid farewell Master. May you find the peace that has forsaken me" With that, she walked back to the castle and did not turn to look back. She would never see the grave of her master again.
***
"Dear Father...." she wrote. Then stopped. Shouldn't she be addressing her whole family? No, just the father. And forget about the "dear" part! She scratched out the "dear" and went on.
"Father...." - 'I wonder if I should put an exclamation mark' she thought. 'Don't want it to sound too soft'. But then, the last letter of a person would sound soft, or no? She decided against the exclamation mark.
"Father..... I am leaving". 'Duh!" she slapped herself in the forehead. "That's the whole point. Don't write the obvious, girl. It is rather obvious that you mean to, since you leave a LETTER!"
Irulan sat for a long time, the feather in her hand, scribbling, muttering, scratching, cursing, then writing some more. Finally she came up with a good enough rough draft (which, in fact, consisted only of a few sentences). Satisfied, she copied it to a clean sheet and burned the other one. She then got up and changed her clothes. She checked her bag again. everything seemed to be there. She turned to look at her room for the last time. "Another one of those days' she thought. 'Though the walls don't care'. These walls had seen so much of her life. They had silently waited through her fits, stared down at her when she woke up from nightmares, echoed her sighs when she had felt distressed and sad, kept the world out when she needed to be alone. Now they would see her leaving, never to come back again. "Well we had fun, did we not?" she said softly and smiled. Then she veiled herself, grabbed her bag and her staff and began climbing down the vine.
***
It was the worst day in the life of King Kanduin. He was sitting on his throne, looking down at what lay at this feet. The sounds of sighs, cries and moans were running through the chamber. The room was full with people, but he had never felt so alone in his entire life. He looked back down at the blood covered gown of her daughter. A blood covered and cracked staff was lying next to it. One of her sandals, a few strands of her beautiful hair... He bit his lip to swallow down the tears that were coming up again. He looked at the parchment in his shaking hand again. He had read it countless times for three days now........ and yet hoped that this was just a nightmare he would wake up from.
"Father,....."
Irulan stepped down from the horse and stroked it's neck softly. The animal was afraid of the deep abyss before it. It was dark and the wind was howling in the empty flat plains. She walked over to the edge and peered down. She could not see the bottom of it but she had seen it so many times, she did not need to. The Valley of Bones.
"I am leaving you. But where I go, you can not follow".
Irulan went back to the horse and unfastened her bag. She took out the gown and her sandals. She went to the other side of the saddle and unfastened another, much bigger bag. The horse neighed softly in relief. She dragged that one towards the edge and opened it. The stink of meat hit her all of a sudden.
"I can not marry Endor. You must forgive me for that. Yet I know that I failed to persuade you otherwise. So you must also forgive me for what I mean to do".
She took the dress and started ripping it. She ripped it roughly into three pieces and then rolled it up and began wiping the cloth on the parts and pieces of whatever poor animals was in the bag (she suspected that it was actually not only one animal. It looked more like a "little bit of everything"). She took it out and inspected it in the dim moonlight. Yes, it was truly covered in blood.
"I hope you will understand some day. I wished to be a good heir to our throne, but I realize now that this was not to be".
She smeared her hands in the blood and tried to leave imprints on the dress. Then she grabbed the staff and made sure that she had left imprints on that one as well. Then she cleaned her hands on the bag and stood up. She took out the knife from her belt and cut off her hair from the shoulder down. She put a part of that into the pieces of the dress and a part she smeared onto the pieces of meat. The rest she threw down the cliff and watched the wind carrying it off.
"I bid farewell to you and to my family. Do not mourn for me, for I am certain that we shall meet again in another life.
Your daughter, Irulan......"
Irulan threw the staff and the pieces of gown down separately, hoping they would end up a bit apart from each other. She smeared the sandals with blood as well and threw them down too. Then she took the heavy pieces of animal flesh and threw them down as well. She knew that the dress and most probably the staff would be found. They would also find the blood stains on the rocks. The meat however would be gone before noon next day. The hungry beasts down there would probably see to it that not even bones remained. And what was left of them, the vultures would take care of (And thankfully, FBI did not exist in the Middle Earth).
She fastened both bags to the saddle again and mounted the horse. It was not too used to her yet, because she had to buy it from a dealer at the market a short while ago. Irulan patted it's neck again. "We'll get used to each other in no time" she whispered softly. She looked one last time at the dark rift that seemed to be opened up in an eternal yawn before her. Everyone knew that Irulan liked The Valley of Bones. She came often to this eerie piece of land to climb. It had the steepest rocks and the most challenging climbing routes of the kingdom. They would eventually look for her here as well. They would find no tracks of her leaving throughout the whole plains, for the wind was too strong here throughout the whole year, and swept off all tracks for miles in a few hours.
She thought about her father. She tried to imagine him reading the letter she had left behind and her heart stirred with pain. She thought about Analia and Enaia, about her mother. Stampa and Saime. of Chemarit, Harkey. and Eprim.... she tried to imagine the rather painful incidences she had with them. How they had hurt her or driven her to pure anger.... but she could not remember a single one. On the contrary, to her dismay, all she could remember about each one was the good times. How they had put up with her, how they had played along, how they had helped her, defended her, hugged her, comforted her, supported her..... "Ah stop it Irulan!" she thought bitterly.
Then she thought about Legolas. His memory hit her like a slap in the face and oddly she felt sadder to leave him than any other. Her heart reached out for him. "I wonder what he is doing right now?" she thought. "Maybe he is watching the night sky, maybe he is with his friends, camped around a fire in the woods... or in his room, sleeping?"
A part of her wanted him to know that she was not dead, that she was leaving towards a new life, the life she had always hoped for. But she could not risk that. Like she could not risk telling anyone else. No one, NO ONE should know, or thinking that they are doing her good, sooner or later one or the other would give away her secret and then someone would come after her. If a single soul knew, she would never be free. No, let them believe that she died. Let Legolas believe it too. It was not meant to be, anyway. It had been a dream, nothing more.
She left out a long sigh and smiled. 'Am I sad?' she thought dreamily, 'Am I happy?' "I am content" she said softly to herself. "Irulan is dead. Long live Irulan". Then she turned the horse and raced back into the darkness as a girl with no name.
***
"How can that be?! I will not believe it" whispered Legolas. The world had stopped. He felt an intense pain in his heart and in his lungs that took his breath away. He wanted to bend over and sit down on the floor. "No, there must be some mistake!" he said with a strong voice.
"There is no mistake, my friend" Gandalf said sadly. He took off his pointed hat and looked away, over the balcony into the glorious city of the Mirkwood elves. The soft light of a beautiful day was seeping through the dense branches of the immensely tall trees of Mirkwood. He hated to bear ill news on days as beautiful as this.
"I do not believe it!" said Legolas once again, this time with fire in his eyes. "He walked off a few steps and grabbed the railing of the elegant balcony. "She was not one to take her own life!" he said with a voice filled with anger, confusion, determination and sadness all at the same time. He turned to the wizard, "Gandalf, it must be...."
"Legolas" Gandalf cut him off slowly. He walked closer and put his hands on the elven prince's shoulders. He had seldom seen an elf expressing this much emotion and he did not know quite how to handle that. It made everything more difficult than it already was. "Legolas" he sighed again, "I wish there was a mistake. I too wish that this was a misunderstanding. But it can not be. Her staff was there as well, my friend. She would never part from that staff - it was the only gift of Chemarit".
Legolas gulped and looked down. He tried to grasp death, as he had tried countless times before, but it refused to be understood. It evaded him. He could not understand mortality, very much like a fish could not understand water. He closed his eyes and finally giving in to acceptance, muttered an elvish prayer to her soul. "She was so young" he whispered.
"I know" said Gandalf gravely, "they all are, my friend".
"Irulan" came a soft voice from nearby. "You have to be strong my daughter". Lady Amargath was standing next to her, her hand on Irulan's shoulder, softly squeezing it.
"This is a dream" thought Irulan again, "I am but only asleep".
"It is for your own good" said her father's voice, softer now. "Please Irulan, you must see.........."
"No" she whispered. Lady Amargath stiffened beside her slightly. A silence stretched out. "Dream or no" she thought, "I will not bend".
"No" she said out loud again and looked up to her father. King Kanduin was sitting on his throne. His long blonde hair was flowing from beneath the slender crown he had on. He looked tired and sad. And yet, determined as ever. He looked a long time at Irulan, who just stared back with a stubbornness that proved that they were kin. He sighed again. "Irulan, please my daughter............"
"I said NO" she snapped. Amargath quickly removed her hand and walked up to the throne. She looked like she wanted to go and hide behind her husband, but after reaching him, she merely turned around and stood there, looking at her daughter with sad eyes.
"Irulan" rose the voice of Kanduin, and she could feel the temper and anger underneath it. Yet, she was not going to, COULD not back down.
"I will never EVER in a thousand years and for ANY price marry HIM!" she interrupted him again. And against all odds, finally found the ability to move again. She took a step towards the throne. "It is FINAL!" she hissed.
Kanduin was barely holding back. He knew that this would be difficult, yet he was the KING, damn it! And daughter or no, she would bend to his will. How was he supposed to rule a kingdom when he could not rule his own family? "That is ENOUGH" he thundered back. Amargath jumped beside him ever so slightly. "You will do what you are told! You have obviously lived too long pretending to be someone else and have forgotten that you are the daughter of a KING! That you have responsibilities to your kingdom and your throne! That shall change from this very moment on!"
"That is EXACTLY why I refuse!" Irulan screamed back. She felt her anger tearing up her heart and pushing up tears to her eyes. Yet she would not cry! She would not cry! "It is in my kingdom's interest that I never marry that wrenched, disgusting............."
"Irulan!" snapped her father.
".......... low, wormy.................."
"I am telling you to stop, girl!"
"........... distorted..."
"I said stop!" ye yelled
".... DISGRACE of a man called ENDOR!" she finished and it sounded like the whole kingdom must have heard that last part. Her eyes were pools of hatred. She had clenched her fists and her nails were biting into her palms. Her face was an obvious shade of crimson, getting deeper by the moment.
"NO! NO! NO! NO!" she yelled again and ran out of the throne room, for she felt like nothing, not the whole will-power of the world could stop the tears running down her cheeks now.
"Come back this minute!" she heard her father yelling after her, but it was too late. The dream had ended. She had woken up to bitter reality.
***
It is the fate of all. And yet more so for a woman. And even more so for a woman in Middle Earth. And it was catching up with her. She had always longed for more freedom and felt trapped in her life as a princess. Yet we never know how worse it could actually be until we lose whatever little we have. So Irulan realized how stupid she had been. She had been complaining, dissatisfied, constantly wishing for some other life. Yet she had been blessed with a freedom granted to very few people that shared her position. She had believed to be caged, but all that time the cage's door had been open for her to fly out and back in any time she wished. Now that a mighty, cruel hand had closed it, she knew what it REALLY meant to be trapped.
It was inevitable, really. She had been only fooling herself all this time. Learning combat skills, running off to adventures, disguising herself as a man and choosing a way of entertainment that was forbidden for her gender... All that had made her feel like she was in control. And yet, she was not. She never really had been. She had been a puppet on strings, given somewhat longer strings to move about more easily, that's all. Now the puppet master had other plans for her and he was pulling mercilessly. There was no way out for her. She would dance as he pleased.
Unless.....
Irulan looked up to Chemarit's grave. It was twilight, almost dark now. But she could make out the block of stone clearly enough. "HERE LIES A MAN FREE OF JUDGMENT" was inscribed upon it. She had written it herself. "Indeed" she whispered, "the ONLY man free of judgment. And he is no longer by my side".
She looked up to the starry sky. It was still summer time and yet she could smell the autumn in the air. She remembered that there was another obnox race in the city today. But she would not attend it. She would never attend another obnox race again. A light, warm breeze came up and rustled her hair. She leaned a bit further on her staff and looked down at the grave again.
"Master" she whispered, "what shall I do? Must I lose everything and everyone to become myself?" The grave did not answer. Only the sound of crickets and frogs could be heard faintly in the distance. Irulan sighed. "How much must I sacrifice for the freedom of my soul?" She stood there a long time, thinking, listening, remembering. She stood until the moon came up and bore through the darkness that was settling in all around her. She stood until the warm breezes became chilly winds. Finally she said "I am ready to bid farewell Master. May you find the peace that has forsaken me" With that, she walked back to the castle and did not turn to look back. She would never see the grave of her master again.
***
"Dear Father...." she wrote. Then stopped. Shouldn't she be addressing her whole family? No, just the father. And forget about the "dear" part! She scratched out the "dear" and went on.
"Father...." - 'I wonder if I should put an exclamation mark' she thought. 'Don't want it to sound too soft'. But then, the last letter of a person would sound soft, or no? She decided against the exclamation mark.
"Father..... I am leaving". 'Duh!" she slapped herself in the forehead. "That's the whole point. Don't write the obvious, girl. It is rather obvious that you mean to, since you leave a LETTER!"
Irulan sat for a long time, the feather in her hand, scribbling, muttering, scratching, cursing, then writing some more. Finally she came up with a good enough rough draft (which, in fact, consisted only of a few sentences). Satisfied, she copied it to a clean sheet and burned the other one. She then got up and changed her clothes. She checked her bag again. everything seemed to be there. She turned to look at her room for the last time. "Another one of those days' she thought. 'Though the walls don't care'. These walls had seen so much of her life. They had silently waited through her fits, stared down at her when she woke up from nightmares, echoed her sighs when she had felt distressed and sad, kept the world out when she needed to be alone. Now they would see her leaving, never to come back again. "Well we had fun, did we not?" she said softly and smiled. Then she veiled herself, grabbed her bag and her staff and began climbing down the vine.
***
It was the worst day in the life of King Kanduin. He was sitting on his throne, looking down at what lay at this feet. The sounds of sighs, cries and moans were running through the chamber. The room was full with people, but he had never felt so alone in his entire life. He looked back down at the blood covered gown of her daughter. A blood covered and cracked staff was lying next to it. One of her sandals, a few strands of her beautiful hair... He bit his lip to swallow down the tears that were coming up again. He looked at the parchment in his shaking hand again. He had read it countless times for three days now........ and yet hoped that this was just a nightmare he would wake up from.
"Father,....."
Irulan stepped down from the horse and stroked it's neck softly. The animal was afraid of the deep abyss before it. It was dark and the wind was howling in the empty flat plains. She walked over to the edge and peered down. She could not see the bottom of it but she had seen it so many times, she did not need to. The Valley of Bones.
"I am leaving you. But where I go, you can not follow".
Irulan went back to the horse and unfastened her bag. She took out the gown and her sandals. She went to the other side of the saddle and unfastened another, much bigger bag. The horse neighed softly in relief. She dragged that one towards the edge and opened it. The stink of meat hit her all of a sudden.
"I can not marry Endor. You must forgive me for that. Yet I know that I failed to persuade you otherwise. So you must also forgive me for what I mean to do".
She took the dress and started ripping it. She ripped it roughly into three pieces and then rolled it up and began wiping the cloth on the parts and pieces of whatever poor animals was in the bag (she suspected that it was actually not only one animal. It looked more like a "little bit of everything"). She took it out and inspected it in the dim moonlight. Yes, it was truly covered in blood.
"I hope you will understand some day. I wished to be a good heir to our throne, but I realize now that this was not to be".
She smeared her hands in the blood and tried to leave imprints on the dress. Then she grabbed the staff and made sure that she had left imprints on that one as well. Then she cleaned her hands on the bag and stood up. She took out the knife from her belt and cut off her hair from the shoulder down. She put a part of that into the pieces of the dress and a part she smeared onto the pieces of meat. The rest she threw down the cliff and watched the wind carrying it off.
"I bid farewell to you and to my family. Do not mourn for me, for I am certain that we shall meet again in another life.
Your daughter, Irulan......"
Irulan threw the staff and the pieces of gown down separately, hoping they would end up a bit apart from each other. She smeared the sandals with blood as well and threw them down too. Then she took the heavy pieces of animal flesh and threw them down as well. She knew that the dress and most probably the staff would be found. They would also find the blood stains on the rocks. The meat however would be gone before noon next day. The hungry beasts down there would probably see to it that not even bones remained. And what was left of them, the vultures would take care of (And thankfully, FBI did not exist in the Middle Earth).
She fastened both bags to the saddle again and mounted the horse. It was not too used to her yet, because she had to buy it from a dealer at the market a short while ago. Irulan patted it's neck again. "We'll get used to each other in no time" she whispered softly. She looked one last time at the dark rift that seemed to be opened up in an eternal yawn before her. Everyone knew that Irulan liked The Valley of Bones. She came often to this eerie piece of land to climb. It had the steepest rocks and the most challenging climbing routes of the kingdom. They would eventually look for her here as well. They would find no tracks of her leaving throughout the whole plains, for the wind was too strong here throughout the whole year, and swept off all tracks for miles in a few hours.
She thought about her father. She tried to imagine him reading the letter she had left behind and her heart stirred with pain. She thought about Analia and Enaia, about her mother. Stampa and Saime. of Chemarit, Harkey. and Eprim.... she tried to imagine the rather painful incidences she had with them. How they had hurt her or driven her to pure anger.... but she could not remember a single one. On the contrary, to her dismay, all she could remember about each one was the good times. How they had put up with her, how they had played along, how they had helped her, defended her, hugged her, comforted her, supported her..... "Ah stop it Irulan!" she thought bitterly.
Then she thought about Legolas. His memory hit her like a slap in the face and oddly she felt sadder to leave him than any other. Her heart reached out for him. "I wonder what he is doing right now?" she thought. "Maybe he is watching the night sky, maybe he is with his friends, camped around a fire in the woods... or in his room, sleeping?"
A part of her wanted him to know that she was not dead, that she was leaving towards a new life, the life she had always hoped for. But she could not risk that. Like she could not risk telling anyone else. No one, NO ONE should know, or thinking that they are doing her good, sooner or later one or the other would give away her secret and then someone would come after her. If a single soul knew, she would never be free. No, let them believe that she died. Let Legolas believe it too. It was not meant to be, anyway. It had been a dream, nothing more.
She left out a long sigh and smiled. 'Am I sad?' she thought dreamily, 'Am I happy?' "I am content" she said softly to herself. "Irulan is dead. Long live Irulan". Then she turned the horse and raced back into the darkness as a girl with no name.
***
"How can that be?! I will not believe it" whispered Legolas. The world had stopped. He felt an intense pain in his heart and in his lungs that took his breath away. He wanted to bend over and sit down on the floor. "No, there must be some mistake!" he said with a strong voice.
"There is no mistake, my friend" Gandalf said sadly. He took off his pointed hat and looked away, over the balcony into the glorious city of the Mirkwood elves. The soft light of a beautiful day was seeping through the dense branches of the immensely tall trees of Mirkwood. He hated to bear ill news on days as beautiful as this.
"I do not believe it!" said Legolas once again, this time with fire in his eyes. "He walked off a few steps and grabbed the railing of the elegant balcony. "She was not one to take her own life!" he said with a voice filled with anger, confusion, determination and sadness all at the same time. He turned to the wizard, "Gandalf, it must be...."
"Legolas" Gandalf cut him off slowly. He walked closer and put his hands on the elven prince's shoulders. He had seldom seen an elf expressing this much emotion and he did not know quite how to handle that. It made everything more difficult than it already was. "Legolas" he sighed again, "I wish there was a mistake. I too wish that this was a misunderstanding. But it can not be. Her staff was there as well, my friend. She would never part from that staff - it was the only gift of Chemarit".
Legolas gulped and looked down. He tried to grasp death, as he had tried countless times before, but it refused to be understood. It evaded him. He could not understand mortality, very much like a fish could not understand water. He closed his eyes and finally giving in to acceptance, muttered an elvish prayer to her soul. "She was so young" he whispered.
"I know" said Gandalf gravely, "they all are, my friend".