The Scarlet Eyas
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Nairaloth closes the book in her hands slowly, as if the very act pains her. This book, full of its beautiful watercolor illustrations of the woods and fields, sea shores and mountain peaks kissed by snow, is a knife to her heart. If she knew for certain she would never regret it, she would throw it from her window in rage and curse it. She hates the way the images in her books pull at her, tantalize her with half-whispered promises of things she cannot know.
But instead of throwing the book to its death out of her window, she lays it aside on the crimson velvet of the window seat cushion and brushes her trembling hands against the soft linen of her burgundy dress before catching at the copper silk of a stray curl hanging beside her cheek. It is the second longest lock of hair she has. She keeps all but a single braid and stray curl shorn to her head, soft golden fur like a cat's. But her braid winds its way past her hip on the left side, and the curl touches her chin. It is from that curl, once longer than the braid, that she cut a thin rope of her hair for the one who stole her heart away.
Anarmacil.... She breathes softly in her mind before forcing the thought away.
She stares out of her window, at the snow-laden ground at the feet of her home, the tower her father has built for her here, in this, the farthest reaches of their home. It is her refuge from the people who would seek to slay her, cut her throat for being the abomination they claim her father has whelped. It is also her prison, and she knows she will one day die within its hateful walls.
She stares at the sky, her heart wringing in her chest as the sun sinks beneath the craggy teeth of the snow tipped mountains. In her soul, she screams out his name, but the heartbroken sound remains trapped behind her clenched teeth.
"Lady Nairaloth?" Her lady-in-waiting, a goose of a creature with little sense and too much superstition, hovers at the door to her room. The servants know how she can become when the sun rises and sets. The great, golden disk of the sun reminds her of the reason she was imprisoned here, in this tower, for her own safety. It reminds her of a prince, and her mother, and all the lies she has been told.
"Leave me," she says softly. She wishes only to watch the sun set. The dusk will make her cry, she knows that. She does not want any of her enemies to see her weep.
"But my lady-"
"I said leave me!" She cried, and damned herself for allowing her voice to betray her grief. "Leave now, or I'll make sure you're haunted by demons for the rest of your miserable, pathetic life, do you understand?"
Naira closed her eyes against the sound of her handmaiden scrambling for the door. She didn't want to think about it right now. She didn't want to think about anything at all. Not her servants, not her solitude, not her dreams or the words of her father and mother, her brothers and sisters....
"My lady." A different voice this time, a man's voice, the only man allowed to stay here, in her prison. He is incorruptible, this man, and so her father allows him to remain.
"Belthriel Nicse," she acknowledges softly, gently.
This man would rather die than harm her. He is her ally, because he loves her cousin with the blood auburn hair, and Naira's cousin loves her. Belthriel would free the imprisoned lady if he were able. But he cannot. They both know this.
"Mornie will come to you tomorrow, my lady. Do you wish to see her?"
Mornie. The one who loves her. Morelinde, the Nightingale. Anarmacil's twin sister, and one of her only allies. Would she like to see Morelinde?
"Yes, Belthriel," she said. For a moment, something like a smile touched the corners of her mouth. "I would like to see Lindy."
"Very good, my lady," he said, and left the room.
He knows she does not wish him to remain here in her room, forced to think of her exile, her pain, her loneliness. And the guard knows his nearness makes her think of where he has come from, the side of Morelinde and her twin brother, the reason for Naira's banishment. He will leave her. He does not realize that she wishes to be near the guardsman, to smell the sunlight and crisp, winter air and the spray of the sea upon his skin. She knows that even after the journey, Belthriel will still smell like her Prince, whose presence he so recently enjoyed.
But she does not say this. She only listens as the door latches behind him, and lets her head fall back against the window frame, exhausted by the brief dialogue with her servant and her guard.
She wonders idly how long it takes a caged falcon to die.
Oo8oo8oo8oo8oo8oo8oo8oo8oO
An eyas is a baby hawk or falcon.
I own nothing copyrighted by someone other than me.
Anarmacil & Nairaloth appear in my fic Martapennas: Luineyende. Morelinde, appears (much older) in Eomer Dreams.
My sources are:
w w w . n e v r a s t . n e t
w w w . t u c k b o r o u g h . n e t
Translations:
Anarmacil - Sunblade
Belthriel Nicse - I don't remember
Morelinde - Nightingale
Mornie - Darkness
Nairaloth - Flower of Fire (I think)